Where Bootlegs are (Were) Best #3

Boots No More: Chaney and Ford At Last LegitHE WHO GETS SLAPPED (1924) --- Stop presses. He Who Gets Slapped is no longer a bootleg. Not that it has been for a good many years now, Warner Archive having released a standard DVD, then Flicker Alley with a Blu-Ray culled from better preservation materials than Warner had. Latter owned the title thanks to acquisition of the Metro library, all of silents now Public Domain, us enabled to exploit entirety of the era at will. Unfortunates who got Slapped decades ago were those who dared copy classics even where ownership cared nothing of their assets except to harass those who loved forgotten films and sought to share them. How refreshing then to see He Who Gets Slapped and ones like it please fans willing to spend for silents. He Who Gets Slapped was of sort you’d lure out back door of archives or via those with illicit access to holdings of same. I knew such freebooters and bless their memory. If you wanted Chaney apart from the Phantom or…