The Chaplin Revue (1959)

Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small... See full summary »

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writer:

Charles Chaplin

Stars:

Charles Chaplin, Albert Austin, Henry Bergman

Cast

Credited cast:
Charles Chaplin	...	Narrator / Various (archive footage)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Albert Austin	...	Various (archive footage)
Henry Bergman	...	Various (archive footage)
Syd Chaplin	...	Various (archive footage)
Edna Purviance	...	Various (archive footage)
Mack Swain	...	Various (archive footage)
Loyal Underwood	...	Various (archive footage)

Storyline

Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 September 1959 (UK)

Also Known As:

A Revista de Charlot

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charles Chaplin Productions, Roy Export Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

128 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System) Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

To achieve the feel of a modern print, Charles Chaplin stretch-printed the footage, which slowed it down to sound speed so music could be added properly.

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Quotes

Narrator: There were no atomic bombs or guided missiles. Then it was only cannon, bayonets and poisoned gas. Ha ha. Those were the good old days.

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Connections

Edited from The Pilgrim (1923)

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Soundtracks

"I'm Bound for Texas"
Written by Charles Chaplin
Sung by Matt Monro (as Matt Monroe) during "The Pilgrim" segment

User Reviews

Great films but not ideally represented

The three shorts included on this compilation issued in 1959 are timeless Chaplin classics, nothing wrong with them and nothing to criticize either. Chaplin's score for these films and the framework added as bridging sections between the shorts are also well done. The problem with this compilation is a minor one, yet annoying. The shorts have been stretch-printed to fit the 24 frame p.s. speed of contemporary films whereas the shorts themselves where shot at 20 frames p.s. This results is jerky motion that doesn't look very attractive, and yet this was an excusable solution given the limitations of optical printing technology at the time, it's just not excusable that the current DVD version is unrestored, the films look dirty as they did in 1959 and are still stretch printed. There are separate restored versions of these classics available, even on DVD, and it would not be a problem to restore the image, but alas this has not been done.

A minor quibble has taken up a lot of space in my article, but I say again a minor quibble, it should not detract all that much from the experience although it detracted one point from my rating. The shorts are still worth '10'.