A look at the Charley Chase Silent Movie Collections on DVD
Charley Chase was long considered an unfairly overlooked comedy master of the 20s and 30s. After he started to get more recognition, especially among vintage comedy buffs, we decried the lack of available material. Fortunately, that also has changed.
Charley Chase was one of the comedians who began in silents and transitioned effortless to sound films. His talkies even allowed us to enjoy his talent as a singer. Just recently I reviewed a wonderful collection of Charley Chase’s 1930-1931 sound shorts for Hal Roach (here is the link). Earlier, SONY released two volumes containing all of the two-reelers Chase made at Columbia during his last years (1937-1940). I examine all of these films separately and at length in my book The Charley Chase Talkies.
Charley Chase’s silents are also well represented on DVD covering his early experiences as a comedian and a director, as well as his first films at the Hal Roach studios, covering the period when Roach was releasing through Pathe studios.
All Day Entertainment’s four-DVD set, Becoming Charley Chase, gives us a fascinating overview of the comedian’s career from his Keystone roots, through many of his classics with Hal Roach, and several of examples of his fine directorial work. This Chase set fills an enormous need for fans and students of screen comedy’s rich history.
The first disc in this set looks at Chase at Keystone, during which he played a variety of small roles in many productions under his real name Charles Parrott. The fast-paced “Love, Loot, and Crash (1915), for instance, is a good Keystone prototype, with blatant gestures, wild slapstick, and dazzling chase footage. Other Keystone productions found here, such as “Peanuts and Bullets,” “The Rent Jumpers,” and “A Versatile Villain” (all 1915), are equally amusing in the frenetic Keystone manner. Chase gets little opportunity to project much personality during this period of his career, but it was a good training ground for knockabout comedy. Two of the eight films on disc one are directed by Chase. The first, “He Wouldn’t Stay Down”, features Keystone perennial Ford Sterling in the lead role. The second Chase-directed film on disc one, “Married To Order” (1920), is actually not a Keystone production, but a Reelcraft release that had been produced at the old King Bee studios two years earlier, and features a young Oliver Hardy starring opposite Chase.
Disc two celebrates the earlier Roach films in which Chase appears as a classic 1920s-era go-getter by the name of Jimmy Jump. Chase had joined Roach in 1921 as a director, and helmed several short comedies before returning to starring roles himself with the appropriately titled 1924 release “At First Sight,” the first of sixteen wonderful films on disc two of this collection. The Jimmy Jump period essentially presents Chase in what could be considered a typical Roaring 20s comic character, but with further exploration into what could be done with such a persona. For instance Chase goes against type and plays a shivering coward who is picked on by a gang of children in “The Fraidy Cat” (1924), one of the most outrageously funny films in this set. Creative gags abound in “Young Oldfield” (1924), such as when Pharmacist Jimmy Jump, in order to drum up business, puts ice in front of a fan, and turns the fan on an outdoor crowd, giving them all the sniffles and forcing them to buy the cold medicine he has for sale. In another delightfully surreal image from this same film, an old man with a cane walks faster than the car in which Chase is riding, as he hurries to get the mortgage paid by noon. Chase does his own version of the mirror routine in “Sitting Pretty” (1924), performing it with real life brother James Parrott, who plays a supporting role. The director of “Sitting Pretty,” Leo McCarey, would repeeat this same routine with The Marx Brothers when he would later helm their 1933 classic “Duck Soup.” Other shorts on disc two include “One of the Family,” “Just a Minute,” “Powder and Smoke,” “Hard Knocks,” “Don’t Forget,” “Publicity Pays,” “Stolen Goods,” “Jeffires Jr.,” “Ten Minute Egg,” “Seeing Nellie Home,” “Outdoor Pajamas,” “Sitting Pretty,” and “Too Many Mamas.”
