Showing posts with label Charles Chaplin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charles Chaplin. Show all posts
CRITERION: The Kid Debuts on Blu-Ray in February
Criterion has announced a February 16th street date for Charlie Chaplin's The Kid on DVD and Blu-Ray. Click here for details.
Chaplin's Essanay Comedies on DVD and Blu Combo in November
Flicker Alley has announced November 17th as the release date for the five disc set of Chaplin's Essanay Comedies. Click here for details.
BLU CRITERION: Make Way for Tomorrow and Limelight in May
Criterion has scheduled May 19th as the street date for the Blu-Ray debuts of Leo McCarey's Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) and Charlie Chaplin's Limelight (1952). Click here for details.
FLICKER BLU: Chaplin Mutuals & Sennett Collection in August
Flicker Alley has announced two releases with an August 5th street date: Chaplin Mutual Comedies (Blu-Ray / DVD) - Steelbook and The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. 1 (Blu-Ray). Click here for details.
CRITERION: City Lights (Blu-Ray / DVD Combo) in November
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: |
City Lights (Blu-Ray / DVD Combo) November 12th Criterion Retail $39.95, Our: $31.99 |
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Criterion has announced a November 12th release date for Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931) in a Blu-Ray / DVD combo set. Bonus features and details are below.
Whether this is a new direction for the premiere distributor of classic films in terms of packaging both formats together is unknown at this time.
The most cherished film by Charlie Chaplin is also his ultimate Little Tramp chronicle.
The writer-director-star achieved new levels of grace, in both physical comedy and dramatic poignancy, with this silent tale of a lovable vagrant falling for a young blind woman who sells flowers on the street (a magical Virginia Cherrill) and mistakes him for a millionaire. Though this Depression-era smash was made after the advent of sound, Chaplin remained steadfast in his love for the expressive beauty of the pre-talkie form. The result was the epitome of his art and the crowning achievement of silent comedy.
BONUS FEATURES:
- New audio commentary by Charlie Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
- Chaplin Today: “City Lights,” a 2003 documentary on the film’s production, featuring Aardman Animations co-founder Peter Lord
- Chaplin Studios: Creative Freedom by Design, a new interview program featuring visual effects expert Craig Barron
- Archival footage from the production of City Lights, including film from the set, with audio commentary by Chaplin historian Hooman Mehran; a costume test; a rehearsal; and a complete scene not used in the film
- Excerpt from Chaplin’s short film The Champion (1915), along with footage of the director with boxing stars at Chaplin Studios in 1918
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins and a 1966 interview with Chaplin
CRITERION: Ministry of Fear, Verdoux, Colonel Blimp & Blob in March
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The Blob (Blu-Ray) March 12th Criterion Retail: $39.95, Our: $31.99 |
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp March 19th Criterion Retail: $29.95, Our: $23.99 |
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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: |
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Blu-Ray) March 19th Criterion Retail: $39.95, Our: $31.99 |
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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: |
Ministry of Fear March 12th Criterion Retail: $19.95, Our: $15.99 |
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WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: |
Ministry of Fear (Blu-Ray) March 12th Criterion Retail: $29.95, Our: $23.99 |
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Monsieur Verdoux March 26th Criterion Retail: $29.95, Our: $23.99 |
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Monsieur Verdoux (Blu-Ray) March 26th Criterion Retail: $39.95, Our: $31.99 |
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Criterion has announced their March slate and it includes 3 titles making their Blu debuts (Colonel Blimp, Ministry of Fear & Monsieur Verdoux) and one (Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear) bowing on DVD & Blu-Ray.
Bonus features abound on Blimp and Verdoux, while The Blob's appear to be 100% carry over from the standard release. Ministry of Fear has the least and it is reflected in the lower price point for each respectively.
Details below.
