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Having become a major music-hall draw in Britain, Chaplin left for the United States as part of the Fred Karno troupe in 1910. However, when he returned two years later, his stage drunk routine so impressed Keystone chief Mack Sennett that he was signed to the studio for the princely sum of $150 per week. Chaplin debuted as the frock-coated villain in Henry Lehrman's Making a Living. However, he was dispatched to the prop room to find a more comic costume for Mabel's Strange Predicament (1914) and he returned sporting baggy pants (borrowed from Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle), a cane, a derby hat (owned by Minta Durfee's father), some oversize shoes (belonging to Ford Sterling) and a trimmed down version of Mack Swain's moustache and `The Little Fellow' was born. However, this amalgam of vaudeville star Fred Kitchen and a shabby Max Linder was first seen by American audiences in Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal. (1914), which was hurriedly shot and cut while Chaplin's first teaming with Mabel Normand was being edited.

After just 10 shorts, Chaplin stepped behind the camera for the first time to co-direct Caught in a Cabaret with Normand and, having been given a $25 pay rise, he called the shots alone on Twenty Minutes of Love a few months later. In all, he made 34 shorts and the feature, Tillie's Punctured Romance, before the demands of Sennett's prolificity took their toll. Frustrated by the Canadian's frenzied slapstick style, Chaplin decamped to Essanay in 1915 for $1250 per week, plus bonuses and complete creative control.

Dispelling the myth that Chaplin stuck with the Tramp persona once it caught the public imagination, there is much to enjoy here, whether Charlie is stealing scenes from Keystone's more established stars in the likes of Between Showers, A Film Johnnie, His Favourite Pastime, Cruel, Cruel Love and The Star Boarder or again showing his dastardly side in Mabel at the Wheel. The future perfectionist (who would agonise over the slightest piece of comic business) also proves himself the master of improvisation in Tango Tangles, which sees him fooling around at the Venice Dance Hall with Fatty Arbuckle, Ford Sterling and Chester Conklin, with whom he also indulges in some hilarious bakery knockabout in Dough and Dynamite. Chaplin even donned drag in A Busy Day and introduced the first touch of the pathos that would come to characterise his work in The New Janitor.

However, the real gem on view here is A Thief Catcher, in which Chaplin guests briefly as a Keystone Kop. This short romp had long been excluded from his filmographies and it was only identified as a bona fide Chaplin picture by Paul E. Gierucki earlier this year. Indeed, the only thing missing from this exceptional set is Her Friend the Bandit (1914), which is now the only `lost' title from Chaplin's extraordinary career.

Much had happened in the 14 years that separate these early outings from The Circus (1928), including the coming of sound. But Chaplin ignored the Talkie craze and continued to mum and pantomime in this often neglected comedy, which has recently made headlines because of the supposed sighting of a person talking on a mobile phone in the trailer that is included in the extras package.

The shoot was beset by numerous problems, with tax inspectors pursuing Chaplin in the middle of a messy divorce from second wife, Lita Grey. He also had to mothball the project for eight months after a fire destroyed the set. But the biggest difficulty that Chaplin faced was topping the achievement of The Gold Rush (1925), which had finally persuaded the doubters that he was right to switch from two-reel comedies to features. However, he was sure that he had found inspiration in Maurice Disher's book Clowns and Pantomimes, which allowed Chaplin to explore his on- and off-screen personae and pay tribute to both Marceline - a French pierrot with whom he had performed back in Blighty and who had committed suicide on failing to make the grade in the States - and Max Linder, the suave master of silent slapstick, who had also taken his own life in 1925.

There was clearly scope here for a `tears of a clown' storyline, as Henry Bergman and his fellow buffoons are well past their best and are driving ringmaster Al Ernest Garcia crackers with their inability to raise a smile from his ever-dwindling audiences. Trick rider Merna Kennedy also comes in for her father's scathing criticism, as she misses the second paper hoop as she canters bareback around the ring. However, the backstage fulminations are interrupted when Chaplin comes crashing into the big top after being mistaken for the victim of a pocket picking and then as its perpetrator by some incompetent cops.

Amazed by the crowd's reaction to the stranger's desperate attempts to evade his would-be captors, Garcia offers him an audition and discovers that Charlie is at his funniest when he's trying not to be. Consequently, he hires him as an assistant to prop man Tiny Sandford and urges Bergman to find ways of incorporating him into the act. Naturally, Chaplin is drawn to the waifish Kennedy and is convinced that love is on the cards when he overhears her consultation with a clairvoyant. However, her heart belongs to tightrope walker Harry Crocker and, having lost his trousers in a failed to take his place one night, he acts as their go-between before the circus pulls out of town and the Little Fellow shuffles off once more into the sunset.

