Customer Reviews

The Charley Chase Collection, Vol. 1 (Slapstick Symposium)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yes--here he is folks--"Good Time Charley, Playboy of the Flapper Age" ! These six shorts starring silent comedian Charley Chase add up to a couple of hours of highly amusing entertainment. When you mention silent comedy to most people, they think of Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and maybe Arbuckle and the Keystone Cops. Somehow, to all but the most dedicated enthusiast, Charley Chase has been forgotten, and that's a shame. For this viewer at least, he was the equal of any of the great silent comics, and actually made a successful transition to sound. Many of his sound shorts are just as funny, especially when he was paired with the lovely Thelma Todd.

On this disc, we have two one-reelers from 1924 and four two-reelers from 1926 :--

April Fool--1924--the title tells all as the gang at the office play tricks on Charley, and vice versa--tricks that sometimes backfire very badly.

All Wet--1924--Charley is driving to the train station, and meets the "pothole from hell"--wonderful gags.

Mum's the Word--1926--Charley pretends to be a butler--not exactly his "true calling".

Crazy Like a Fox--1926--Charley pretends to be a lunatic, and the laughs just keep coming--not the last time he would play this kind of role. Oliver Hardy has a cameo.

Long Fliv the King--1926--to become Queen, a princess must marry any man within 24 hours, and she picks Charley. Some nasty people back at court are "not amused"--watch out for the hilarious sword-fight.

Mighty Like a Moose--1926--Charley and his wife, without telling one another, have radical facial surgery, don't recognize one another, and try to "cheat" with each other. One of the best, with Charley's famous "fight with himself". If I explained any more, I'd spoil it. This one is a gem !

I must salute Kino for making these, and other silent classics, available on DVD. When you watch these comedies, you are looking at film that is 80 years old ! So--yes--you may see some wear and tear, and a few "splices". Personally, I think we are lucky that these still exist ! At the same time, I really hope we will see more of Charley Chase's work--silent and sound--released on DVD.

This type of comedy may not be for everyone--it is definitely slapstick--a world where people stop pies with their faces, get "accidentally" soaked with hoses, have messy adventures with unpredictable fountain pens and so on. I guess it's a flaw in my character, but I find this brand of comedy--and Charley Chase in particular--funny in the extreme.

So--had a tough day at work ? problems with your relationship ?
the taxman wants more than you expected ? If you need a smile and a laugh desperately--have no fear, Chase is here !

Most people familiar with silent comedy are not familiar with Charley Chase. They recognize the face but not the name. Chase is probably best known as the obnoxious conventioneer in Laurel & Hardy's SONS OF THE DESERT. He was a hard working, driven individual who died in 1940 at the age of 46. His real name was Charles Parrott and in addition to being a performer he was also a gag writer, a producer as well as a director of his and other people's shorts. During the 1920's he was the most popular performer in comedy shorts until the advent of Laurel & Hardy. This new collection from Kino International and Lobster Films allows us to see Chase in his prime. What we see in these shorts is a man who while not a topflight comedian like Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd, could be uproariously funny at times depending on his material.

The director on most of the shorts in this collection was Leo McCarey who would go on to become one of Hollywood's major directors with features like DUCK SOUP and GOING MY WAY. Start off your viewing with MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE which is undoubteedly the best short in this collection. The plot of an ugly married couple who undergo plastic surgery unbeknownst to each other and then proceed to fall in love with their new selves is a true classic which has appeared elsewhere. Follow that up with CRAZY LIKE A FOX which shows the full range of his inventiveness as Charley pretends to be crazy to get out of an arranged marriage. The one reel ALL WET contains one of the more imaginative sequences in all of silent comedy as Chase repairs a car while underwater.

The remaining titles all have something to recommend them so hats off to Lobster Films for allowing us the opportunity of seeing an undeservedly forgotten comedian as well as giving us shorts by Harold Lloyd and Stan Laurel (before Hardy). These three sets are part of a new series called SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM from Kino International who continue to provide us with quality silent film releases.

