Chaplin DVDs polish silver screen

There are perhaps a couple of generations out there, and maybe more, who think of the Little Tramp —that forlorn but resilient little fellow with the small mustache, the well-worn cane, the ill-fitting suit, the bowler hat and the silly walk — as simply an icon.

They've seen his picture on T-shirts and posters, impersonations of him by dancers and skaters in television commercials . . . but they've probably never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie. Or if they have, it was scratchy and grainy and hard to watch.

So they may be wondering, what's the big deal?

Sit those young pups down (even if they're in their 30s) and show them any of the four Chaplin double-disc DVDs that have just come out — including the extras — and perhaps they'll start to get it.

Chaplin didn't just perfect the hilarious (and poignant) pantomime routines he performed for the relatively new motion-picture medium in the 1920s and '30s — he often invented them on the spot. And if he didn't like how they looked in the screening room he scrapped the footage and did them over.

During the '30s, after "talkies" took over the silver screen and against all conventional wisdom, Chaplin continued to make "silent" movies with title cards, bolstered only by a few lines of dialogue, some sound effects and music — which he himself composed!

The Little Tramp has never looked so good as in the gorgeous black-and-white cleaned-up prints on these new Warner Bros. DVDs of four of his feature films, part of "The Chaplin Collection":

— "The Gold Rush," set in the Yukon, is one of Chaplin's best and most famous films, with many memorable and hilarious moments, including his putting forks into dinner rolls and making them dance and the meticulous cooking and eating of his shoe. (The burly prospector Big Jim is played by Salt Lake native Mack Swain.)

On the first disc is Chaplin's re-edited 1942 version of the film, his own narration and music. The second disc offers a restored version of the original 1925 silent version (with piano accompaniment).

— "Modern Times" was released in 1936, when talkies had been around for nearly a decade, and the extras here speak to that context and examine Chaplin's musical compositions for the film. It's a bit surprising how relevant this film remains in its examination of man's relationship to the mechanized world, even though it is geared specifically to the Depression era. (Themes of the "Matrix" and "Terminator" films aren't all that far afield from Chaplin's view.)