The third disc shows Chase evolving from the Jimmy Jump character into the one he would solidly play for the remainder of his career. Well meaning, a bit fluttery, and prone to embarrassment, Charley would still find clever ways to emerge victorious by each film’s fade-out. The ten films on this disc are perhaps the best on the entire set, showing Chase as a fully established comedian, enjoying a real rapport with his director the skillful Leo McCarey, and willing to explore some innovative possibilities for comedy. Initially still referred to as Jimmy Jump, Chase is wildly inventive in “Big Red Riding Hood” (1925) as a voracious reader who initially dreams himself into the stories, and ends up so interested in a book he can not afford to purchase, he rides is bicycle alongside a speeding car to read the book recently purchased by the car’s driver. Chase was still called Jimmy Jump once his series went from one to two reels per short, doubling their length and allowing for greater narrative depth. “Bad Boy” (1925) is a very funny effort in which mama’s boy Jimmy Jump is spurred on by his father to be more of a tough guy. Dressed as a stereotypical Irish hooligan, Jimmy successfully intimidates several at a dance hall until his ruse is discovered. The two-reeler “Looking For Sally” (1925) features a mistaken-identity theme, something Chase would investigate frequently in subsequent films. Other shorts include “Rats Knuckles,” “Hello Baby,” “Fighting Fluid,” “Should Husbands Be Watched?,” “Is Marriage The Bunk,” and “No Father to Guide Him.”
On disc four, the set concludes with seven films Chase directed but did not appear in, featuring some of his initial directorial efforts for Roach. These films usually feature comedian Snub Pollard, or Chase’s brother James Parrott, who directed under his own name, but acted as Paul Parrott. Snub and Paul appear together as an ersatz comedy team in this disc’s best effort, “Dear Old Pal,” which happens to be the last film Chase directed before embarking on his own starring series. Paul and Snub play pals who enjoy a competitive rivalry when playing horse shoes and other such games, usually escalating to a fist fight, but ending with the two making up. Their rivalry for a woman becomes heated when each tries to top the other with gifts, skills, and abilities. Chase constructs the film beautifully, with outrageous gags in each scene. During a fight between the two rivals, Paul repeatedly swings and misses Snub, hitting each of the onlookers one by one. During a three legged race, the two rivals venture off to chase down a man trying to accost the object of their affection, borrowing a farmer’s wheelbarrow to increase their speed, but not thinking to untie their legs from each other until they’ve already reached the girl’s house. Other performers who show up on disc four include Wil Rogers, Billy West, and Jimmie Adams.
While there is much slapstick in the comedies presented in this set, Chase would eventually emerge as a comedian who also effectively used situational humor as a short’s focal point, and enhanced it with physical gags. This four disc set presents Chase’s development to that point, and allows us to experience many aspects of this talented comedian. Its entertainment value is matched by its historical significance in presenting the development of one of screen comedy’s most interesting and talented performers.
The music on this disc is wonderfully performed by the talented Ben Model and Snark Ensemble, who offer the best scores here. However other compositions are sometimes more distracting from the action than responding to it. Special features include an insightful documentary, an interview with Chase’s daughter June, and a look at the method of scoring silent comedies for DVD. Each film on this set has an option to be viewed with a commentary track supplied by any number of top level film historians who understand and appreciate these comedies at a level that is matched by only a select few.
The quality of the films vary, depending on what sort of pre-print material was available for each. Some are beautiful, others a bit washed out, but all are perfectly watchable for those who understand how fortunate we are that 85 year old movies exist at all. In fact two of the films in this set, “Seeing Nellie Home” (1924) and “Accidental Accidents” (1924) do not survive in complete form. The existing footage is presented here, offering us an interesting look at two films that were long lost to the ravages of time. The makers of this video were careful to find the best footage possible from various institutions and private collectors throughout the world, and have done a superb job.
It is available here.
Becoming Charley Chase is a good collection to help one understand Charley Chase’s development as a comedian and a filmmaker, offering most of the solo films he did in 1924 and 1925. Two volumes of Chase silents from KINO continue the story.
The Charley Chase Collection Volume One extends further into Charley Chase’s silent screen career by presenting his transition from one reelers to two reelers. Volume One contains some of Chase’s finest comedies. The one reel “All Wet” is the earliest film in the set, and is one of the funniest Chase shorts from his Jimmy Jump period. Charley's car is submerged in a mud puddle and it takes a hilarious reel for him to extricate it.
