He may not be as familiar to modern cinema fans as his contemporaries — as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd – but Charley Chase was one of the pioneers of silent film comedy and this collection of more than five hours of his classic short films is a fantastic chance to rediscover what he was all about. Like a lot of his peers, Charley built his success by playing a stock comedy type in all his films, his choice being a dapper kind of wimp who gets bullied in the first part of the film then finds his spine just in time to exact his revenge – or at least try to — before the movie ends. His humor works best when it gets a chance to play at a slower pace, like it does in Be Your Age where Charley has the time to build a character and not just be a joke machine. His style gets a bit stale, too, if you watch too many of the shorts back-to-back, but in small doses, say a movie or two at a time, he’s one of the best.
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