Paul E. Gierucki

Detroit Michigan native Paul E. Gierucki is a motion picture producer, director, writer, film historian and preservationist. His works have appeared on the Arts and Entertainment Network (A&E), AMC, Cinemax, HBO, NBC, and Turner Classic Movies. As president of Laughsmith Entertainment, Gierucki produced and directed the A&E Biography program Stooges: The Men Behind The Mayhem (1994), as well as the critically acclaimed DVD collections The Forgotten Films of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (2004), and Industrial Strength Keaton (2005). In 2010, Gierucki made international headlines with his discovery of a previously unknown film appearance by silent comedy master Charles Chaplin. Gierucki recovered the lone known surviving 16mm film print of A Thief Catcher (1914), in which Chaplin makes a lengthy cameo appearance as one of the famed Keystone Cops. As of 2011, Gierucki has been the director of restorations for CineMuseum, LLC. He curated and directed the reconstruction of 100 classic comedy films originally produced by American silent film pioneer Mack Sennett. Seventy-eight of the restorations premiered on Turner Classic Movies in September 2012 during their month long tribute to Mack Sennett and the Keystone Studios. On August 19, 2014, fifty of the restorations were released on blu-ray as part of CineMuseum's The Mack Sennett Collection Volume One, distributed by Flicker Alley, LLC. Author and film critic James L. Neibaur, in his August 24, 2014 review for Examiner.com, wrote "It would seem that one would be toppling into hyperbole when claiming that anything is the very best, but the new Mack Sennett Collection on blu-ray is perhaps the most important DVD release of the millennium." In addition to preparing new releases, Gierucki serves as consultant for various film, television and documentary projects, as well as curating film and memorabilia exhibits around the world.