Now that DVD is a mature medium for the home theater, viewers can count on every new movie also coming to DVD shortly after leaving the big screen; we're also being treated to increasing numbers of older films making their way from studio vaults to our home collections. In The Cook and Other Treasures, Image Entertainment takes a huge step backward in time to offer film-history buffs a treasure chest of restored silent shorts, films from 1918 and 1920 that once seemed to have been entirely lost.

"The Cook" is presented as the centerpiece of the DVD, highlighted by its rarity, as this 1918 film had been presumed entirely lost until prints were discovered in Norway in 1998, with further material discovered in 2002 making it possible to complete a nearly full restoration. A segment from the end is still missing, but the majority of the film is now intact. Here we see Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle as the head cook at the Bull Pup Cafe, and Buster Keaton as the "Pest Waiter": the twenty-two minute film is a loosely-linked sequence of scenes revolving around the characters of the cafe, including an exotic dance that draws in the whole kitchen staff, and a chase scene with Luke the dog (playing himself) pursuing an annoying customer all over the place, including up ladders. It's quite fun to notice that the filmmakers have created some "special effects" (such as the miraculous ability of the Pest Waiter to catch everything thrown by the cook) by cleverly splicing the film to omit a few key frames here and there. I found this film to have entertainment value mainly as a historical piece, showing what kind of films were made at the very beginning of the industry; it does have some quite funny moments, but there's not much of an overall story.

The second feature is "A Reckless Romeo," with "Fatty" Arbuckle this time as a philandering husband who gets into trouble with his indiscretions at the local amusement park. I found this twenty-three minute film to be the least interesting of the lot; the humor seemed less spontaneous and more slapstick, and it gets off to a slow start. This 1917 film was also a "lost gem" until it was discovered, like "The Cook," at the Norsk Filminstitutt; fans of vintage film will be pleased that it was included.

My personal favorite of the three films in The Cook and Other Treasures is, hands down, the third: Harold Lloyd's "Number, Please?" (from 1920) There's a definite eye for good pacing and story in this film, which opens with a clever series of poetic-sounding title cards that expound the difficult life of a man who has lost his "one girl." Cue the entrance of Harold Lloyd, who runs into his lost love at an amusement park, and has the chance to win her affections back... except that she seems to have a new boyfriend! Undeterred, Lloyd's character goes to great lengths to get her attention, only to find himself in more and more tangled situations. "Number, Please?" combines gentle slapstick with a pure sense of fun in this really very well-crafted story; I found it amusing all the way through. It's also quite interesting to watch it as a view to the society of the 1920s, in which the telephone was a relatively new invention, for instance, and as a peek backward into filmmaking history. I noticed in "Number, Please?" one shot that may have been extremely innovative: while all the other camera work was entirely stationary, with the actors moving in front of a fixed camera position, in one scene the camera is placed on a moving merry-go-round, producing a swirling, almost surrealistic effect that must have been quite startling to viewers at the time.

The DVD

Video

It's really impossible to rate the image quality of the short films included on The Cook and Other Treasures by normal benchmarks, simply because of the nature of the material. What we're looking at is material that we're lucky to have at all: more than eighty years old, made at a time when the film industry was in its infancy, and languishing who-knows-where in the intervening years, it's no wonder that these films show severe wear and tear. The questions that are possible to ask are first, is the material in watchable condition, and second, has it been given a satisfactory transfer?

To the first question, I can say that the films are indeed entirely watchable, given allowances for the age of the material. The wear and tear on comes mostly in the form of a large number of scratches as well as missing frames here and there. In the case of "The Cook," there is also a distinct bluish tone to some of the footage; the use of two different sources for the print is evident in the difference in tone and overall quality in the different sections of the final composite. "Number, Please?" is in the best condition of the three, despite being only slightly newer.

As to the second question, I would say that the transfer is adequate but not perfect: there are noticeable colored haloes that frequently appear when the actors move, a flaw that I would obviously attribute to the DVD transfer rather than a defect in the original print.

"The Cook" and "A Reckless Romeo" have modern, re-done intertitles (the title cards), evidently because the surviving prints were Norwegian, and the original English titles had been irretrievably lost. The titles have been done in a font that matches the overall period style fairly well. "Number, Please?" does have the original English titles, pleasingly.

All three short films are black and white and are presented in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which appears to be their original aspect ratio.

Audio

Well, these are silent movies... there's not much to comment on by way of sound. But of course "silent" only means that there is no soundtrack with dialogue or effects; viewers would have listened to musical accompaniment while watching the film, and the DVD audio track supplies this. A rather frenetic piano soundtrack is presented in Dolby 2.0; it does more or less fit the mood of the films, but it gets a bit jarring by the end of the last film.

Extras

Technically, the Harold Lloyd film is presented as a special feature, but in the menu it's offered as a main feature, and that's what I've considered it as. For bonus content, the only real feature is the raw footage of "The Cook," from the two different sources. The DVD case claims that this can be used to create a do-it-yourself restoration ("Test your skills as a film archivist!") but in actual practice I suspect most viewers will pass on the opportunity.

Final thoughts

It's fascinating to see these three short films from the beginning of the century; any viewer with an interest in film history will appreciate these rare films, and viewers in general who are intrigued to see what silent movies were like. But more than being just museum pieces, the films on The Cook and Other Treasures are a lot of fun to watch, especially the Harold Lloyd short "Number, Please?" While generous allowances have to be made for the age (and wear and tear) of the material, the DVD offers a reasonable image that is certainly watchable. It's recommended.