In the restored prints section a group of four early Chaplin shorts, all
from the year 1914, were shown with live piano accompaniment. These
restorations were made with the cooperation of film archives and collections
all over the world and, presumably, show the films in a condition as close
as it is possible to achieve, to the form in which audiences saw them ninety
years ago. Even the printed inter-titles have been reconstructed,
presumably, as originally shown. These films were all made at a studio
called "Keystone" in New York, best known for their "Keystone Cops"
comedies. Descriptions follow:

(1) "Getting Aquainted", RT, 18 minutes
Two couples and a club happy cop get mixed up in a park. The couples are not
interested in their respective spouses – the men misbehaving shamefully and
the women commiserating with each other, as the copper attempts to club them
back into line, while a Turk in a fez confuses the issue even more. Total
slapshtick – more confoozin’ than amoozin’ –

(2)“Kid Auto Racing”, RT, 18 minutes.
A kids auto race is going on in Venice, California and is being filmed as it
progresses. Chaplin, a spectator, decides he wants to get on camera and
keeps jumping in front of the lens, disturbing the race and freaking the
director out. He keeps getting pushed away, kicked away and thrown away,
but stubbornly keeps coming back for more, as the cars come racing round the
bend. This is (was) funny?

(3) “Mabel At The Wheel”, RT, 28 minutes.
In this one Charlie is an outright villain. Hot for Mabel who is in a racing
car loving it up with her boyfriend, he kidnaps the boyfriend, whereupon
Mabel takes over the wheel and wins the race despite all Charlie’s desperate
efforts to sabotage her. “Mabel” was Mabel Normand, herself a big silent
flickers star, but she and Chaplin had a falling out during the shoot and
Mac Sennett had to step in. Lots of mud flying around and cars going the
wrong way, but excessively rib-tickling it is not.

(4) “Mabel’s married Life”, RT, 17 minutes.
Mabel’s wimpish husband (Charlie) doesn’t have the guts to stand up to
ladykiller Mack Swain. She buys him a rubber boxing dummy, which is
un-knockable down because it keeps bouncing back up. Charly gets drunk,
terrifies everyone at the bar with his newfound alcoholic bravado, and
floors three tough guys with a single blow. He then comes back to the pad,
where he mistakes the dummy for the bully after his wife. The rest of the
flick is a knock-down drag-out battle with the bouncing dummy – a routine
later made famous in “The Champ”.

I personally, have always found the “little tramp” with the bowler hat and
Hitler moustache (did Adolph borrow the moustache from Charly?) more grotty
than funny, however, what is funny to audiences has changed a lot in ninety
years. Aside from their obvious historical value, perhaps the main interest
of these films today is for the insight they afford into the kinds of things
which made our ancestors laugh almost a century ago. Different strokes for
different generations …

Another beautifully restored silent, "SPIONE", a full length feature by
Fritz Lang, 1929, is also on view and will be reviewed tomorrow.

Alex Deleon