THE PILGRIM / First National alternate versions

[Uli Ruedel]

Posted yesterday by Joao Antônio Franz dos Santos, with thanks to Chris Seguin for forwarding the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE0s-gTabHI

Uli

[Richard M Roberts]

Posted yesterday by Joao Antônio Franz dos Santos, with thanks to Chris Seguin for forwarding the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE0s-gTabHI

Uli

I have another silent print that I think is different than both of these.

So, is that "Bound for Texas" song one of the great examples of Chaplin not being brilliant? Does it now have to endlessly ruin any version of THE PILGRIM shown due to Family decree?


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Pasquale Ventura]

Richard M Roberts
So, is that "Bound for Texas" song one of the great examples of Chaplin not being brilliant? Does it now have to endlessly ruin any version of THE PILGRIM shown due to Family decree?

That and the "Swing, little girl, swing" title song opening THE CIRCUS.

Pasquale

[Richard M Roberts]

Richard M Roberts
So, is that "Bound for Texas" song one of the great examples of Chaplin not being brilliant? Does it now have to endlessly ruin any version of THE PILGRIM shown due to Family decree?

That and the "Swing, little girl, swing" title song opening THE CIRCUS.

Pasquale

At least that's only over the opening titles (and that actually works in a sort of sad, whimsical way), but that damn Texas song plays all over the CHAPLIN REVUE version of THE PILGRIM, and it's step printed as well! Absolute torture.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

They should have gotten Gene Autry to record it.

So when Rollie Totheroh was creating clean prints of the First Nationals for Chaplin during the war by using outtakes and alternative takes and double takes......was he not satisfied with just doing the job once? Did he keep returning to the editing bay to create 4...5...6 different versions of THE PILGRIM and then flood the market with them and sit back and watch the fun as film collectors would argue to this day over who has the complete version?
I thought I use to have a handle on the fact that Chaplin's films were so popular that negatives got worn out and replacement footage was needed to replace the original footage, but we seem to have an unlimited supply of replacement footage. I could herd 10 film collectors into a room and have them all show their print of the same Chaplin title and we would be watching 10 different versions. Does this ever end?

[Richard M Roberts]

They should have gotten Gene Autry to record it.

So when Rollie Totheroh was creating clean prints of the First Nationals for Chaplin during the war by using outtakes and alternative takes and double takes......was he not satisfied with just doing the job once? Did he keep returning to the editing bay to create 4...5...6 different versions of THE PILGRIM and then flood the market with them and sit back and watch the fun as film collectors would argue to this day over who has the complete version?
I thought I use to have a handle on the fact that Chaplin's films were so popular that negatives got worn out and replacement footage was needed to replace the original footage, but we seem to have an unlimited supply of replacement footage. I could herd 10 film collectors into a room and have them all show their print of the same Chaplin title and we would be watching 10 different versions. Does this ever end?

I have two different prints of THE PILGRIM, both containing alternate takes. I have three very different prints of A DOG'S LIFE, including a South American original First National release print with spanish titles, and two reels of an original American First National release. Three different prints of SHOULDER ARMS, including a Pathe Kodascope, probably B negative, a french titled print of unknown origin, and another print that was a reversal of another unknown print source containing different takes. I have numerous prints in various guages of the Mutual and Essanays containing alternates and different scenes. This is why I take such pleasure in watching the cinephile internerds whine and moan about not finding "definitive" prints of so many Chaplin's films and unable to enjoy what "restored" versions they have (then again, they have plenty more time to worry and check over these flaws in these Shepard slo-mo versions anyway, especially as they are not having to spend any time laughing because the humor has been sucked out of them).

The fact is that Chaplin was such a major star and there was such a demand for prints of his films that there were many negs prepared for different international markets, and when those wore out, new ones prepared from the mass volume of outtakes he shot as his films were endlessly reissued. There is no way one could ever put together a "definitive" print of most of his films.The other thing I never mentioned before that could drive Martin Ariass at Nitratevile crazy is the fact that Chaplin could have and most likely did cut different variations on his shorts for the American and International markets, especially during his late Essanay and Mutual period when he was taking quite a hit from some major American critics about the level of vulgarity in his films, so there may have indeed been more vomit gags in the overseas versions of THE IMMIGRANT than in the American prints.

So yes, there are a lot of different Chaplin prints around, no, it will never end, and----GET OVER IT! Consider yourselves lucky that it's like being able to see him perform live on different nights and getting to see variations in his performance, or would todays Cinenerds take him to task for not being exactly the same in person every night? It's the same pleasure we 78 collectors have when we get alternate takes of favorite jazz and hot dance records, gee, the same great band giving two different performances of the same song, or would the cinemaroons want to put the alternates together left and right channel and listen to the cacaphony? Some of us actually do watch and listen to these things for entertainment.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

I was not complaining, nor was I inferring that I needed a 'definitive' version. Don't box me in with your ongoing war with the cinema-nerds who cry and kvetch over every new release slight - real or imagined. I have rarely gave a hoot over the issues that cause the majority of internet users to get their undies in a bundle and cause reams of rants to float around cyber-space - issues like orchestrations, video compression, the packaging the product comes in, even the speed issue never really interests me (Although they are fun to read). I've been watching these films since I was a child, in prints so dark and murky and scratched up that even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them. And despite that they fascinated me. And they still do today. As a consumer I'm satisfied with the fact that the films look better today than they did 50 years ago.

What I find intriguing is that Chaplin - that great control-freak - should have so many prints in circulation around the world and no two are rarely alike. Most just have minor differences, to be sure, but they are still differences. CASABLANCA has been rather popular since the day it was released, and yet I don't recall ever watching a print of that film with a few alternative takes that weren't there before.