Volume One also contains one of Chase’s most popular silent shorts. “Mighty Like a Moose,” is a masterpiece in visual humor featuring Charley and his wife as unattractively buck-toothed, each getting work done to alter their appearance without the other knowing. When they finally meet up afterward, they do not recognize each other, but do find each other attractive. Thus, they begin flirting, harboring guilty feelings about cheating on their spouses, when, in fact, they are not. This clever, brilliantly executed two reel comedy was named to the National Film Registry for preservation in 2007. Two reelers like “Long Fliv the King” and “Crazy Like a Fox” demonstrate how Charley Chase was moving from slapstick into concentrating on more situational comedy.
Volume Two of the Charley Chase DVDs from KINO, features more of his strongest comedies. “His Wooden Wedding” is an outrageous classic where Chase believes his fiancé has a wooden leg. “Bromo and Juliet” features Chase as a classical theater actor performing in a Shakespearean play in full costume. He fills out his stocking-clad skinny legs with sponges so they look better on stage, but stands too close to a sprinkler system and the sponges fill with water. Chase used this same gag for Curly Howard when he directed The Three Stooges short “Mutts To You” at Columbia Pictures studios years later. Other films on Volume Two include “Isn’t Life Terrible,” “Innocent Husbands,” and “Dog Shy.”
The Charley Chase Collection Volume One is available here.
Volume two is available here.
Finally, Cut to the Chase – The Charley Chase Collection, from Milestone, is a another DVD set of Chase’s silent films to get an official release by a major company, and its contents are outstanding. However, many of the films on this set are also found on the other sets we’ve discussed.
“The Fraidy Cat” and “Bad Boy,” can be found on the Becoming Charley Chase set. “Dog Shy,” “Bromo and Juliet,” “Innocent Husbands,” “Isn’t Life Terrible,” “Long Fliv The King,” “Mighty Like a Moose,” and “Mum’s The Word” can be found on Volume one or two of the KINO sets.
However, “The Caretaker’s Daughter,” “Be Your Age,” “What Price Goofy,” and “Mama Behave” are not found on either of the other sets discussed in this article and make their welcome appearance here. Also, two films on this set, “Charley My Boy” and “The Uneasy Three,” have never been available on any other collection, and are completely exclusive to this volume. I saw them for the first time while reviewing this disc, and these turned out to be two of the funniest shorts in the collection.
While in the talking picture era Chase eventually redefined his screen character to better coincide with his approach to middle age, during the twenties when these comedies were made, Charley was a common man, dapper and handsome,, filled with enthusiasm, and often placed in embarrassing situations. Much of his humor is subtle and more situational than the slapstick that had been prevalent in the 1910s, but that does not mean he eschewed physical gags. For instance in “Charley My Boy,” Chase is seated on a fire hydrant that loosens and sprays water upward, the force pushing his body into the air.
The films on Cut To The Chase were produced by the Hal Roach studios, which was Chase’s home from 1924-1936. Most were directed by Leo McCarey, who is often cited as one of the chief individuals responsible for the teaming of Stan Laurel with Oliver Hardy.
Years in the making, this DVD set contains the best quality prints available. The music for each short is performed by some of the finest silent movie accompanists active today, including Ben Model, Dave Drazin, Dave Knutsen, Donald Sosin, and Rodney Sauer with the Mon Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Cut to the Chase is available here.
Combining all of these Charley Chase sets will allow one to have nearly all of the Chase silents readily available on DVD. These are all Hal Roach productions released through Pathe. Other Chase silents like "Fluttering Hearts" and "Forgotten Sweeties" can be found on random DVD collections. These two-reelers are not in the public domain like the releases discussed previously. Once Hal Roach began distributing his productions through MGM in mid-1927, all of the films are under copyright and, thus, less readily available on DVD. There are around ten two-reel silents from the 1928-1929 period that are lost films, but overall Charley Chase's filmography has a remarkably good survival rate.