Tillie's Punctured Romance - thoughts

Well, I finally got a copy of the Image dvd, with the David Shepherd restoration.

First of all, I have to say, what a royal pain in the ass this project must have been! I know it was also done some time ago, so a few glitches in the video can be excused. Overall, very impressive!

However, while watching, I couldn't help but notice several really poor shots, several where the camera panned suddenly, and one where Chaplin is in some sort of action with a maid, but we can't see it for the servant standing in the line of sight! (Poor staging)

I can't help but wonder how quickly this thing was shot and edited, for such stuff to end up in the film. Is this the norm for Keystone?

Also, is there another GOOD version of this on dvd in any country?

A 'good' copy of that movie is impossible. That was one of the worst films ever, despite its star power.

You'll just have to wait until UCLA finishes their restoration . They have the one truly complete print in existence(a 16mm from the John Hampton collection) and they are doing a 35mm restoration of that utilizing other surviving 35mm materials and blowups from the 16mm.

I saw the Hampton print in the seventies, and it is truly a revelation.It is a COMPLETE six reels, making it two reels longer than most other prints. It's the only time I saw the original Alco release titles, and the opening and closing sequences in which Dressler, Chaplin, and Normand first appear as themselves in front of a curtain, then become the characters, and the bit after the curtain closes where they come out and take bows. There was also lots of little plot touches snipped out of most of the other prints that make the film make a lot more sense.

This is why I slap most people silly who say it's a lousy film. In it's complete form, it's a lot of fun. Lets hope we all get to see it that way soon.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

'Tillie' was shot over a period of about three months or so, from April-July 1914. There was an intermission in filming while Marie Dressler recovered from injuries she received (or claimed she received) from the bit where she went over the side of the pier.

The film was edited quickly so that Sennett could take it to New York and try to sell it. The process of getting the film's distribution lined up took far longer than the shooting schedule had. Hardly anybody saw the film until the next year.

Sennett was a terrible director, and 'Tillie' is a terrible film. It's historically important, but it's still a terrible film. The story was adapted from a stage farce, but the film has a heavily improvised feel to it. With some Keystones, improvisation lends some spontaneity, but with 'Tillie,' it just compounds the choppy pacing, as the film lurches from one thing to another until it's finally over after six long reels. In fairness to Sennett, though, our prints aren't really complete, and reviewers at the time loved the film.

I hope they plan to make this publically available somehow, though I doubt the market is crying out for another release of 'Tillie's Punctured Romance'...

What are 'the original Alco release titles'?

I've always wanted to see this with an audience - perhaps that would make it come alive for me. As it is, I own numerous copies of the thing, and still haven't found one that amuses me, even a little. The best thing I can say about the thing is that Mabel is cute.

Was Alco a re-release distributor? Wouldn't the original original release titles be Keystone's?

I haven't seen the complete version you described, but owned the truncated Blackhawk 8mm some 30 years ago. Of course I have the DVD now.

I always thought 'Tillie' was a fascinating film, and a lot of fun to watch. Chaplin in an offbeat role, Dressler mugging, and Keystone faves like Normand, Conklin, et al, make it a good time. I always rather liked it.

We ran a film festival for charity, using 16mm prints, back in the early seventies, and one of the films we ran was someone's 1200ft print of Tillie. It was abridged even moreso than the Blackhawk, but contained the sequence of Mabel and Charlie at the theater, which was not in my Blackhawk print. It was then that I realized that there were likely no absolutely complete copies of Tillie that were readily available.

I'll look forward to seeing the restoration you describe.

JN

Not so much 'with an audience,' but the first time I saw this was when I bought an 8mm Blackhawk and several friends were over to see it (say about eight or ten people). Everyone enjoyed it and laughed through it, so that may be why I like it so much to this day.

First of all, it sounds like from my sources (which are different from Dwight Frippery's) that the UCLA restoration is pretty close to completion.

As for Alco, they were the company (headed by Al Lichtman) that Sennett originally reached an agreement with for distribution, and indeed handled the film in its early stages. However, Alco went belly-up within a couple months (Lichtman was ousted and the company briefly reformed then went under again), and Sennett ended up distributing it on a state's rights basis through the majority of its run. So Alco titles would likely be on an original print.

Brent Walker

So have I, but I cannot understand people who find Keystones in general unfunny. It is true you have to get used to the strange style of mugging/sign language/semaphore that is the Keystone language, but once you do, there's so much wonderful stuff going on. They are really densely packed films, deliberately crass and anarchic with some of the most intricate editing and set-ups in any films of the time. What some clueless historians dismiss as crudity is actually a very intentional stylization, very original when they began and greatly copied as time went on.

TILLIES PUNCTURED ROMANCE had to be a breath of fresh air at the time it was released. There had never been a feature film like it. Most features up to that time were serious dramas, frequently costume spectaculars, and films like QUEEN ELIZABETH with Sarah Bernhardt that have been beaten in pacing by oil paintings. TILLIE moved, was loaded with gags, and had wacky performances by Dressler and Chaplin(it really was the film that cemented his stardom) and most of the other Keystone Stars in nice cameos. It had to look like a veritable feast to 1915(the year most people saw it) audiences.

The only one who believed it was Berle was Berle, it is definitely Gordon Griffith.

RICHARD M ROBERTS