Charley Chase at Hal Roach. The Late Silents: 1927 features fifteen great Chase shorts, most of them unseen for years. Here’s the trailer, and read on for a review. Spoiler alert: it’s insanely good, and you should buy it.

There’s a – quite possibly apochryphal  –  legend that Charley Chase buried a boxcar full of his old film prints and personal memorabilia somewhere in the San Jacinto desert. That rumour may never be verified, but this latest DVD/BluRay collection from The Sprocket Vault gets us close in spirit to unveiling such a Chase treasure trove. The films here have been largely unseen for decades; some were considered lost, others locked away in archives, or withheld due to copyright restrictions. When The Sprocket Vault  began their series of Chase DVDs a few years ago with his talkie shorts, this already seemed like an unlikely and amazing bonus; when they moved on to his uber-rare (and hilarious) 1929 films, I thought I’d seen everything. But this set is the culmination of everything that Richard M Roberts and Kit Parker have been working towards in the series so far. It’s yet another release I never thought I’d see, and it presents some of the greatest silent short comedies ever made, rescued from the void. Quite simply, this is one of the most important silent comedy DVD/Blu Ray releases ever.

Why? Well, it represents the biggest release of “new” (ie. largely unseen) Chase films in years, and they capture him at the peak of his powers. 1927 was maybe Charley’s annus mirabilis.  He made many of his best films, and was Roach’s biggest star. A reminder of his status is that both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear as supporting actors to him in that year’s Now I’ll Tell One, the remaining footage of which is included here. Within a year, the Laurel & Hardy team would supplant him as the big news from Culver City, and Chase would forever play second, or third, fiddle to them.

However, the work presented here is compelling evidence – perhaps the most compelling yet? – for Chase’s status in the top echelon of silent film comedians. There’s a dazzling array of comedy techniques on display  – from farce (Assistant Wives,  A One Mama Man) to topical humour (Us), and adroitly handled slapstick and sight gags (The Way of All Pants, Are Brunettes Safe?).

A couple of the films have been seen before, but scattered across a variety of releases, often in poor quality. They look much improved here, courtesy of the restorations by Paul Gierucki at CineMuseum, and its great to have films like Forgotten Sweeties  and There Ain’t No Santa Claus  available as part of a cohesive Chase collection. The most familiar film here is Fluttering Hearts, which is so good that I’m sure no-one would begrudge owning another copy. After that, almost everything is new to Chase fans. And what joys there are to experience. I don’t want to give everything away in this review, but here are a few samplers:

Are Brunettes Safe is a wonderful comedy featuring Chase standing in for his doppleganger, who turns out to be a dangerous bandit. There’s some terrific physical comedy here as he has to incorporate the villain’s distinctive limp into his impersonation. This climaxes in another one of his fantastic eccentric dances, with Polly Moran.

A One Mama Man has great performances from both Gale Henry and Vernon Dent (rarely spotted at Roach) to add to the fun. This film was remade by Chase as the talkie Skip The Maloo! In 1931, but this version is much superior.

Assistant Wives is one of his best farces – another ridiculous premise, made believable by Chase’s perfect characterization and storytelling. A terrific cast here, too: Anita Garvin, Noah Young, Eugene Pallette and Edna Marian all add to the fun as Charley has to hire a stand-in wife when the boss invites himself to dinner. Some beautiful, original gags as well; Charley trying to carry three bowls of soup backwards up a fire escape is a particular highlight.

The jewels in the crown are the long-unseen, complete versions of two films sampled in Robert Youngson’s comedy compilations. A brief section of the Lindbergh-baiting Us  was seen in Four Clowns. Alongside the other Chase excerpts showcased there, I’d always been a little underwhelmed by this one, but the whole film is an absolute delight. While there are quite a few silent comedies featuring aerobatic finales, Us is a winner by virtue of relying on Chase’s character to provide the comedy. A nervous would-be flyer afraid to leave the ground, he presents himself as an aviator to impress Margaret Quimby, then has to constantly find new excuses to weasel out of actually going up in an aeroplane. This makes for some really funny sequences, and the film looks beautiful too.

The Way of All Pants was, for many years, thought to only exist in the cut-down excerpt featured in The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy. Even in that truncated format, it was an absolute barnstormer of a comedy, but happily the full version was rediscovered a few years ago. The extra space of the full version really sets up the characters, and provides plenty of wonderful new gags (not forgetting the witty original intertitles). While losing trousers for comedy purposes can seem like a hackneyed idea, Chase’s absolutely mastery of how to provide variations on a running gag, expertly paced, make this one of the best of all his films, and among the top tier of Hal Roach comedies. We were privileged to showcase this new restoration at the 2023 Silent Laughter Weekend, and many people said it was their favourite film of the entire weekend!

The Way of All Pants  is also a great example of how Chase’s silent films have such perfect rhythm, not just the way they are directed and edited, but in Chase’s own pitch-perfect timing and body control. I was really struck by this when watching all the shorts on this set.

This set ranks along with All Day Entertainment’s Harry Langdon: Lost & Found set, Lobster’s Charley Bowers collection, Dave Glass’ Monty Banks restorations and Undercrank’s Edward Everett Horton set as a major, game-changing showcase for a silent comedy talent. And, if the films themselves weren’t enough, you get great musical scores from Dr Andrew Simpson, and information-packed commentaries from Richard M Roberts, which really put the films into their historical context. Massive thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in making this release happen. It puts Chase at the forefront of the silent comedians, where he belongs. Now, what are you waiting for? Go buy it!