Krazy Keystone Komedies (2007)

Get ready to sit back and laugh at the greatest slapstick comedies ever filmed! Mack Sennett was an innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime, he was known as 'the King of Comedy.' Born Michael Sinnott in Richmond, Quebec, Canada, Sennet

silent comedy

SlapHappy Movie: Silent Comedy's Funniest Compilation of Silent Comedians with Chaplin, Keaton, Keystone Cops, Laurel, Hardy, Lloyd, Arbuckle, Normand, Langdon, Our Gang, Ben Turpin, Charley Chase, Lupino Lane, Lloyd Hamilton, WC Fields, Will Rogers, etc. November 2, 2007

Great Silent Comedies ... Mediocre Production

This DVD contains a lot of great, old Keystone comedies. The quality of the films is acceptable. However, production of the DVD was fairly amateurish. There is no track list, which lists the films. Also, the chapter menu does not index the films correctly. For instance, "Ambrose's Sour Grapes" begins towards the end of track 4. The remainder of the film is on track 5. "When Ambrose Dared Walrus" begins in the middle of track 8 and continues on tracks 9 and 10. Other films are indexed in similar manner. These include "Wandering Willies," "Ambrose's Lofty Perch" and "Those Bitter Sweets." The omission of a film/track list and the problems with the chapter menu make the DVD very difficult to navigate. For the price, however, it's still a DVD worth having. (Hopefully, the producers and/or distributors of this DVD will offer a revised disc, to those of us who have already bought the DVD.)

The list of films has been provided, in another review. Notable actors include Fatty Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, Al St. John, Mack Swain, Chester Conklin, Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, Edgar Kennedy, Ford Sterling, Charley Chase, Slim Summerville, Louise Fazenda, Mae Busch, Minta Durfee, Phyllis Haver and Marie Prevost.

October 19, 2007

Nice collection, bur do not expect anything special

This disc contains the following 14 Keystone Komedies:
Mabel's Wilful Way (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand
Ambrose's Nasty Temper (1915) with Mack Swain and Don Barcley
That Little Band of Gold (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand
Ambrose's Sour Grapes (1915) with Mack Swain and Barry Gibson
Mabel & Fattys Married Life (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand
When Ambrose Dared Walrus (1915) with Mack Swain and Frank Alexander
Wandering Willies (1926) With Billy Bevan and Andy Clyde
Ambrose's Lofty Perch (1915) with Mack Swain and Cecile Arnold
Fatty's Spooning Days (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle and Minta Durfee
Ambrose's Fury (1915) with Mack Swain and Chester Conklin
Fatty's Suitless Days (1915) with Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chase
Wilful Ambrose (1915) with Mack Swain and Louise Fazenda
Little Billy's Triuph (1914) with the Keystone Kids
Those Bitter Sweets (1929) with Billy Bevan
The picture and sound quality of these shorts is ok, as long as you are not expecting anything special like a David Sheperd restoration. (They are similar in quality to Grapevine Videos product).
I also suspect that this disc has been ported from a couple UK (PAL) DVD's released a couple years ago by a company called IVL. My reasons for this assumption are as follows:
1. The two uk disc's released in 2004 have exactly the same shorts in exactly the same order as this new Televista disc.
2. The running time of the two UK disc's added together is exactly the same as the total running time of this new Televista disc.
3. The last 10 or 20 seconds on the second UK had a fault on the sound track (a loud hiss), this fault is present on the Televista disc right at the end.
In summary this is quite a good collection that I would recommend if you do not already have most of the titles on it. October 5, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...