That's all I'm saying. Which I though was made rather clear in my first post.

[Richard M Roberts]

I was not complaining, nor was I inferring that I needed a 'definitive' version. Don't box me in with your ongoing war with the cinema-nerds who cry and kvetch over every new release slight - real or imagined. I have rarely gave a hoot over the issues that cause the majority of internet users to get their undies in a bundle and cause reams of rants to float around cyber-space - issues like orchestrations, video compression, the packaging the product comes in, even the speed issue never really interests me (Although they are fun to read). I've been watching these films since I was a child, in prints so dark and murky and scratched up that even their own mothers wouldn't recognize them. And despite that they fascinated me. And they still do today. As a consumer I'm satisfied with the fact that the films look better today than they did 50 years ago.

What I find intriguing is that Chaplin - that great control-freak - should have so many prints in circulation around the world and no two are rarely alike. Most just have minor differences, to be sure, but they are still differences. CASABLANCA has been rather popular since the day it was released, and yet I don't recall ever watching a print of that film with a few alternative takes that weren't there before.

That's all I'm saying. Which I though was made rather clear in my first post.

You asked if it would ever end, you got your answer, with a few well-placed shots at the Internerds, what the hell else do ya want?


It boils down to silent films not being such an exact science, these were hand-made and assembled films, and no one was thinking about posterity or even the future of these films a year or more from when they were made. They were striking prints from the camera negs because good internegs hadn't been invented yet. A lot of silent films never saw more than forty prints struck. This all started to change by the sound era, but even then, there is a good chance that foreign versions of even classic films will have different scenes in them (remember all those great Hammer Horror Films where the blood and breasts were only in the European cuts).

The only ones bothered by this are the anal-retentives and the ones concerned with "art", the movie business was never art, it was and is commerce. Trying to find definitive versions of any film is like trying to find the definitive Chinese knockoff of the latest Nike Trainers, can't be done.

Chaplin only wanted to be considered an "artist" later on, he and Syd were mostly concerned about making as much money as possible without having to make that many films, that meant patching up the old ones as best they could and shipping them out again when the need arose.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Gary Johnson]

I sensed that you were including me in on your shots at the 'internerds' with your phrase, "GET OVER IT". So I reacted.

But Richard, this is not about you....or your fight about how the history of silent film is finally written. To me this is a film puzzle.
Of all the major silent comedians, Chaplin's films seem to have the most alterations. Why else was it such big news when a new cut to Keaton's THE BLACKSMITH appeared recently? All of his previous prints seem to retain the creator's original intent. And when it comes to Lloyd's and Langdon's films there is not a lot of talk about collectors owning different versions. I just find it interesting that Chaplin's films seem to have the most variations to them.

Chaplin only wanted to be considered an "artist" later on, he and Syd were mostly concerned about making as much money as possible without having to make that many films, that meant patching up the old ones as best they could and shipping them out again when the need arose.

Well, this I do not buy at all. I see Chaplin as worried about his 'art' or his 'commerce.....' or just call it his 'oeuvre', from the very beginning. We have his letters written back home to England during his first year at Sennett where he relates his list of film productions to Syd. It's the reason we had an inkling that A THIEF CATCHER existed. Who else would had written about this if they hadn't figured that this was in some way historical? For I feel that Chaplin felt that everything he produced was historical.

[Richard M Roberts]

Well, it's only a mystery because you;re not stopping and really thinking about it. The reason you have so many variations in the Chaplin prints is that there were more Chaplin prints about! Buster Keaton's films were not endlessly reissued and distributed, so it is a rarer occasion when foreign and domestic versions show differences, but apart from many alternate versins of THE BLACKSMITH, there are domestic and foreign prints of STEAMBOAT BILL JR., THE GENERAL, OUR HOSPITALITY and SHERLOCK JR. about. There are also unfortunately Keaton films these days that only currently exist in most likely inferior foreign versions.

For the most part, the Langdon features only survive in the Rohauer prints that came from Mabel Langdon and were Langdon's own personal prints (though Eastman House has a fine grain on THREES A CROWD I would like to see become available someday). There are plenty of variations in foreign and domestic version of other comedians films, but no one cares to make such a big noise about it. The surviving and circulating version of Sennett's THE SHRIEK OF ARABY is a russian print, that is cut sloppily and devoid of much of its humor, but in one of the Warner Sennett Compilations there is a big chunk of the climax from ARABY in the Domestic cut and it is hilarious. Joe Adamson told me that Stuart Heisler told him that when he was an editor at Sennett, that they would slap the foreign negs together from whatever they had left in the outtakes, and if they didn't have extra coverage of gags and scenes that were in the domestic version, they didn't have those gags and scenes in the foreign negs. In short, the importance of foreign negs was way below the importance of the domestic neg.

Chaplin loved to give lip service to his "art", what he was always concerned about was control, and hey, if the old negs had worn out on SHOULDER ARMS or A DOG'S LIFE, perfectly okay for Rollie Totheroh to slap together a new neg from secondary or thirdary or fourthary takes. If he thought audiences wouldn't sit through THE GOLD RUSH with it's intertitles intact, hey, cut them all out and gab over the soundtrack. Slo-mo speeds big with Henri Langois and the european film "intelligensia" of the late 50's, then step-print those slapped-together new negs of the First National shorts into mondo-boredom and make them palatable to the folk who will buy tickets that week. Chaplin was no fool, he knew what business he was in.



RICHARD M ROBERTS