The opening gag sequence, which sees Charlie stealing a hot dog from a baby before he he becomes dip Steve Murphy's unwitting accomplice, is the highlight of the entire picture. The pull away chair routine and the high wire stunt sabotaged by some pesky monkeys are amusing, but Chaplin struggles to match the cynicism of stealing food from a child, the slickness of the legerdemain and the precision of the chase (which includes a detour through a hall of mirrors). He also seems to lose interest in Bergman's mournful attempts at mirth and contrives an overly easy resolution to Kennedy and Crocker's romantic travails. But he would do much better with his next feature, City Lights (1931), in which he dissuaded drunken millionaire Harry Myers from committing suicide before setting out to raise the funds for an operation to restore the sight of a blind flower girl, Virginia Cherrill.

Chaplin began shooting what many consider to be his masterpiece in 1928. Convinced that sound was a passing fad, he determined to stick with the pantomimic style that had made him cinema's first superstar. However, the continued success of the Talkies persuaded him to close the picture down and consider whether he should let The Tramp speak. Resuming in silence, Chaplin was further hindered by the Wall Street Crash, which made the risk of bucking a commercial trend seem all the more precarious. Yet, his courage was fully vindicated when this meticulous blend of slapstick and sentiment was proclaimed an instant classic.

The symbolism of the movie's moral message was hardly subtle. When he's blind drunk, the millionaire treats the Little Fellow like a bosom buddy, but the moment he's sober, he denies all knowledge of him. These temporary lapses in prejudicial distinction contrast with the girl's total acceptance, as her blindness forces her to base her judgements on personality not appearance. Indeed, it's her innate goodness that prompts the charitable act which ultimately enables her to recognise her benefactor through touch.

Yet, while he implies this happy ending, Chaplin leaves us wondering whether The Tramp is actually going to settle down and embrace bourgeois society. He had already exploited this ambiguity in both The Gold Rush and The Circus, and he would resort to it again in his last `silent', Modern Times (1936), as though he was hedging his bets about if or when the character would return. However, some critics have suggested that the finale's chastity relates to the Little Fellow's Messianic aspect, as he undergoes variations on baptism, denial, miracle-working and persecution in the course of his unrivalled display of selflessness.

Such attempts at interpretation shouldn't, however, obscure the fact that this is a frequently hilarious comedy, with the boxing sequences and the elevator gag ranking amongst Chaplin's most inspired pieces of clowning. Sadly, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy struggle to reproduce their best form in Bonnie Scotland (1935). But while this may not be on a par with Way Out West (1937), it still contains several memorable moments.

Having busted out of jail on learning that his MacLaurel grandfather has left him something in his will, Stan stows away with Ollie on a cattle boat to cross the Atlantic to Scotland. However, the journey hardly proves worthwhile, as lawyer David Torrance informs Stan that the estate has passed to his cousin, June Lang, who has to relocate to India to live with guardians Anne Grey and Vernon Steele until she comes of age. All that Stan has to show for his troubles are a snuff box and a set of antique bagpipes and these two objects typically conspire to tip Ollie into the river and his trousers shrink when they attempt to dry them.

Further misfortune follows when the pair are turfed out of their lodgings after Stan trades their overcoats for a fish and they set their room alight in trying to cook it on the bed frame. Duped into joining the Bengal Lancers by a sign offering free suits, the boys ship out to India and they are soon joined by Lang's boyfriend, William Janney, who is determined to find her after receiving no reply to his letters. However, Grey has convinced her that Janney has been trifling with her affections and she announces Lang's engagement to her brother, who turns out to be Stan and Ollie's commanding officer.

Meanwhile, a local potentate (Maurice Black) has hatched a plan to attack the fort and Steele orders Ollie to impersonate him at a pow-wow at the khan's palace. Stan, Janney and sergeant James Finlayson make up the lunch party. But events quickly spiral out of control as imperialists and insurgents alike are attacked by a swarm of bees after the fleeing Laurel and Hardy kick over some hives.

The chaotic climax rather sums up this scattershot effort, which starts off on the sets left over from John Ford's adaptation of The Little Minister (1934) and winds up being a lampoon on The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935). Moreover, fans of Carry On Up the Khyber (1968) will recognise some of the plotlines. The romantic subplot involving Lang and Janney rather gets in the way, as did similar liaisons in Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello comedies. However, the riverside and fish griddling scenes are splendid, while the dance performed to `A Hundred Pipers' during a litter-collecting punishment is utterly delightful. What's more, it proves conclusively that even pratfall and banter merchants like Laurel and Hardy could be subtle and graceful.

Jacques Tati is the last of the great movie clowns. The heir of Max Linder, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, he primarily saw comedy as a visual medium. Not that his films were silent. Indeed, sound played a crucial part in his offbeat world.

But Tati's genius lay in the meticulous staging of sight gags without dialogue, which could either be over in the blink of an eye or could develop into chokingly funny bouts of sustained lunacy.

