MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

The Chaplin Collection, Vol. 1 is an eight-disc box set from Warner Home Video compiling Modern Times, The Great Dictator, The Gold Rush, and Limelight. Each film is presented in a digitally remastered double-disc format in black-and-white with a full-screen transfer and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, French, Korean, Portuguese, and Thai. Audio commentary is provided by film historian Richard Schickel. Each disc contains a ton of special features including documentaries, newsreels, galleries, exclusive archive footage, and more. Each title is also available individually. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 8
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: Dolby Digital Mono, Dolby Digital 5.1
• Screen: Black and White
• Subtitle: French, English, Korean, Spanish, Thai
• Features:
  • • cc Introductions by biographer David Robinson
    • Deleted scenes
    • All-new documentaries
    • Exclusive Chaplin family home movies & photo galleries

AWARDS

• Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

•     Won Best Original Dramatic Score - 1972 (Charles Chaplin, Raymond Rasch, Larry Russell)
•     Nominated Best Actor - 1940 (Charles Chaplin)
•     Nominated Best Original Score - 1940 (Meredith Willson)
•     Nominated Best Original Screenplay - 1940 (Charles Chaplin)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1940
•     Nominated Best Supporting Actor - 1940 (Jack Oakie)

• American Film Institute

•     Won 100 Greatest American Movies - 1998

• British Academy of Film and Television Arts

•     Nominated Best Film - Any Source - 1952 (Charles Chaplin)

• Film Daily

•     Won 10 Best Films - 1940

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1997
•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1991
•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1988

• National Board of Review

•     Won Best Acting - 1940 (Charles Chaplin)
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1952
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1940
•     Nominated Best Picture - 1936

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Actor - 1940 (Charles Chaplin)

• New York Times

•     Won 10 Best Films - 1940

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Charles Chaplin

• Producer:

  Charles Chaplin

• Screenwriter:

  Charles Chaplin

• Cinematographer:

  Karl Struss, Roland H. "Rollie" Totheroh, Ira Morgan, Jack Wilson

• Composer (Music Score):

  Meredith Willson

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Meredith Willson

• Composer (Music Score):

  Charles Chaplin, Alfred Newman

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  Alfred Newman

• Musical Arrangement:

  David Raksin, Raymond Rasch

• Composer (Music Score):

  Larry Russell

• Editor:

  Willard Nico, Charles Chaplin

• Production Designer:

  Charles Hall, Russell J. Spencer

• Art Director:

  Russell J. Spencer, Charles Hall

• First Assistant Director:

  Wheeler Dryden, Henry Bergman, Robert Aldrich

• Choreography:

  Charles Chaplin, Andre Eglevsky, Melissa Hayden

REVIEWS:

• Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film hilariously satirizes Depression-era social ills through the Tramp's disastrous encounters with the industrial age. Chaplin turns his factory worker's nervous breakdown into comic set pieces involving an automated feeding machine, an inability to stop tightening bolts, and, most famously, his entrapment in machinery gears. In a potent satire of authoritarian idiocy, Chaplin repeatedly ends up in jail for stumbling into worker riots and "Communist" protests, yet his ability to quell a prison break while accidentally hopped up on cocaine (!!) earns him the sheriff's respect. Paulette Goddard's fetching Gamin helps Chaplin find work as a singing waiter, but police intervention leaves their togetherness as their only hope. Accompanied by a Chaplin-composed score (including Smile) and synchronized sound effects, numerous bits of business showcase Chaplin's silent gift for physical comedy, including a department store roller skate and maneuvers with a food tray. In a send-up of talking pictures and technology's dehumanizing effects in general, the only voices heard in the movie (save for Chaplin's gibberish song and his fellow waiters' warbling) come from the factory's Orwellian telescreen P.A. system, a phonograph, and a radio. Three years in production, Modern Times became another international success for Chaplin (though it was banned in Germany and Italy) and one of the signature works of his career. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi
• If not his final film, this is certainly Chaplin's swan song as well as a tribute to the British musical-hall tradition from which he had sprung. At the time of its release, the director had not had a success in over a decade and had been vilified as a Communist by McCarthyite zealots whose pressure tactics would soon result in the revocation of his U.S. passport. All of this is reflected in the melancholy countenance of the aged performer Calvero, who has nightmares about playing to empty theaters and is only sporadically in command of his former comic genius. In a story reminiscent of the high-minded sentimentality of the silent era, the comedian forgets his woes by ministering to a young ballet dancer suffering from hysterical paralysis. An artist of physical rather than verbal gifts, Chaplin displays his vaunted graceful mimicry, but the script is wooden, ponderous, and studded with cringe-worthy dialogue, despite occasional flashes of wit and insight. A departure from the director's previous work in its somberness, it often evokes the sentimentality of DeSica without his accompanying realism. Yet the performance of the radiant young Claire Bloom is a wonder; that she could revive the comedian's spirits is beyond question. And in the pantomime of the music hall numbers, and especially the final musical-duo routine with former rival Buster Keaton, Chaplin shows why so many have regarded him as the medium's greatest performer. If the film as a whole may rank below the level of his best work, its moments of honest pathos and comic epiphany make it a moving farewell. ~ Michael Costello, Rovi
• After a five-year absence from movies, Charles Chaplin took on a dual role in his first full-length talking feature, famous for its comic attack on Nazi Germany (and Adolf Hitler in particular). The script was written before Hitler's invasion of Poland, and Chaplin subsequently noted that, had he known the scope of the evil perpetrated on Europe by the Nazis, he would never have made them the subject of this lampoon. Not as maniacally funny as Chaplin's classic comedies of the 1920s, The Great Dictator has more in common with Chaplin's later films, which were more lyrical in approach and more overt in their socio-political messages. In this case, the proselytising turned out to be prescient, as Hitler would soon prove Chaplin's concerns well-founded. This was one of very few films made in the West before World War II that dared to take on Hitler and Mussolini. Still, many critics found fault with Chaplin's approach, claiming that, by portraying German Nazis and Italian Fascists as schoolyard bullies and buffoons, Chaplin was cheapening the impact of their evil actions on millions of Europeans. Despite these criticisms, Chaplin's lampooning of Hitler is a moment of comic genius, complemented by Jack Oakie's ridiculously exaggerated portrayal of the Mussolini-like Italian fascist (nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor). The Great Dictator is loosely structured, lacking the tight pace and sense of direction of Chaplin's best films: its long-winded concluding speech is the most egregious example. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Chaplin for Best Actor. ~ Dan Jardine, Rovi
• The film he said he wanted to be remembered by, Charles Chaplin's masterwork seamlessly combined humor and tragedy as his refined and compassionate little tramp struggled to strike gold in 1898 Alaska. Chaplin's gift for sight gags and intricate mime is most memorably displayed as he feasts on a boiled boot sole, twirling the laces like spaghetti and sucking on the nails as if they were a gourmet delicacy. Even as Chaplin makes comedy out of starvation and struggle, he reveals the dehumanizing effects of greed as it impinges on the capacity to love. Over a year in production and filmed partly on location near Lake Tahoe to recreate the look of photos of Yukon prospectors, The Gold Rush became Chaplin's first hit for his United Artists studio, reaffirming his superstar status after a directorial detour through drama in A Woman of Paris (1923). The reedited 1942 reissue included music and new narration by Chaplin. The Gold Rush has often been paired with Buster Keaton's The General (1927) as the two greatest silent comedies. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi