Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Mabel’s Strange Predicament (1914)

In their first film together, Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin are part of the usual Keystone chaos. Harry McCoy, Chester Conklin and Al St. John support.

This dual-format Blu-ray Disc / DVD collection has been mastered from 35mm print elements, primarily from the Blackhawk Films collection and the FPA France (Lobster Films collection), and features more than 10 hours of content. This edition, produced for home video by David Shepard, Serge Bromberg, Jeffery Masino and Joshua Morrison, contains 25 silent and sound films, with seven of them being feature-length films.

The film isaccompanied by a music score compiled and performed by Rodney Sauer with The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

The collection’s supplementary material includes audio commentary for The Blot by author and professor Shelley Stamp, and a booklet essay by film historian and Women Film Pioneers Project Manager Kate Saccone.

While several of these films have appeared in earlier home video editions, the appeal of this collection will be the retrospective context of the collection and the updated, high-definition video transfers. A highly recommended collection.

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This quality DVD edition has been mastered from a restoration conflation of a 35mm nitrate print and a 35mm nitrate duplicate negative held by the British Film Institute, which has been transferred by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovita in Italy. The intertitles were digitally reset with texts from a rerelease print and with two original Keystone cards. The results are very-good to excellent, with some processing flaws and print wear remaining in the nitrate positive print.

The film is accompanied by a music score compiled by Rodney Sauer and performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

The collection’s supplemental material includes Charlie et sa Belle [Charlie’s White Elephant] (1916), Inside the Keystone Project (2010) documenting the Chaplin Project (10 minutes), Silent Traces: The Keystone Locations (2010) with John Bengtson, author of Silent Traces (12 minutes), and a stills gallery.

Overall, the improvement in quality over previous home video editions is so great that you’ll toss your other Keystone Chaplin discs when you see this collection. Highly recommended!

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

Other MABEL NORMAND films available on home video.

Other KEYSTONE comedy films available on home video.