"Beware Of The Blob!" One of the great cult classics, The Blob melds '50s schlock sci-fi and teen delinquency pics even as it transcends these genres with strong performances and ingenious special effects. Made outside of Hollywood by a maverick film distributor, a crew experienced in religious and educational shorts, and a collection of theatrical talent from Philadelphia and New York, The Blob helped launch the careers of superstud Steve McQueen and composer Burt Bacharach. BONUS FEATURES:
- Two audio commentaries: one by producer Jack H. Harris and film historian Bruce Eder; the other by director Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. and actor Robert ("Tony") Fields
- Theatrical Trailer
- BLOB-abilia!: collector Wes Shank's rare trove of stills, poster, props (including the Blob itself!), and other ephemera
- PLUS :An essay by critic Kim Newman
Considered by many to be the finest British film ever made, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a stirring masterpiece like no other.
Roger Livesey dynamically embodies outmoded English militarism as the indelible General Clive Candy, who barely survives four decades of tumultuous British history (1902 to 1942) only to see the world change irrevocably before his eyes. Anton Walbrook and Deborah Kerr provide unforgettable support, he as a German enemy turned lifelong friend of Candy’s and she as young women of three consecutive generations—a socially committed governess, a sweet-souled war nurse, and a modern-thinking army driver—who inspire him.
Colonel Blimp is both moving and slyly satirical, an incomparable film about war, love, aging, and obsolescence shot in gorgeous Technicolor.
BONUS FEATURES:
- Audio Commentary Featuring Director Michael Powell with Martin Scorsese
- Video introduction by Scorsese
- A Profile of “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp,” a twenty-four-minute documentary
- Restoration demonstration, hosted by Scorsese
- Interview with editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, Michael Powell’s widow
- Gallery featuring rare behind-the-scenes production stills
- Gallery tracing the history of David Low’s original Colonel Blimp cartoons
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Molly Haskell
Suffused with dread and paranoia, this Fritz Lang adaptation of a novel by Graham Greene is a plunge into the eerie shadows of a world turned upside down by war. En route to London after being released from a mental institution, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) stops at a seemingly innocent village fair, after which he finds himself caught in the web of a sinister underworld with possible Nazi connections.
Lang was among the most illustrious of the European émigré filmmakers working in Hollywood during World War II, and Ministry of Fear is one of his finest American productions, an unpredictable thriller with style to spare. BONUS FEATURES:
- New interview with Fritz Lang scholar Joe McElhaney
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic Glenn Kenny
Charlie Chaplin plays shockingly against type in his most controversial film, a brilliant and bleak black comedy about money, marriage, and murder. Chaplin is a twentieth-century Bluebeard, an enigmatic family man who goes to extreme lengths to support his wife and child, attempting to bump off a series of wealthy widows (including one played by the indefatigable Martha Raye, in a hilarious performance).
This deeply philosophical and wildly entertaining film is a work of true sophistication, both for the moral questions it dares to ask and the way it deconstructs its megastar’s loveable on-screen persona. BONUS FEATURES:
- Chaplin Today: “Monsieur Verdoux,” a 2003 program on the film’s production and release, featuring filmmaker Claude Chabrol and actor Norman Lloyd
- Charlie Chaplin and the American Press, a new documentary featuring Chaplin specialist Kate Guyonvarch and author Charles Maland
- New video essay featuring an audio interview with actress Marilyn Nash
- Radio advertisements and trailers
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PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky and reprinted pieces by Chaplin and critic André Bazin
CRITERION: 39 Steps, Gold Rush - Standard & Blu in June
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The 39 Steps (1935) June 26th Criterion Retail: 29.95, Our: $23.99 | |
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The 39 Steps (Blu-Ray) (1935) June 26th Criterion Retail: 39.95, Our: $31.99 | |
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The Gold Rush (1925) June 12th Criterion Retail: 29.95, Our: $23.99 | |
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The Gold Rush (Blu-Ray) (1925) June 12th Criterion Retail: 39.95, Our: $31.99 | |
Criterion has announced June release dates for standard and Blu-Ray versions of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925).
As typical with Criterion, bonus features abound (see below).
