Chaplin comedies highlight list of new DVDs

A wide variety of movies have made their way to DVD this week, led by a local company's reissue of 12 early Charlie Chaplin comedy shorts.

• "The Chaplin Mutual Comedies" (Hale, 1916-17, three discs, b/w, $20). Modern audiences tend to associate "slapstick" with "low comedy" — from the Three Stooges knocking each other around to Will Ferrell running around in his underwear.

But watching the growth and development of Chaplin's talent in these shorts made for the Mutual Film Corp. demonstrates his genius in full bloom as he creates intricate slapstick farce that is hilarious but also quite artful. Even a pratfall flows like ballet.

Contained in this set are the string of brilliant pictures that Chaplin wrote, directed and starred in for Mutual — all completed in a two-year span (!) — before he began thinking in larger, more complex (and feature-length) terms.

Some are more fully realized than others, but all show us a genuine artist in action as he lays the meticulous groundwork for the classic features that would follow. And the prints here are excellent.

Contained here in the order of their theatrical release are "The Floorwalker," "The Fireman," "The Vagabond," "One AM," "The Count," "The Pawnshop," "Behind the Screen," "The Rink," "Easy Street," "The Cure," "The Immigrant" and "The Adventurer."

And they are augmented by Blaine Gale's witty musical (and sound effects) accompaniment, recorded live at the Organ Loft in Salt Lake City — complete with the laughter of audiences in attendance. The featurettes, one on each disc, are, respectively, actor biographies, a look at the Organ Loft's "mighty Wurlitzer' and an interview with Gale.

This set may be purchased at Hale Video Services (www.halevideo.com) or at the Organ Loft, where silents are shown on a regular basis with Gale providing live accompaniment on that amazing Wurlitzer Organ. (And $20 is a very good price; other collections of these films cost twice as much.)

Extras: full frame, 12 short films, featurettes

• "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" (MusicBox, 2006, $24.98). This is a riotous French spoof of '60s spy films, specifically aimed at James Bond by way of "Get Smart." From the rear-projection backgrounds behind automobiles to the bright color schemes to the star's arch poses, this one does much better what Leslie Nielsen and Rowan Atkinson tried to pull off in "Spy Hard" and "Johnny English," respectively.

Some gags fall flat but most are on the mark, including a few sly references to modern events as Agent OSS 117 (an actor resembling Sean Connery) goes to Egypt and in his own obtuse way foils the bad guys and insults Muslims at every turn. Favorite running gag: He "tries" to take up smoking.

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