DVD Talk Forum - Kino Silent Collections 09.13.05 Lloyd, Chase, Hardy

From The Silent Era , Kino will release The Harold Lloyd Collection II ($29.95), The Charley Chase Collection II ($24.95) and The Oliver Hardy Collection ($24.95) on Sept 13. 2005.

Here's the contents:

The Harold Lloyd Collection II contents: High and Dizzy (1920), From Hand to Mouth (1920), Captain Kidd’s Kids (1919), Now or Never (1921), Among Those Present (1921), Ring Up the Curtain (1919), Two Gun Gussie (1918), The Non Stop Kid (1918), The City Slicker (1918) and Never Weaken (1921).

The Charley Chase Collection II contents: His Wooden Wedding (1925), Isn’t Life Terrible (1925), Innocent Husbands (1925), Dog Shy (1926), Bromo and Juliet (1926), Shine ’em Up (1922), and A Charley Chase Biography (2004), a special montage (in English) about Chase’s life, narrated by Serge Bromberg and directed by Eric Lange.

The Oliver Hardy Collection contents: The Show (1922), The Sawmill (1921), Should Sailors Marry? (1925), Hop to It! (1925), Stick Around (1925), Along Came Auntie (1926), Crazy to Act (1927) and 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926).

After the successful release of the first “Slapstick Symposium,” a series of four DVDs collecting silent film comedies starring Harold Lloyd, Charley Chase and Stan Laurel, Kino International is proud to release a second feast of some of the funniest short comedies ever made. “Slapstick Symposium Too” makes available for the first time in the United States, the two-disc set The Harold Lloyd Collection II ($29.95), the single-disc The Charley Chase Collection II ($24.95) and the single-disc The Oliver Hardy Collection ($24.95). All three silent comedy DVDs in this series will be available 13 September 2005.
Made possible by an unprecedented collaboration between Kino International and Lobster Films (www.lobsterfilms.com), the leading film restoration company in Europe, “Slapstick Symposium Too” is a continuation of Kino and Lobster’s already acclaimed partnership — and a display of both company’s commitment to employing state-of-the-art transfer technology to create high-standard DVD masters.

Kino’s two-disc DVD set The Harold Lloyd Collection II brings 10 of Lloyd’s most famous short films — including the two-reelers High and Dizzy (1920) and Never Weaken (1921), and the three-reelers Now or Never (1921) and Among Those Present (1921). Known as one of the most upbeat slapstick legends, Lloyd ascended to stardom by drawing laughter from a positive and hard-working screen character — unlike the personas developed by Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Associated since his early days with production genius Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd made more money, and starred in more films, than Keaton and Chaplin in the 1920s.

Perhaps one of Lloyd’s most famous films, Never Weaken is the third film of his so called thrill comedies. Here playing a character named “the boy,” Lloyd falls in love with “the girl” (Mildred Davis), but mistakenly learns that she loves another. Deeply heartbroken, Lloyd spends most of Never Weaken orchestrating increasingly complicated attempts to end his life — until he ends up on the beams of a high-rise construction site.

Kino’s The Oliver Hardy Collection comes with eight two-reeler classics starring the law-student turned stoic comedian Oliver Hardy. His trademark character, a clumsily frustrated man, appeared in some of Hardy’s early 1920s Vitagraph films — including this collection’s The Sawmill (1922) — before becoming a worldwide phenomenon due to his partnership with Stan Laurel. Although better known for his innocent, harmless characters, Hardy’s heavy physique and often severe stance also allowed him to play the role of slapstick robber and/or villain — as seen in The Show (1922), where Hardy tries to steal the payroll of a performance that Larry Semon is trying to stage. Also in this all-new DVD is Stick Around (1925), a 24-minute spectacle where Hardy and Bobby Ray turn a sanitarium into complete chaos. Another highlight in this DVD is 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926), the first Hal Roach-produced film in which Ollie and Laurel appear in the same film. This hilarious film-themed comedy features Hardy chasing bankrobbers passing as a film crew and is considered by many Hardy fans as one of his funniest early shorts.

Completing the “Slapstick Symposium Too” is the newly-produced The Charley Chase Collection II, an all-new DVD bringing six two-reelers (all between 20 and 25 minutes-long) and an eight-minute, special-feature montage about Charley Chase’s life and his slapstick work. Having worked in front and behind the cameras, Chase became famous for starring in comedies populated with surreal misunderstandings originating from mundane situations. Known as the master of the comedy of embarrassment, Charlie Chase’s nonchalant mannerisms, as well as his good looks, made him one of the most seductive silent-comedy heroes of the 1920s.