World premiere Keystones release on DVD

Verzonden: dinsdag 10 februari 2009 15:53:12
Aan: 'Johnny te Lintelo' (

The release of the Keystones is set for Autumn 2009

Thanks for your interest Bryony Dixon| Curator - Silent filmBFI National Archive | 21 Stephen Street | London W1T 1LNTel 020 7957 8951 | Fax 020 7580 7503 | www.bfi.org.uk

-----Original Message-----

From: Johnny te Lintelo [mailto:]Sent: 31 January 2009 11:55To: Bryony DixonSubject: [website] Keystones (J t.Lintelo) User's Organisation:

Dear BFI,

I have a question when can we look forward to the release of the Charlie Chaplin Keystones on DVD?
Is there any news about the DVD's. Thanks for answering.

All the best,

Johnny te Lintelo

The referring page was: http://chaplin.bfi.org.uk/restoring/bfi/

Wow, Johnny! That's magnificent Great you inquired and fantastic it is coming out this autumn. Something to look forward to

Thank you ever so much!

Some of the Keystones have been shown on filmfestivals and in London by BFI. Who has seen them and can give some background information?
What is interesting is that on youtube some of world's oldest footage is to be seen. Some stuff is very old, but interesting in excellent quality. Everything has to do with the quality of the master. On the internet you can find material of the Purple Chick label a free distributed group of Beatlesfans who have remastered the Beatles catalogue in an unbelievable quality. You find their stereo, mono and every outake that is available remastered. The 2 LP from 1968 The Beatles is now a 10 CD set. You can throw your old albums away so good is the quality. Somewhere in 2009 EMI will release new Beatles masters for the first time since 1987. The same can be done with Chaplin material. On the BFI website you can find their list of 400 + films of outakes. Things like The Immigrant could be rereleased with all the outakes available.

A still from The Great Train Robbery. When this part of the film was first shown, viewers used to run from the screen in fear, because the actor aiming a gun at the audience appeared so real to viewers unaccustomed to motion pictures. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)

The Great Train Robbery is a 1903 western film by Edwin S. Porter. Twelve minutes long, it is considered a milestone in film making, expanding on Porter's previous work Life of an American Fireman. The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes. None of the techniques were original to The Great Train Robbery, and it is now considered that it was heavily influenced by Frank Mottershaw's earlier British film A Daring Daylight Burglary.[1] The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length. It was quite successful in theaters and was imitated many times.

The movie was directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter, a former Edison Studios cameraman. Actors in the movie included A. C. Abadie, Broncho Billy Anderson and Justus D. Barnes, although there were no credits. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Johnny, I have sent you a PM - could you please have a look in your PM box?

Any thoughts about the Keystones??????