Floorwalker question

Okay, so I was watching Unknown Chaplin last night, and got to the marvelous segment with Eric Campbell chasing Chaplin down an escalator for about 30 seconds. It's framed in such a way that it appears to be from a release print, and the quality suggests this too.

The scene is nowhere near as long in the Shepard restoration, I just checked the Image dvd, and it's not there.

So, the question is, where the heck does this come from? Is it from a foreign release, or what? I know that there's a seperate version of Floorwaler out there, we just discussed this a few days ago, but this has not been mentioned, and I can find nothing on it.

What gives?

On the same note, the footage of this scene in the Youngson compilation 30 Years of Fun, which I have on 16mm, seems to be longer than the same sequence in my Super 8 Blackhawk print of The Floorwalker.

Applause, Mark! I think I can solve this, but I need to spend some time on it first...

OK. It's the same as the silent Blackhawk version, which looks like it was sourced from a Kodascope.

The Unknown Chaplin version is the same as the silent Blackhawk version?

Then why the heck is this missing from the Image version? And what else is different between the two?

The silent (pre-1975) Blackhawk edition is mastered from a rather battered 16mm Kodascope (1920's rental print). The DVD is a remastering of the post-1975 Blackhawk version, which came from the Van Beuren negative.

The silent version also has the alternate shot with the mannakin, I think, and certainly has the note that Eric Campbell reads - which goes a long way towards explaining the plot. It also has the intertitles intact (although not the original Mutual titles).

Okay Doug, I'll bite,

What does the note say?

Frodis

Mr. George Brush,

General Manager of the Big Store,

Dear Sir: Discovered $80,000 shortage in your accounts. Sending detectives to investigate.

M. Lowenstein

I know the Van Beuren version tried to eliminate reminders that the Chaplin Mutuals were silent films by removing the titles (and THE FLOORWALKER is one short where they did that), but I can't imagine why they'd go so far as to eliminate the note and make it impossible to understand the plot (unless they felt the quality of the note was too difficult to read).

Could it be because of foreign distribution?

While you folks are on the subject of The Floorwalker, I just came across this paragraph taken in part from the April 22, 1916 issue of Reel Life, Mutuals trade journal:

Work on the new comedy (The Floorwalker) had its serious as well as its funny side. This was demonstrated a few days ago when Chaplin, during the filming of one of the scenes on the escalator, had a narrow escape from painful injury. All that saved him, it was learned later, was one of his shoes, famous the world over for their length and width. On one of his trips up the moving stairway Chaplin slipped as he neared the top. The point of his shoes had caught between the steps. There was a sound of breaking wood and a gasp from those watching him work. Chaplin, however, managed to extricate himself. Then it was found that he was uninjured