Janus Teases At New Charlie Chaplin Site, Unveils Poster Art

In the May e-mail newsletter from Criterion, they announced that Janus had acquired the rights to the entire Charlie Chaplin catalog, causing cinephiles everywhere to collectively hold their breath at the prospect of adding the film legend into the Collection.

On June 19th, the American Cinematheque will be screening The Gold Rush along with several other Chaplin short films, courtesy of Janus Films. This past week, we saw another piece of Chaplin news, in that the film A Thief Catcher was discovered in an Antique Sale. The film features an extended cameo from Chaplin. It is unknown at this point where the rights to this film lie, and it is doubtful that it is part of the licensing deal that Janus has with the Chaplin catalog. A Thief Catcher represents the 82 film in his official filmography, which spanned from 1914 through 1967.

To celebrate Janus’ upcoming screening run, and eventual release in the Criterion Collection, they have created a new page on their website. At this point it is just a poster image, with “coming soon” at the top of the page. The poster lists the following titles, indicating they will be presented “all in new 35mm prints“:

• The Circus (1928)
  
• City Lights (1931)
  
• Modern Times (1936)
  
• The Great Dictator (1940)
  
• The Gold Rush (1925)
  
• Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
  
• Limelight (1952)
  
• A King in New York (1957)
  
• A Dog’s Life (1918)
  
• Shoulder Arms (1918)
  
• Sunnyside (1919)
  
• A Day’s Pleasure (1919)
  
• The Kid (1921)
  
• The Idle Class (1921)
  
• Pay Day (1922)
  
• The Pilgrim (1923)
  
• A Woman In Paris (1923)
  

It’s presumable that the page will feature screening times and locations for the various runs of Chaplin films around the country, along with trailers and individual poster art, as most of their other sub-sites feature.

With June 15th quickly approaching, along with the inevitable new release announcement for September 2010, many here at the Criterion Cast predict we’ll see some exciting Chaplin releases to follow. Being that there are so many titles they now have access to, it is likely that Criterion will be releasing both standalone releases, as well as collected box set, both with a Criterion “C” and the Eclipse “E”.

Which of these Chaplin re-releases are you most excited about? Which would you want to see as standalone Criterion titles, versus those that you’d like collected in a box set?

Below is a trailer from the 2003 Warner Home Video release of the various Charlie Chaplin films on DVD, to give you a sampling across his body of work: