Charlie Chaplin Film by Film Thread

I discovered Charlie Chaplin when I was about 6 years old, when Modern Times was re-released in cinemas. I immediately became fascinated with him and made a point of seeing his films whenever they played at local art house cinemas and reading all the books I could find about him. It was quite a project trying to familiarize myself with his work at that time, as this was before there was any form of home video, though I did pick up 8mm versions of some of his films.

About a dozen years ago expertly remastered collections of many of his short films began to be released on DVD, giving me the opportunity to more thoroughly investigate his film history. These collections actually revealed to me that many of the shorts - which had previously been available only from public domain releases which were often made from very poor and often incomplete prints - actually in my view crystallized his unique forms of humor in a more pure and engaging form than his more celebrated feature films.

I would like to use this thread to share what I love, and what I find wanting, in the over 80 films he released over the course of his career.

I will start with the Keystone films.

In 1914, Chaplin accomplished the amazing feat of performing in 36 films for Keystone. 35 of these films survive and 34.5 of these films are best experienced in the Chaplin at Keystone collection released on DVD by Flicker Alley, based on restoration work done by the British Film Institute. I believe there either has been or will be a subsequent version of these released on Blu-Ray as well, but without material differences apart from higher resolution in parts (though in many cases the source material is more the limiting factor than the DVD format).

I know this is a rather esoteric subject matter in this era of 3D Imax CGI spectaculars, but I hope more than a few of you will be interested in joining me on this journey and sharing your thoughts.

 

Making a Living
Filmed Jan 5-9 1914
Shipped Jan 14 1914
Released Feb 2 1914
One reel 12:53
Director: Henry Lehrman
Scenario: Reed Heistis
Producer: Mack Sennett

This is one of the rare films in which Chaplin does not dress in his standard "Tramp" attire and one in which he plays a far less sympathetic character than he usually played, particularly later in his career. He plays opposite the director Lehrmann, who is the other main character.

The basic story involves him starting out begging for money and stealing a ring from Lehrman (who plays a photojournalist) and using the ring to win over the girl Lehrman is also pursuing. Later, when Lehrman pauses from photographing a car accident to assist in rescuing the folks involves, Chaplin steals his camera and presents the photos as his own at the newspaper to get a job there.

It is odd watching this from the perspective of having seen Chaplin's later films, as one has the inescapable tendency to sympathize with his character and view him as the hero despite the fact that he really has no redeeming character traits.

The best parts of this film to me are the slapstick fight and chase sequences and some stair tumbles, and it is particularly fun seeing Chaplin using a broom, as he would later sometime use his cane, to hold Lehrman too far away to land a blow on him. I often view such slapstick interactions as a form of dance.

It is interesting that Chester "walrus" Conklin (nickname due to droopy mustache) appears as a policeman in Chaplin's first film, as he was one of Chaplin's longest tenured associates, appearing with him as late as Modern times.

Also always fun to see the 1914 automobiles and LA Streetcars. The film winds up with one of them hitting the brawling Chaplin and Lehrman and taking them along for the ride.

A couple other interesting notes:

With this being Chaplin's first film, after years in the Kino music hall comedy troupe (where he acted alongside Stan Laurel) he was apparently surprised to learn that films were not shot in the order in which they were viewed.

On seeing the finished product, Chaplin was quite upset with how many of his best bits had been edited out. Perhaps the more established director/star Lehrman was trying to avoid being upstaged by Chaplin. It did not work at any rate. Chaplin still steals the show.

Overall though this film is more historically interesting than hilarious.

(for these shorts it seems writing about them may take more time than viewing them)

 

Never seen this one but look forward to the discussion.

 

Regarding Making a Living, I realize I omitted a couple things I meant to include.

First, the music hall troupe he was with before he got into films was Karno not Kino. Autocorrect does not like Karno. I believe he and Laurel often shared hotel rooms together when they went on the road with this troupe.

First a description of his outfit, since this is one of his rare non "Tramp" apprarance. He wears a dark top hat and a lighter frock coat jacket that fits tightly, suggesting as his later outfit would that he can't afford clothes that fit but is trying to make himself look as good as possible in someone else's cast offs. He also has a monocle and a long drooping mustache. Reportedly this is similar to an outfit he often wore in his earlier stage routines when portraying a drunk.

Finally, I want to give subjective ratings to each film on a 10 point scale, both as to the quality of the film and the quality of the surviving print. The 10 point scale will be, for shorts, relative to all Chaplin shorts and for features, relative to all Chaplin features.

