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

The Adventurer (1917)

Charles Chaplin was delighted when he began fulfilling his 1916 contract with the Mutual Film Company, a distribution outfit that handled the films of many of the top film producers of the time. The contract was the first made with Chaplin’s own production company, which meant that he could produce his comedies with total creative control.

The Mutual comedies show signs of Chaplin maturing as a cinema artist. His Mutual stories became more carefully constructed and less reliant on senseless bash-and-bop slapstick. The gags show flashes of comic brilliance.

— Carl Bennett

This dual-format Blu-ray Disc / DVD edition of the last of the twelve Chaplin Mutual contract films features a new high-definition pillarboxed video transfer from 35mm archival materials, including additional footage and quality improvements from film materials which have surfaced since David Shepard’s earlier home video editions. The edition has been a cooperative project of Cineteca de Bologna, Film Preservation Associates and Lobster Films, Paris, in cooperation with Association Chaplin.

As stated in the introduction to the film, The Adventurer was reconstructed from a 35mm diacetate positive held by the Library of Congress and a 35mm nitrate positive held at the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, with some missing fragments added from a 35mm nitrate positive from the Lobster Films collection which was preserved by and is held by the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image animée [CNC]. The English language intertitles were reconstructed from records of the original Mutual intertitles and styled according to 1920s rerelease prints. The restoration work was performed by Lobster Films in 2013.

The running times are slightly longer here than in previous home video editions. We hope that apart from a different video transfer frame rate this also means that additional footage will be seen that has not been part of previous editions.

As would be expected, the film has never looked as good on home video as from the Blu-ray Disc in this collection. However, there are still fragments missing from the restoration as evidenced by a very few abrupt changes in narrative locations.

The film is presented with optional music scores; the default score is an orchestral score performed by The Robert Israel Orchestra, composed and conducted by Robert Israel, with an alternate improvisational piano score by Neil Brand. In the latter half of the film, the sparce sound effects in the Israel score are out-of-sync with the film’s action.

The supplemental material includes a 28-page booklet, the documentary The Birth of the Tramp (2013); the documentary Chaplin’s Goliath (1996) on Chaplin star heavy Eric Campbell.

The collection is issued in limited-edition steelbook packaging, which we feel must be handled gingerly to avoid damaging its discs and the case itself.

USA: Click the logo to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc / Region 1 DVD edition from Amazon.com. Purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logo to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc / Region 1 NTSC DVD from Amazon.ca. Purchase supports Silent Era.
This Region A Blu-ray Disc / Region 1 NTSC DVD edition is also available directly from . . .

Don’t consider buying this collection for the Chaplin Mutual films. The Mutual films have all been released on DVD home video in far superior editions transferred from 35mm prints. Cobra Entertainment (successor to Delta) rereleased remaining stock of this disc onto the market in 2010.

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.
DELTA ENTERTAINMENT has discontinued business and this Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is . . .

Other SHORT COMEDY FILMS of the silent era available on home video.