It's really kind of sad to think that the name Charley Chase barely registers with anyone nowadays. Sad because in an era of great comics, he was one of the greatest. One of the reasons, probably, is the fact that Charley didn't have the clown persona of a Chaplin or a Keaton. He was much more of a regular guy type, comperable to Harold Loyd although I always thought that Chase's character was much more believable than Loyd's. The release of this DVD is a cause for celebration among all lovers of great comedy. I hope it's the first of many more.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Though he was the biggest comedian working in short subjects in the mid- and late Twenties, unfortunately Charley Chase is largely forgotten today. Happily, however, as more of his work becomes available on DVD and released to the public, it seems as though more and more fans of vintage comedy are rediscovering just how talented and funny he truly was, right up there with the likes of Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, and Linder. This disc brings together six of his shorts, four two-reelers and two one-reelers.

'Mum's the Word' (1926) was previously released on Vol. 9 of 'The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy.' Charley plays a young man who is coming home from school to visit his mother, who has just remarried. On the train home, he meets a young lady whom he, of course, falls in love with. It turns out that she's travelling to the same house he is, where she works as a maid, and that once home, he must pretend to be a new butler, for his mother hasn't yet told her new husband the rather important fact that she has a grown son. It also comes out that the new maid isn't being totally honest about her true identity either.

'Long Fliv the King' (1926) starts out with the not-so-original plot device of a young woman, Helga, having to marry by a certain date and time, but in this case she's not being rushed to marriage because she's got money coming to her--she's got a royal crown coming to her. She settles on Charley, who is in prison and scheduled to die soon. What the new queen didn't count on was that just after they were married and she left for her kingdom, Charley would be sprung from prison and cleared of the false charges against him. He trails her to her kingdom with his new friend/lackey Warfield, played by the wonderful Max Davidson, who is even more forgotten than Charley today. His own films aren't shown too often because of modern-day concerns and sensitivities towards the rather stereotyped Jewish characters he often was stuck playing, but in films such as this (though it does contain a few somewhat cringe-worthy moments), he was more or less allowed to just be himself and to be funny that way. Of course, complications arise when Charley arrives in Thermosa. Many people at court don't want some outsider on the throne, and try to overthrow him. Oliver Hardy also plays a small role in this one.

'April Fool' (1924) is from Charley's days playing a character called Jimmie Jump. Being a one-reeler, the plot is fairly simple and straightforward, people at his newspaper office playing tricks on one another all day, with his sweetheart, the boss's daughter, eventually getting in on the fun too.

'Mighty Like a Moose' (1926) was previously released on Vol. 9 of 'The Lost Films of L&H.' Charley, Mr. Moose, has horrible teeth, and his wife has a rather unfortunate nose. Unbeknownest to the other, they each get surgery, and are so unrecognisable to one another afterwards that they make a date to go to a party being thrown by their doctor. Since they both think they're cheating on the other spouse, a lot of comedy ensues as they're each getting ready for the date. Things get even more sticky when a picture of the two of them shows up on the front page of the paper after the party was busted for having alcohol.

'Crazy Like a Fox' (1926) was previously released on Vol. 6 of 'The Lost Films of L&H,' and co-stars Oliver Hardy in a minor role. Charley is very unhappy because he's being forced to marry a woman he doesn't know, and even more so after meeting and falling in love (or at least lust) at first sight with a young woman he meets at the depot. She too is being forced to marry against her will, but what neither of them know is that Charley is the man she's been matched with. Determined to avoid this marriage, Charley decides to pretend to be absolutely crazy when he arrives at the young woman's mansion. His riotous act may end up working a little too well, however.

'All Wet' (1924) is another Jimmie Jump comedy. Jimmie, who is staying at a boarding house, gets an important telegram telling him to be at the train station by 2:30 to pick up a litter of English Pitbull puppies. He happily dashes off to fulfill what he thinks will be a routine errand, but meets with nothing but car (and other) trouble along the way. Though he was really good in these one-reelers, he was just too funny and talented to be served well in such a short timeframe. He needed that extra reel to continue building up the storyline and his character.

