Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2013 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Caught in the Rain (1914)

This early Charles Chaplin comedy is another of the flirting-in-the-park escapades that punctuated his work at the Keystone studio in 1914. Chaplin is ably supported by Mack Swain and Alice Davenport.

Drunken and flirting Charlie is rebuffed by a woman and her irate husband in the park. Back at their hotel, Charlie stumbles into the couple again causing them his usual Keystone distress.

This edition has been mastered from a contrasty but good-quality 16mm reduction print prepared by Essex Films. There is some loss of highlight and shadow details, however the middle graytones are coarse but intact. Like most of the Keystone films, this film has obviously survived as a dupe of a dupe (of a dupe) — at least three sets of 35mm sprocket holes are visible at the right-side of the picture. The visual quality of the source print is not great, but the natural-speed video transfer itself is pretty good. The slightly windowboxed transfer will make the picture appear as full-frame on most televisions. A small “RCDVD” legend in yellow type runs over the lower right-hand corner of the picture for 12 seconds in the middle of the film. Intended to discourage would-be video pirates, we still wish that it wasn’t there — even for such a short time.

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by Ben Model. It is quite pleasant to have custom music scores on DVD product from 16mm prints by small home video producers.

Not at all that common on home video, this DVD edition of Caught in the Rain is current the only one we know of. It is also better-looking than many surviving Keystone films we have seen on home video.

Other KEYSTONE comedy films available on home video.