Rating:
Content: 3/10
Print: 3/10

 

I have the Brentwood 57 shorts box as a lead in to the proper films. I am going to try to slog through. I love Charlie, but I seldom watch the early ones as they are a chore to watch. They are so primitive they remind me of someone getting a camera and saying "I've got an idea!" That along with the primitive process and deterioration of the ..... you get the idea.
Anyways, I have Making A Living cued up on the computer and here we go!

(If we are going to do the shorts in toto this is going to take a while before we get to the First Nationals and the proper features)

 

Yep, this is a long project. But I hope to do it right.

With regard to the Keystones in particular, you will find them much harder to get through on the Brentwood (or any of the other non Flicker Alley) collections.

Due to the public domain status of these films, how old they are, how popular they were, and how little thought was given to film as an art form in 1914, the original prints of Keystone films almost all got worn out. They regularly broke and were spliced back together with often significant continuity gaps. I believe the Brentwood version of Making a Living is 9 minutes rather than over 13 minutes, so that is a lot of missing content. The BFI did a very spectacular job of piecing together the best possible versions by combining the best shots from many different copies and editing them together cohesively.

In earlier years when I viewed the Keystones through such editions I found many of them virtually unwatchable, not only due to the continuity gaps but due to framing that often chopped off heads and image quality thst made it impossible to discern facial expressions - which are crucial to silent film.

Flicker Alley is now selling the best edition of these 35 films on 4 DVDS for $60. I would suggest that if it is worth someone's time to spend 10 hours or so watching these films, it is probably worth the $60 to watch them right.

But either way you decide to go, I am very glad to welcome you on board.

 

Primitive. The cuts and edits are abrupt and a shot is sometimes short and abruptly cut. I saw no title cards so the whole story is left in your head. Charlie is a cheat and a con man, not a really likable character. But you can't keep your eyes off of him.

 

I just saw that one of his final Keystone films, and the first ever feature length comedy "Tillie's Punctured Romance" is airing on TCM on June 6. My goal will be to get up to that film by that time.

That means 34 films (33 if you ignore the one that no longer exists, but we may as well discuss what is known about it anyway) in 52 days

 

Another thing, Chaplin didn't exactly abandon this character as the flea circus bit from Limelight was originally filmed with this con man in a flop house in an unfinished film.

 

My Chaplin DVDs are in storage, so I'll have to rely on YouTube as a refresher until I can retrieve them.

"Making a Living" is an interesting film to watch for its uniqueness if nothing else. Despite portraying a different character, you can see a lot of Chaplin's brilliance already creeping through. Charlie packs a great number of tiny little bits into his performance, always doing something (sometimes things you don't notice until a 3rd or 4th viewing). I like how he turns the editor's head back to face him when he is fighting with "Pathe" Lehrman, how he uses the editor's leg for something to pound on so he can make his point, how he makes a face when his would-be mother-in-law looks away from him, and quickly switches back to a fake smile when she looks his way again. And, hate to say it, but I love how he pie faces the paper boy who is giggling at him out in the street. And "Pathe" Lehrman's character deserves whatever he gets here - first one to the scene of a wreck and instead of aiding the victim or getting help, he takes pictures and goes to directly to reporter mode! If Chaplin had made this one film and run back to England in dissatisfaction, it's likely no one would remember it. And if the film was made without him (with, say, Ford Sterling in his role), it would be likely be quite pedestrian. But Chaplin singularly makes it a film worth seeing.

A little interesting footnote: When the newspapers come rolling off the presses and are thrown towards the trucks you can see puddles in the alley. "Between Showers" (and its abundant use of puddles and umbrellas) is still more than three weeks away, but the rainiest February in Southern California history must have already been under way. .... or maybe someone sprayed a hose in the alley 5 minutes before they shot.

 

Some great observations there. Thanks for joining us.

It is nice that you can view all the Keystones on YouTube, though I am avoiding providing links as those are almost always substandard versions, for reasons noted above. The BFI restorations are not there generally.

 

Holy cow is this going to be one of those Orphans of the Sky deals where your children's descendants end up finishing the mission

 

My 8 year old girls have watched all the Keystones, some of the Essanays, and The Kid, Modern Times and Limelight so far, so they at least would be up to the task. They even got me a stuffed Chaplin for my birthday one year.

I have passed the Chaplinmania / Beatlemania gene down one generation.

Really this is nothing compared to the RayS Woody Allen thread. While he had fewer films, they had a much longer total running time.