The 39 Steps is a heart-racing spy story by Alfred Hitchcock, following Richard Hannay (Oscar winner Robert Donat), who stumbles into a conspiracy that thrusts him into a hectic chase across the Scottish moors—a chase in which he is both the pursuer and the pursued—as well as into an expected romance with the cool Pamela (Madeline Carroll).w
Adapted from a novel by John Buchan, this classic wrong-man thriller from the Master of Suspense anticipates the director’s most famous works (especially North by Northwest), and remains one of his cleverest and most entertaining films.
BONUS FEATURES:
- Audio essay by Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane
- Hitchcock: The Early Years (2000), a British documentary covering Hitchcock’s prewar career
- Original footage from British broadcaster Mike Scott’s 1966 television interview with Hitchcock
- The Complete 1937 broadcast of the Lux Radio Theatre adaptation, performed by Robert Montgomery and Ida Lupino
- Visual essay by Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff
- Excerpts from Francois Truffaut’s 1962 audio interview with Hitchcock
- Original production design drawings
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Cairns
The first feature-length comedy by Charlie Chaplin—which charts a hapless prospector’s search for fortune in the Klondike and his discovery of romance (with the beautiful Georgia Hale)—forever cemented the iconic status of Chaplin and his Little Tramp character.
Shot partly on location in the Sierra Nevadas and featuring such timeless gags as Chaplin’s dance of the dinner rolls and meal of boiled shoe leather, The Gold Rush is an indelible work of nonstop hilarity.
This special edition features both Chaplin’s definitive 1942 version, for which the director added new music and narration, and a new restoration of the original silent 1925 film.
BONUS FEATURES:
- New audio commentary for the 1925 version by Chaplin biographer and archivist Jeffrey Vance
- Three new programs:
- Presenting “The Gold Rush,” which traces the film’s history from original release to rerelease to 2003 reconstruction and features film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jeffrey Vance
- Music by Charles Chaplin, featuring conductor and composer Timothy Brock
- Visual Effects in “The Gold Rush,” featuring effects specialist Craig Barron and Chaplin cinematographer Roland Totheroh
- Chaplin Today: “The Gold Rush” (2002), a short documentary featuring filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo
- Four theatrical trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Luc Sante and James Agee’s review of the 1942 version
CRITERION: The Great Dictator - Standard & Blu in May
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The Great Dictator May 24th Criterion Retail $29.95, Our: $23.99 | |
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | The Great Dictator (Blu-Ray) May 24th Criterion Retail $39.95, Our: $31.99 | |
More Chaplin is on the way from Criterion as they have announced The Great Dictator in both standard & Blu-Ray for release on May 24th.
The SD release will be a 2-disc set, while the Blu-Ray will be a single disc. Bonus features are below.
BONUS FEATURES:
- New audio commentary by Charlie Chaplin historians Dan Kamin and Hooman Mehran
- The Tramp and the Dictator (2001), a documentary narrated by filmmaker Kenneth Branagh and featuring interviews with author Ray Bradbury, director Sidney Lumet, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., screenwriter Budd Schulberg, and a host of others
- Two new visual essays, by Chaplin archivist Cecilia Cenciarelli and Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
- On-set, color production footage shot by Chaplin’s half-brother, Sydney
- Deleted scene from Chaplin’s 1919 film Sunnyside
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Michael Wood and a 1940 article by Chaplin on the film
FLICKER ALLEY: Chaplin At Keystone in October
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | Chaplin At Keystone October 26th Flicker Alley Retail: $79.99, Our: $62.99 | |
Flicker Alley has announced an October 26th release date for Chaplin At Keystone.
The four-disc set will contain all 34 (of 35) of Chaplin's Keystone films known to exist. It will also have plenty of bonus features (below), along with an extensive booklet.
Retail will be $79.99, but it is available at ClassicFlix.com for only $62.99.
SYNOPSIS:
Charles Chaplin came to Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios late in 1913 as a little-known British vaudevillian, and after a year, had not only established his Tramp character, but learned to write and direct his own films, and also achieved public recognition as a star comedian. Although Keystone did not publicize its performers by name, standees of Chaplin's likeness outside theatres sufficed to attract audiences. Some of the films, especially Tillie's Punctured Romance, remained in theatrical distribution for decades.