Overall, this is a solid enough introduction to Charley's work for a new fan, though the one-reelers really aren't at the same mature polished level as the later four shorts. It's also unfortunate that fully one-half of this collection was previously released; it's not fair to fans to be asked to buy that much duplicate material just to see a few new shorts. Having three repeats from previous collections might not be that bad had there been more than just six shorts here, but since there are only six, it seems like it would have made more sense for there to be more newly-released material, no matter how great the three repeats are.

Look right below me. Since when did this stop being a review symposium and start being the Complaints Department at Macey's? I'm here for the reviews, not for some dopey quality-control issue that should be brought up with the manufacturer and one that the manufacturer and distributer would certainly fix pronto. I hated Don Quixote because of a bad binding? I honestly expect more sense from a Top 500 reviewer. I just came from a review of a Hammer Film (The Devil Rides Out) where some loon from Italy goes on and on about all the DVDs that Amazon sends her are "100% Damaged" including the replacements!!! She's ordering DVDs from the US and she lives in Italy?! A Region Coding problem perhaps? Please visit the review and hit inappropriate, then go to her other reviews and do the same (They all complain about "100% Damaged" DVDs!!). Lets clear out the deadwood.

Anyway, I highly recommend this collection. Chase is a real surprise if you've been stuck with the usuals for silent comedy--his work almost seems like fun rips on Silents that would've been made in the Fifties for, say, "Singin' in the Rain." He especially had an acute eye for an outrageous site gag that somehow made sense. In one film (name forgotten) he's getting out of his car with his golf clubs and a women whizzes by him and nearly misses him. The golf clubs fly way too far up in the air and scatter ridiculously. It's a subtle bit of extra oomph that makes his work so enjoyable.

Thanks Kino--great job!!

Like many early comedy artists, the name Charley Chase seems only of interest to film buffs & scholars. One reason his name may not be well-remembered is that he tried--and failed--to transition to feature-length films, working mainly in short subjects. With the first volume (of, hopefully, several more) of Chase's silent comedy work at the Hal Roach studios, he'll finally get his due.
Slender, dapper and handsome, with great comic timing & reactions, Chase practically invented what is known today as "situation comedy" on T.V. Chase liked to take a premise--a situation that could very well happen to anyone--and expand it; make it overblown & farcical. His collaborations with the equally-imaginative director Leo McCarey (the man responsible for teaming Laurel & Hardy) was a momentous occasion.
My favorites from these six shorts? "Mighty Like A Moose" is irresistably charming, foreshadowing today's trends in plastic surgery. "Crazy Like A Fox" is daffy fun as Chase gets to cut loose here, using insane behavior to get the girl. But the others show flashes of comic brilliance: "All Wet" has Chase maneuvering his car into a ridiculously deep & wide puddle...then making repairs underwater! "Long Fliv The King" makes use of the "fish-out-of-water" plot device by having death-row inmate Chase being rescued from the gallows to rule a small country. Look for a then-stock player Oliver Hardy in a supporting role as a servant. "April Fool" is a brief short in which Chase--calling himself Jimmie Jump--takes the fad of playing pranks to hilarious heights.
It's a shame that Mr. Chase died too young in 1940, from a heart attack attributed to heavy drinking. What he created with these shorts helped push the envelope of comedy invention to the next level.

In the 1930s, most of the great US directors (Hawks, Hitchcock, Sturgess, Capra, Wilder) experimented with the "screwball comedy" genre. Although hard to define, a screwball comedy usually consisted of a witty middle class couple falling in and out of love and/or marriage, a series of madcap adventures, and witty dialog, often with sexual innuendo. Leo McCarey, who wrote and directed for Hal Roach, also made sound films in this genre (The Awful Truth).

