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Old 09-12-2002, 11:00 PM   #8 (permalink)
Welles and Ford Fan
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Houston, TX USA
AFAIK, only The Gold Rush suffered the fate of having narration added. For years, the redone version with narration was the only available version. I saw that one first, and aside from admiring a few gags, I thought it a rather over-rated movie and not in the league of City Lights. Later, I got a good quality tape of the original (from Blackhawk Films) with the piano score, and it is by far my favorite Chaplin movie.
Incidentally, the "narrated" version had to be constructed entirely of outtakes because the originals had all had the titles inserted, and there was no way to remove them without a noticable jump.

Other changes through the years-Chaplin added a song, written and sung by himself at the beginning of The Circus, but it is very unobtrusive. He also added the music scores to all his First National stuff, including The Kid, and his short films of the period. For a long time, the First National shorts were only available in botched versions with extra frames added to "slow the films down to a 'realistic' speed". They were later released on laserdisc at the correct speed.

Also the laserdisc of City Lights has the score re-recorded by Carl Davis, but the original recording is on another track. Dunno how it fared on DVD.

I seriously doubt any others will be issued with any narration.

Last edited by Welles and Ford Fan : 09-13-2002 at 02:42 AM.
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