Tati was still working on his debut feature, Jour de Fête (1948), when he saw Emile Reynaud's hand-drawn turn-of-the-century Praxinoscope film Autour d'une Cabine, which was shown in Paris as part of cinema's 50th anniversary celebrations. Clearly the idea of a beach comedy lingered in the back of his mind and, as seaside holidays were still something of a novelty, he brought his largely non professional troupe to the Breton resort of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer to make Monsieur Hulot's Holiday in the summer of 1951.

In addition to writing and directing the film, Tati was also to take the role of Hulot, the accident-prone everyman he would play for the rest of his career. With his angular posture and apologetic flounce, Hulot is an archetypal innocent abroad, a quixotic bringer of calamity whose deadpan expression never betrays any awareness of the chaos that follows in his wake. From the moment he arrives at the hotel, he upsets the other guests. He plays the gramophone too loud; he accidentally switches round a table top and ruins a game of cards; he opens a door and allows a gale to blow a businessman's papers in all directions. He even nearly causes someone to drown by distracting the attention of a swimming instructor.

Yet, he is also ceaselessly eager to please - even to the point of apologising for things that aren't his fault. Although he's a unique creation, there's a Chaplinesque air about Hulot. His distinctive clothing is an ill-fitting inversion of Chariot's famous Tramp uniform; he never gets the girl and he inadvertently disorders every situation he enters. Yet, Hulot has none of Chaplin's petulance or his desire to wreak revenge on a rival - even though he does, at one point, kick a supposed peeping torn up the backside.

Similar pieces of classic slapstick business are dotted throughout the film - a picture that won't sit straight on a wall; a rug that gets snagged on Hulot's spur; a tennis game, complete with Hulot's fabulously eccentric serving style (which was imported from Tati's legendary music-hall act) and the pratfalls that either send him careering through the hotel lobby with a teetering pile of suitcases or plunging into the sea.

At another point, he gets his foot caught in the rein as he tries to mount a horse and is dragged along the beach. It's pure mime, indeed, it's pantomime and yet there's nothing malicious about the comedy. Only Hulot suffers and, like all indestructible socko characters, the only thing that really gets hurt is some pride.

Several other gags are based on acute social observation. For example, there's the bored husband, who can't get to meals fast enough because they break the monotony of being with his wife, whose enthusiasm for things like seashore walks he disdains with open contempt.

Then there's Tati's satirical assault on the modern world. He would go on to lambaste gadgetry in Mon Oncle (1958) and motorised consumerism in both Play Time (1967) and Traffic (1971). But he begins the offensive against transport here. Even at the outset of their vacation, the holidaymakers are sent scrambling between platforms in an attempt to catch a train and, subsequently, a broken-down Amilcar, a hearse, a horse and a kayak all conspire to confound the hapless Hulot.

In the absence of dialogue, sound takes on a key comic role. Frequently, sight and sound connive at deceiving the viewer into expecting pay-offs that never arrive in the anticipated form. When a waiter stomps downstairs, we presume the clicking noise comes from his shoes. But as he reaches the lobby, Hulot bounds into shot returning a table-tennis ball, revealing that the pinging had been his curiously non-rhythmic game all along.

This is typical Tati. He never forces a joke upon us. Instead, he keeps the camera at a distance and allows us to discover the comedy in our own time. It's an almost Hitchcockian approach to humour - a slow build up of comic suspense. Yet there's also an echo of Buster Keaton in the precise manner in which gags are prepared and executed. The sequence in which Hulot paints a boat with the pot bobbing on the tide, for example, is as exquisite as it's ingenious.

Hailed by the auteurs of the nouvelle vague as the film that smashed the tyranny of traditional screen narrative, this is so much more than merely an assemblage of comic cuts. It's a masterpiece of cinematic innovation and it's now all the more compelling, thanks to the BFI's DVD and Blu-Ray set, which offers both Tati's original edit and the restored version of his 1978 revision. It would be churlish to ask why the 1962 version wasn't also included (as Tati twice returned to the picture to excise some gags and expand upon others), but it would have made this the definitive edition.

As it is, the comparisons between the 1953 and 1978 cuts are intriguing. Missing from the latter are sequences like the waiter mimicking Hulot as he pulls faces in the hotel lounge mirror, but it builds on the collapsing kayak joke by having the sunworshippers think a shark is lurking in the sea. The dire news on the radio is also played down in the later variation, with jazzy music rather than reports of domestic and international crises floating on the wind that Hulot allows into the lobby as he props open the door to fetch his luggage. Other changes are more cosmetic and while they tighten scenes, there is something more pleasingly leisurely about the prototype.

What both renderings reinforce, however, is how much Hulot is liked by the guests less hidebound by stuffy convention - the bored husband (René Lacourt), the English spinster (Valentine Camax), the workaholic American's neglected son (who is uncredited) and the pretty neighbour (Nathalie Pascaud) - and it's their detached delight at his accidental antics that makes them all the more enjoyable.