The BFI’s last DVD release of 2010, out on 6 December, is a landmark 4-disc box set, Chaplin at Keystone. This stunning collection of the 34 surviving Chaplin Keystone films is the result of an 8 year international restoration project by several partners including the BFI, to restore Chaplin's earliest films to as near to their original release versions as possible.
After being seen in Fred Karno’s touring vaudeville troupe, Charlie Chaplin joined Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company in late 1913. After a few initial uneasy steps, his rise was meteoric – making 35 films in a single year, directing more than half of them.
Reconstructed from the best surviving 35mm fragments from all over the world, the Chaplin Keystone films are a revelation, showing how Chaplin learned to apply his talent to film, how he developed the much loved 'Tramp' character and why he shot to stardom. A host of extras include the recent rediscovery of Chaplin's very first appearance on film in A Thief Catcher (1914).
