A two disc Stan Laurel set: The Stan Laurel Collection, Vol. 2 - List $29.95, Our: 20.99
A Mabel Normand Feature and Short: The Extra Girl / The Gusher - List $24.95, Our: 17.99
A Harry Langdon Double Feature: Three's a Crowd / The Chaser - List $24.95, Our: 17.99
Details below.
KINO INTERNATIONAL TO RELEASE THE SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM THREE: THE STAN LAUREL COLLECTION II, MABEL NORMAND’S THE EXTRA GIRL, and THE HARRY LANGDON COLLECTION
After the successful release of two SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM series totaling seven DVDs, Kino International now proudly extends its already impressive collection of slapstick silent comedies with the SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM III.
This time, Kino focuses its efforts on actress Mabel Normand, arguably the most popular screen comedienne of the silent film era, and on silent legends Stan Laurel and Harry Langdon. These three previously unavailable DVDs, THE STAN LAUREL COLLECTION II (a 2-disc set), Mabel Normand’s THE EXTRA GIRL and THE HARRY LANGDON COLLECTION, will prebook on May 6, 2008, each with a SRP of 29.95. The street date for all three titles is June 3, 2008.
All three silent-comedy DVDs in the SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM III introduce to the general public some of the most important and previously unavailable works from these three silent cinema film comedians.
From Harry Langdon’s directorial debut Three’s a Crowd (1927) to Stan Laurel’s desert adventure spoof Under Two Jags (1923) and the feature-length comedy classic The Extra Girl starring Mabel Normand and produced by Mack Sennett – the founder of the influential Keystone Studios in 1912, – all of these rare films can now be appreciated on DVD in pristine transfers made form the best surviving materials.
Made possible by a collaboration between Kino International and Lobster Films (www.lobsterfilms.com) and The Raymond Rohauer Collection, these three DVDs stand as an homage to the longstanding appeal of these performers and continue Kino’s commitment to employing state-of-the-art transfer technology to create high-standard DVD masters. And in the case of Mabel Normand’s THE EXTRA GIRL and THE HARRY LANGDON COLLECTION, all films in these titles were transferred to High Definition before being converted to standard DVD format.
Born in Staten Island, New York , Mabel Normand began her acting career at the age of 16, when she met producer/director Mack Sennett. Demonstrating a special flair for comedy, Ms. Normand became a short film star (produced by Mark Sennett), went to act with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, and quickly moved to directing and writing.
She has been credited with being the first person to throw a cream pie on film – at Arbuckle in A Noise from the Deep (1913) – and her full ascension to stardom happened in 1914 , when she starred with Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie's Punctured Romance. During that period, she even directed Chartlie Chaplin in Caught in a Cabaret (1914), and Mabel at the Wheel (1914) , to name a few.
The Iowa-born Harry Langdom became a film star in the 1920s, after joining Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios. At the height of his film career, Langdon’s fame and popularity was approaching Chaplin’s and Keaston’s, and his childlike, always-at-awe screen character had its own niche among the works of other silent-screen performers.
English-born American omic actor, writer and director Stan Laurel was half of the famous double-act Laurel and Hardy. Although widely known for his sound films in the 1940s, Laurel’s solo work is just as impressive, if not more diverse and revealing, than his later duo roles.
Laurel’s unique career stretches from the silent film period to the post-World War II era, and Kino’s 2-disc THE STAN LAUREL COLLECTION II, attempts to make available to a general public the full spectrum of Laurel’s comedic artistry.
THE STAN LAUREL COLLECTION II
2-disc set
Comedy Shorts1918-1926 on Two DVDs
Prior to forming a fruitful partnership with funny man Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel was a slapstick headliner in his own right.
This two-DVD set continues Kino International’s monumental tribute to Stan Laurel with twenty-one slapstick classics, painstakingly restored by Paris’s Lobster Films. Beginning with Huns and Hyphens (1918, in which Laurel plays a supporting role to Larry Semon), the collection follows Laurel’s rapid rise to stardom, passing through Hal Roach’s stable of master comedians to carve out his own big-screen niche.
In addition to playing the inept everyman wreaking havoc in a variety of domestic and professional situations, Laurel often starred in elaborate parodies of popular films, including Mud and Sand (1922, posing as Rhubarb Vaselino), the desert adventure Under Two Jags (1923) and Rupert of Hee-Haw (1924, spoofing the now-forgotten Rupert of Hentzau).
DISC 1:
- Huns and Hyphens (1918, 19 min.)
- Just Rambling Along (1918, 9 min.)
- Frauds and Frenzies (1918, 21 min.)
- Do You Love Your Wife? (1919, 13 min.)
- Hustling for Health (1919, 12 min.)
- The Egg (1922, 22 min.)
- Mud and Sand (1922, 29 min.)
