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

Caught in a Cabaret (1914)

This collection of the Keystone Film Company short comedies that feature Charles Chaplin is the result of a multiyear cooperative restoration program between the British Film Institute, the Cineteca di Bologna, and Lobster Films, Paris, in cooperation with Association Chaplin.

Some of the restoration footage has never been seen on home video before as the source prints utilized for previously-released DVD, laserdisc and VHS videotape editions were often incomplete.

This Blu-ray Disc edition has been mastered from 4K and 2K high-resolution scans of archival prints.

The films are accompanied by music scores by Renee C. Baker, The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Andrew Earle Simpson and others.

This will likely be the best home video editions of many of these films. A companion volume containing three feature films and a fragment of a fourth was also released under the title The Intrigue.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region A Blu-ray Disc edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

The films are accompanied by music scores by Renee C. Baker, The Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, Makia Matsumura, Maud Nelissen, Dana Reason, Aleksandra Vrebalov and others.

This will likely be the best DVD home video editions of many of these films. A companion volume containing three feature films and a fragment of a fourth was also released under the title The Intrigue.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 DVD edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 DVD edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
United Kingdom: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 1 DVD edition from Amazon.co.uk. Support Silent Era.

This four-disc DVD collection has, for the most part, been mastered from 35mm source material to render the best-looking editions of these Keystone films on home video. The prints are often conflated from two or more 35mm prints, with missing footage duplicated from 16mm reduction prints. The results are generally very-good to excellent, with moments of fair to good footage. Many of the 35mm source prints are worn, but the picture clarity allows the identification of supporting actors and extras much easier than from earlier home video editions from substandard 16mm and 8mm reduction prints.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed by Antonio Coppola.

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.