This collection represents Leo McCarey's work with Charlie Chase for Hal Roach between 1924 and 1926. Charlie Chase invites more comparisons with the male leads in Screwball comedies (especially Robert Montgomery and Joel McCray) than with the great "clowns" like Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton. Chase lacked the physical grace and the ability to create memorable visual humor of the big 3. Instead his humor tended to emerge from being thrown into and out of outrageous, awkward or embarassing situations, typically but not always involving a romantic partner. In "Mighty Like a Moose", both he and his wife try to surprise one another with changes in their facial appearance, then become attracted to each other in their "new look", without knowing their true identity. In "Long Fliv the King", Chase, a condemned criminal, marries a princess of a foreign country out of convenience, only to be pardoned, and thus faced with being King of his inherited land. Sometimes the situations work, but more often they are too outrageous to draw the viewer into the mayhem. Also, the witty dialog of the sound screwball comedies sometimes made up for the silly premises of the plot (think of "Bringing Up Baby"), but in the silent version, of course, such dialog was not possible. So these films, although interesting and mildly amusing at times, may be disappointing to many viewers. One gets the overall sense here that Roach and McCarey were part of an experimental lab for developing more sophisticated alternatives to the "slapstick" genre (so the title of the series "Slapstick symposium" is a little misleading). Like all lab experiments, sometimes they work, sometimes not.

Another interesting aspect of these, and other silent movies, is how often their gags were reused later on. In "Mum's the Word", Charlie and his step-dad perform a sight gag with a window shade that resembles the famous pantomime between Chico and Groucho in "Duck Soup" (also directed by McCarey). Also, there is the "woman making like a chair" scene that was repeated in Laurel and Hardy's sound feature "Blockheads".

In general, it would help to be both a fan of the screwball genre, as well as of the Hal Roach factory, to enjoy this collection.

We knew so little about Charley Chase until recently, and he turns out to be one of funniest comedians of the century. Or at least, his movies turn out to be among the funniest comedies...

He does not have the physical dexterity of Chaplin, the stuntmanship of Keaton, the uniqueness of Langdon, but perhaps more like Harold Lloyd, he controlled his films such that the movies themselves are gems of comedy. And his pantomime was top notch.

THE MOVIES: Good little films, each with some particularly memorable skit. "Mum's The Word" is an embarrassing story at first, but stick with it: the timing of the ensemble work in the hall-scene is perfection. "All Wet" seems to be a modest bit of movie, but it has the car-mudhole routine; and the bit with the disembodied hand is truly classic--it would fit nicely in a Robert Youngson assemblage. "Long Fliv the King" is a well-made comedy with good production values and a great print; "Mighty Like a Moose" and "Crazy Like a Fox" are side-splitting.

PICTURE QUALITY: Variable, but restored at least in the sense of being watchable. Some of the prints are excellent.

THE MUSIC: You could certainly do worse than a Neil Brand piano accompaniment for a silent film. As always, his playing is virtuosic and entertaining; but in some of the films he misses the humour almost as often as he gets it. "All Wet" could be uncontrollably funny if Brand would play to the picture, but when Charley's car has a run-in with a deep puddle, the piano just keeps banging away, when it should be slowly (and wryly) sinking into the keyboard's muddiest tones. Later Brand becomes more specific with his music and actually highlights some of action, but it's too late. Then, in "Long Fliv the King", Brand is fine form, and you could hardly ask for a better musical accompaniment, including exactly the kind of effects needed in "All Wet".

Robert Israel's music for "Mighty Like A Moose" is exemplary, the print quality is really good, and once the story really gets going it's one of the 9 funniest movies I've ever seen. Then it gets even better: Brand's score to "Crazy Like A Fox" is among the most inspired I've heard. And "Crazy" is another laugh-out-loud model of comedy filmmaking.

Incidentally, I had no problem whatsoever with the menu.

This dvd will only play the first short. There are no links to get to the other movies. The main menu only goes to one movie.