The fact that all but one of the Chaplin Keystones exist is due, of course, to the star’s enormous subsequent popularity. Most of the original Keystone negatives, however, were simply printed away and the survival of all but a few of these films depends upon a very few original prints, a larger number of reissue prints, and some duped prints from later years.
With the support of Association Chaplin (Paris), 35mm full aperture, early-generation materials were gathered over an eight year search on almost all the films from archives and collectors around the world, and were painstakingly pieced together and restored by the British Film Institute National Archive, the Cineteca Bologna and its laboratory L’Immagine Ritrovata in Italy, and Lobster Films in Paris.
Most are now clear, sharp and rock-steady, although some reveal that their source prints are well-used and a handful survives only in 16mm. While admitting these limitations, one can now understand Chaplin's meteoric rise, for it is possible for the first time in generations to see clearly what clever and imaginative films he made at Keystone.
Flicker Alley is proud to present the world debut of Chaplin at Keystone, a 4-DVD boxed set. These editions feature all-new musical settings by outstanding practitioners of silent film accompaniment Eric Beheim, Neil Brand, Antonio Coppola, Frederick Hodges, Stephen Horne, Robert Israel, Rodney Sauer and The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Ethan Uslan, and Ken Winokur's band Tillie’s Nightmare with the UCLA Film and Television Archive restoration of Tillie's Punctured Romance.
BONUS FEATURES:
- Inside the Keystone Project: A short documentary detailing the international restoration efforts
- Historian John Bengtson takes a "then and now" look at several Keystone film locations in a 10 minute filmed tour based on his book Silent Traces.
- A short excerpt from A Thief Catcher, recently-discovered by Paul E. Gierucki, with Chaplin as a Keystone Cop
- The animated Charlie's White Elephant
- A gallery of rare photographs.
- PLUS: An extensive booklet provides an overview of the importance of the Chaplin Keystone comedies and detailed notes on the individual films by film historian and author Jeffrey Vance (Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema)
CRITERION: Modern Times - Standard & Blu in November
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | Modern Times November 16th Criterion Retail $29.95, Our: $23.99 | |
| WHAT: WHEN: STUDIO: PRICE: | Modern Times (Blu-Ray) November 16th Criterion Retail $39.95, Our: $31.99 | |
Modern Times (1936) finds a new home at Criterion in both Standard and Blu-Ray formats.
Released by Warner in 2003 in a 2-disc special edition (and now out-of-print), Chaplin's last outing as the tramp gets the Criterion treatment on November 16th.
Each will be a 2-disc set and come loaded with bonus features (below).
SYNOPSIS:
Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard).
With its barrage of unforgettable gags and sly commentary on class struggle during the Great Depression, Modern Times—though made almost a decade into the talkie era and containing moments of sound (even song!)—is a timeless showcase of Chaplin’s untouchable genius as a director of silent comedy.
BONUS FEATURES:
- New audio commentary by Chaplin biographer David Robinson
- Two new visual essays, by Chaplin historians John Bengtson and Jeffrey Vance
- New program on the film’s visual and sound effects, with experts Craig Barron and Ben Burtt
- Interview from 1992 with Modern Times music arranger David Raksin
- Chaplin Today: “Modern Times” (2004), a half-hour program with filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- Two segments removed from the film
- Three theatrical trailers
- All at Sea (1933), a home movie by Alistair Cooke featuring Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, and Cooke, plus a new score by Donald Sosin and a new interview with Cooke’s daughter, Susan Cooke Kittredge
- The Rink (1916), a Chaplin two-reeler highlighting his skill on wheels
- For the First Time (1967), a Cuban documentary short about a projectionist who shows Modern Times to first-time moviegoers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Saul Austerlitz and a piece by film scholar Lisa Stein that includes excerpts from Chaplin’s writing about his travels in 1931 and 1932
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