City Lights: The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl with whom he has fallen in love. The Kid: The Tramp cares for an abandoned child but events put that relationship in jeopardy... The Circus: The Tramp finds work and the girl of his dreams at a circus... Monsieur Verdoux: A suave yet cynical man supports his family by marrying and murdering rich women for their money but the job has some unforseen occupational hazards... Also include
This Chaplin Collection DVD box set contains the following films, also available separately: The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952). Full details can be found in our Chaplin Collection feature. There are also two films exclusive to this box set: A Woman of Paris (1923) and A King in New York (1957), plus the documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin--see DVD Description below.
Duel of The Champions: A Roman nobleman leading an Imperial Legion is captured but by a fortunate accident manages to escape. On the way home he fights his way through a series of dangerous situations. Trapped: In this high-class film noir a sleazy convict is allowed to 'escape' from prison by government agents who hope that he will lead them to hidden counterfeit printing plates. The Big Chance: A novice fighter faces his toughest challenge yet as he takes on the reigning champion. Mickey Rooney makes an early appearance as a young boxing fan
Gritty boxing drama about an ambitious young boxer Arthur Wilson (Mickey Rooney) who ignores the advice of his rugged trainer and makes a poor choice of associates. He goes up against a veteran boxer after gangsters have put in the fix only to decide to go for the win against the odds and his life. Only his girlfriend can save him from himself.
Made in 1928 while he was in the middle of a painful divorce case, Charlie Chaplin's The Circus was so associated with bad memories for its maker that he refused even to mention it in his 1964 autobiography. Consequently, it has enjoyed less of a reputation than films such as The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). However, while it's not quite in their league, The Circus undoubtedly deserves to be rescued from relative obscurity. Here, Chaplin's Tramp is taken on as a clown at the circus, having been chased into the big tent by a policeman wrongly suspected of theft and wowing the audience with his pratfalls. He falls in love with the ill-treated ringmaster's daughter (Merna Kennedy) but is swiftly rivalled by a new addition to the circus, a handsome tightrope walker. To try to win back her affections the Tramp attempts the same act, culminating in the best sequence of the film, when he is assailed by monkeys as he totters amateurishly and precariously along a rope suspended high in the tent. Although The Circus is marred by the rather hackneyed and (even in 1928) stale melodramatic device of the cruel father and imploring daughter, it scores high on its slapstick content, with routines involving a hall of mirrors and a mishap with a magician's equipment demonstrating Chaplin's dazzling ability to choreograph apparently improvised mayhem. On the DVD: The Circus features a generous trove of extras on this two-disc set, including extracts from Lord Mountbatten's home movies of Chaplin, a deleted scene involving a prankster prize-fighter, as well as original footage showing how the perfectionist Chaplin would shoot and reshoot scenes. An introduction from David Robinson explains the adverse circumstances which held up the shooting of The Circus, including a fire and gales, which destroyed the set, while a further documentary delves into Chaplin's earliest work to provide context for the film. On the first disc, the film itself is an excellent transfer. --David Stubbs
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