Chaplin Essanay (Spain)

[bigshot]

Reporting on the new Chaplin Essanay set out of Spain.

Wonderful stuff! I don't think I've really watched the Essanays since the VHS days. The blu-ray menus are in Portuguese or Spanish, so I don't have the titles right, but I watched the boxing one and the one with the wallpaper hangers. Absolutely perfect Robert Israel scores in perfect sync. I think Chaplin edited these films to a metronome beat, because everything lines up really nice. The films are in great shape... good speed, full range of grayscale, no flicker or jumps. The inter titles are recreated. This disk is much better than the Flicker Alley Mutuals, at least the two films I watched were. (I just got the Spanish Mutuals and I am going to check those out soon.)

I didn't check to see if the disk is region locked. My guess is that it is. If someone wants to know, I will go back and check. But if you are region free, this is a no brainer. It is very inexpensive at Amazon.es. If the UK ones all have Carl Davis scores, then picking up the Spanish and UK both would be worthwhile. Great set!

The only supplements are the "midget with the top hat and sticks on his feet film" (I'm sure you have seen it.) and a French documentary (unfortunately no English subtitles). The titles for each film say that they were restored as a co-production with Lobster, Cineteca Bologna and Blackhawk. I'm sure whatever region you buy, the film transfer themselves will be the same.