- The Noon Whistle (1923, 11 min.)
- White Wings (1923, 11 min.)
- Under Two Jags( 1923, 11 min.)
- Pick and Shovel (1923, 13 min.)
- Kill or Cure (1923, 13 min.)
- Short Orders (1923, 12 min.)
- A Man About Town (1923, 12 min.)
- Smithy (1924, 24 min.)
- Rupert of Hee Haw (1924, 23 min.)
- Mandarin Mix-Up (1924, 21 min.)
- Detained (1924, 14 min.)
- Somewhere in Wrong (1925, 22 min.)
- Pie-Eyed (1925, 20 min.)
- Get Em Young (1926, 23 min.)
THE MABEL NORMAND COLLECTION
In 1923, slapstick pioneer Mack Sennett conceived and produced a feature-length film designed to showcase the homespun appeal and comedic prowess of Mabel Normand, who had been a fixture on the madcap screen for more than a decade.
THE EXTRA GIRL follows the misadventures of Sue Graham, a small-town lass who escapes her romantic entanglements by heading for the green pastures of Hollywood. Sue quickly discovers that the dream factory is just a factory like any other, as she is assigned to duty in the wardrobe department. But through pluck and ambition, she manages to overcome every setback, including one hair-raising sequence in which she accidentally
unleashes a man-eating lion on the studio backlot.
This Kino DVD also includes the rare 1913 short THE GUSHER, mastered from an archival 35mm print with the original color tints. Set in the oil fields of California, it follows the efforts of a wily con artist to defraud a yokel (Ford Sterling) and his bride-to-be (Normand).
SPECIAL FEATURE
Mack Sennett’s 1913 comedy THE GUSHER
Starring Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling & the Keystone Kops
THE EXTRA GIRL
U.S. 1923 Color Tinted 68 Min. 1.33:1
Produced by Mack Sennett
Directed by F. Richard Jones
Screenplay by Bernard McConville
With Mabel Normand, Ralph Graves,
Vernon Dent, George Nichols
Organ Score by Jack Ward
Edited sound version © 1969 Paul Killiam
THE GUSHER
U.S. 1913 Color Tinted 14 Min. 1.33:1
Produced and Directed by Mack Sennett
Music Composed & Performed by Ben Model
New titles © 2008 Kino International Corp.
Original Music © 2008 Kino International Corp; P Ben Model
THE HARRY LANGDON COLLECTION
With his quizzical expression and childlike demeanor, Harry Langdon was one of the slapstick cinema’s brightest stars, a low-key alternative to his more fast-paced contemporaries.
His hard-luck persona always had a melancholy air as he ambled through life, blissfully ignorant of the pitfalls of modernity. In 1927, enjoying the power that came with owning his own production company, Langdon steered his trademark character even further from the conventionalized slapstick of his Mack Sennett background. His directorial debut, THREE’S A CROWD, didn’t just dabble in pathos, it plunged its hapless hero into a netherworld of loneliness worthy of Samuel Beckett (a self-avowed Langdon fan). Harry stars as a slum-dweller who invites a freezing woman (Gladys McConnell), pregnant with another man’s child, into his home. Nursing mother and child back to health, he achieves his dream of having a family...or so he hopes.
Langdon’s second film as director, THE CHASER (1928) is a dark, slightly kinky comedy in which carousing Harry is ordered by a judge to swap domestic duties (and clothing) with his wife. Deprived of his “manliness,” Harry contemplates suicide while coping with flirtatious salesmen and the scorn of a former comrade.
This DVD of THREE’S A CROWD and THE CHASER is authored from new HD masters derived from the 35mm negatives held by the Raymond Rohauer estate. Due to decomposition of the original film elements, portions of THE CHASER are mastered from a 16mm print.
SPECIAL FEATURE:
Audio commentary for THREE’S A CROWD by film historian David Kalat
THREE’S A CROWD
U.S. 1927 Color Tinted 61 Min. Full-Frame (1.33:1)
Directed by Harry Langdon Story by Arthur Ripley
Adapted by Robert Eddy and James Langdon
Photographed by Frank Evans and Elgin Lessley
With Harry Langdon, Gladys McConnell, Cornelius Keefe
Organ Score by Lee Erwin
© 1927 First National Pictures
renewed © 1955 Warner Brothers
THE CHASER
U.S. 1928 B&W 63 Min. Full-Frame (1.33:1)
Directed by Harry Langdon Story by Arthur Ripley
Screenplay by Robert Eddy, Clarence Hennecke
and Harry McCoy
Photographed by Frank Evans and Elgin Lessley
With Harry Langdon, Gladys McConnell, Helen Hayward
Organ Score by Lee Erwin
© 1928 First National Pictures
renewed © 1955 Warner Brothers Pictures Inc.
Restored sound version © 1989 The Rohauer Collection
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