3/5 This DVD was great, but the new restored 90th Anniversary Edition is better.
  by Paul J. Mular (San Carlos, CA USA)
Up until 2006, these were the best copies on DVD. But now David Shepard and Image Entertainment have restored the missing footage and re-mastered the films , addressing the complaints mentioned below.

So buy the "Mutual Restored 90th Anniversary Edition" instead of this edition.

5/5 Slapstick as an art form
  by Robert Morris (San Francisco)
This is the best single volume of Chaplin you can own -- 4 masterpieces from his most creative period, the Mutual films of 1916-1917. Later films like The Circus and The Gold Rush are to a large extent refinements of the ideas first produced here, and are not significantly more satisfying to watch.

The Cure and The Adventurer are in the style of classical two-real slapstick comedy -- not much of a story, but a small number of ideas mined for considerable comic potential. The Cure is somewhat a throwback to Chaplin's Essanay period, where the humor tends to derive from his character's inability or unwillingness to abide by social rules. In this case, Charlie (not appearing as the tramp character) is a recovering alcoholic in a sanatarium who arrives with a suitcase full of liquor, fights with the staff and other patients, and flirts with, and eventually wins, the heart of a fellow patient, played by Edna Perviance. The Cure demonstrates Chaplin's creative growth since the Essanay years by having more diversity in the comic situations, from the classic "rub down" by the sadistic masseur to various encounters with the staff.

The Adventurer's comic roots are closer to the Keystone years, with two long police chase scenes, including one at the beginning, probably unprecedented in the history of films at the time. The chases, however, are light-years away from the crude, chaotic Keystone versions. Here the humor arises from with the ballet-like grace with which the tramp eludes his pursuers.

By contrast to these films, The Immigrant and Easy Street are so dense in comic possibilities that they could easily have been successful feature-length films -- they compress suspense, drama, pathos and character development into 20 minutes of non-stop eye candy. These films replace non-stop comic situations with a combination of memorable comedy and genuinely moving encounters, such as at the end of The Immigrant, where Charlie persuades a playfully reluctant Edna to seek out a Justice of the Peace, all while being caught in a pouring rain. The best comic moments in The Immigrant involve Eric Campbell as the sadistic waiter. Again there is humor heightened by suspense, as we but not the tramp know he has no money to pay the bill. Chaplin perfectly builds the suspense to its satisfying climax, as the tramp once again uses his wits and quick reaction to avoid disaster.

Easy Street is justly viewed as the best of this series, which makes it the best of Charlie's best. Like The Immigrant, it is perfect in economy and execution, but has arguably the most memorable scene in all of Chaplin's movies, the encounter on the street with Charlie the cop and Eric Campbell the king of the street bullies. Again there is humor blended with suspense, as Charlie shyly enters the scene after we have witnessed the carnage that Eric has caused. The encounter again builds flawlessly and climaxes with Charile using a gas light to subdue his nemesis. The rest of Easy Street, from the opening scene in the ghetto mission, to the hopeful conclusion, combines refined humor with compassion for the poor without being preachy.

The only disappointing aspect of this collection is the background music -- it consists of an amateur score performed on an annoying synthetic piano which often does not match well with the action. Turn the volume down and, if you must, listen to some good jazz of the same period while you enjoy the films -- maybe King Oliver. Or leave it quiet -- Charlie will inspire music in your head.

5/5 The best of Chaplin's Mutual comedies are on Volume 1
  by Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota)
The two-reel comedies that Charlie Chaplin made during his one-year contract with the Mutual Film Corporation are considered his best shorts. Having been offered $500,000 from Essanay to stay, Chaplin signed with Mutual for $10,000 a week for one year and a $150,000 signing bonus. More important, Mutual gave Chaplin virtually complete control over his shorts as writer, director, and star. It was during this period that Chaplin refined his filmmaking techniques and set the stage for moving on to longer and better films, from "A Dog's Life" and "The Kid" to his silent feature films such as "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times."

Fortunately Kino started restoring Chaplin's work with both Essanay and Mutual, tracking down the best surviving 35mm negatives, digitally mastering the prints to clean them up, and then adding re-orchestrated musical scores. "The Chaplin Mutuals, Volume 1" actually offers the last four of the dozen two-reelers Chaplin did for Mutual, all of which were released in 1917 and all of which co-starred Edna Purviance as the Tramp's leading lady and had Eric Campbell in the role of the heavy:

"The Immigrant" (Released June 17, 1917) is arguably the best of Chaplin's shorts. He filmed 24 hours of footage over two months to produce a 21-minute film when most two-reelers were shot in two days. When Chaplin began, filming the restaurant scene (with Campbell as the head waiter), the film was going to be about the bohemian life, but the scene was too short and he decided to make the Tramp and the young girl immigrants, creating the opening sequence on the boat and the happy ending. Starting with the simple gag of the Tramp leaning over the ship's railing turning out to be something other than what we think, "The Immigrant" is classic Chaplin.

"Easy Street" (January 22, 1917) would be my choice for the second best of the Chaplin Mutuals. Reformed by Edna, the Missionary's daughter, Chaplin plays a cop whose beat is a wretched slum area, hence the irony of the title. There is a short but intricate chase scene before Edna is kidnapped by a dope addict and has to be rescued by Charlie. On the one hand there is lots of slapstick in this one, but you also have a depiction of urban poverty and violence that is a bit unsettling if you can stop laughing long enough to think about what you are seeing.

"The Adventurer" (October 22, 1917), the last of the films Chaplin did for Mutual, has him Chaplin a convict who escapes after a lengthy chase scene and end up rescuing not only the lovely Edna, but her mother and obnoxious fiance. Hailed as a hero, and presumed to be a wealthy yachtsman as is so often the case in these comedies, Charlie is invited to a dinner party at the Judge's mansion where it is just a question of time before his true identity is revealed.

"The Cure" (April 16, 1917) has Chaplin as a wealthy inebriate who is trying to dry out at a sanitarium where once again the lovely Edna catches his eye. If you have ever seen a clip from this one it is probably Chaplin's comic use of the revolving door and the poor guy with the gouty foot. The big joke is that the supply of booze he has brought in a trunk to survive the experience of sobering up ends up being dumped into the mineral spring, which makes for a lot of happy people in the end.

With "The Immigrant" and "Easy Street" this collection offers two of the very best of Charlie Chaplin's two-reelers. If, for some reason you wanted to only pick up one of the three volumes in this set then this would definitely be the one. But I think the whole set is worthwhile, certainly superior to everything Chaplin did with Keystone and Esssanay and clearly setting the stage for what would follow. I had a class once where I showed one work from each of the five periods of Chaplin's career, defined by the studio he worked for, to show how he progressed from simple reelers like "The Fatal Mallet" to my favorite, "City Lights."

5/5 Curleycue_82 has it down!
  by danielle1414 (Austin, TX)
I agree with you Curleycue_82. I couldn't wait to write a review to these people!

5/5 Also in defense of the Little Fellow...
  by danielle1414 (Austin, TX)
In response to this review: "I don't believe that Chaplin achieved comedic excellence until his features. These shorts are crude physical humor and totally unfunny. Dated stuff."

Dated stuff? Of course it's dated. It's almost 90 years old! Anyone with any common sense, however, can discern the genious of the comedy for the period. What he was doing was breaking away from the mill of Keystone and developing stories with this comedy character. That wasn't done until then. You have to be able to relate the content with the time period and recognize these things. I guess that is hard for some if they don't understand history and fact. That is why you are the only person to write an uneducated, negative review. Did you notice that? Please know your content before you criticize.