 

Kid Auto Races at Venice, CA1
Filmed Jan 11 1914
Shipped Jan 17 1914
Released Feb 7 1914
Split reel 6:36
Director: Henry Lehrman
Scenario: Reed Heistis
Producer: Mack Sennett

This is the bolt out of the blue of comedy. One week into his motion picture career, Charles introduces us to the world's most widely recognized human character of the next century and counting. And it's pure motion, unencumbered by any real attempt at a plot. Which is nice as at this stage the plots weren't that great. Here the Tramp is out hamming it up for the camera (Lehrman is the director both in and of the film). The Tramp attracts attention to himself in front of an actual public soap box derby type event by positioning himself between the camera and the event while he inhabits this new character, tries it on for size, and learns how he moves. It's great to meet him. It becomes less of a solo show about half way through as Charlie starts to get into it with Lehrman more and more. Ends with a surreal jump to spend the last few seconds on a close up with a nose scrunch. At the length of some music videos, this simply does not get old for me after countless viewings.

The Tramp character was actually invented for the next film to be discussed, but that was a more involved film that took longer to make. This was done in 45 minutes as the boardwalk one day, with all the spectators there for the race having no idea who this odd fellow was.

Interesting to see the non-restored versions of the one I have has quite different, and far fewer sub-titles. Those it has frame the film as a letter from Charlie to a girl. And there being fewer is less disruptive to the rhythm of the film. But the quality is so much worse, I don't watch this version often. I wish there was a similarly restored version with the sparser set of titles.

Rating:
Content: 7/10
Print: 5/10

 

"Kid Auto Races" is a really nice appetizer. It introduces the tramp, has some funny moments, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I'll take a wild guess that it was the popular half of the reel that it shared with the documentary "Olives and Their Oil" (hosted by Troy McClure's grandfather?)

Obviously they didn't give this little film very much thought, but with 100 years of hindsight, I would have preferred that we never see the camera. As soon as the camera is shown (and we know we're watching film shot from ANOTHER camera), it loses some of its impact. Considering the fact that Chaplin was a virtual unknown (even if you saw "Making a Living" the week before), never showing the camera would have created more of a cinema verite (did this oddly-dressed man REALLY disrupt this film?) That hindsight aside, what we get here is very entertaining. We also get some (I assumed unintended) commentary on the lure of the camera, and how even in 1914 the desire for a few seconds or minutes of "fame" was as strong as it is today (where people still act like idiots when there is a camera in the vicinity).

 

That is a cool idea about leaving the camera out of it. I wonder if, so early in the development of a cinematic grammar, that would have been intelligible to viewers.

I guess some intertitle cards would have done the trick. I prefer having as few as those jolting me out of the film as possible, but an introductory one is fine.

Maybe they could even have it scroll backward into space like they do these days

 

Improv. Using a live event to crank out a quickie(literally lol). Charlie slams together a mismatched costume for an ostensible bum who is fascinated by this newfangled camera thing, and proceeds to show us "photo bombing" from a century ago. In between dodging these wagons(soap box derby? you have GOT to be kidding!) Charlie annoys the film crew and director. Then we swing around and see the reactions of the crew as he does it. No real start or ending, it just is. It just what it was, "take the camera down where they are running the stuff and get some film. Take Chaplain with you!"

 

Obviously not soap boxes but the same idea of racing things that just roll down a hill to pick up their speed.

 

Mabel's Strange Predicament
Shipped Jan 20, 1914
Released Feb 9 1914
One reel 11:51
Director: Henry Lehrman or Mabel Normand (sources vary)
Scenario: Reed Heistis
Producer: Mack Sennett
(Hotel Comedy #1)

Chaplin invented the Tramp character for this film, basically picking the outfit up in the wardrobe, and inhabiting the character - though it took longer to complete reach the theaters than Kid Auto Races above, making that the character's public debot.

This was Chaplin's first of 13 films with Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett's girlfriend and a veteran of over 150 Keystone comedies. And he steals the show from the first scene to the point that only the title reveals that Mabel is the star. The plot revolves around hotel room mishaps that result when Mabel gets locked out of her room in her jammies while playing with her dog, then takes refuge from the advances of drunken Charlie under a neighbor's bed. Charlie revisits similar hotel plot lines and sets a number of times in subsequent films. Here the payoff is Charlie's drunk act in a hotel lobby and then upstairs. Includes lots of cane twirling, sliding off a chair, pratfalls, and lecherous advances. Fun stuff when the camera is on Charlie, and his Tramp instantly has a magnetic effect on the camera. But the rest of the film is kind of trite and overacted. Chester Conklin is in this one as well, but adds little humor just puffs his chest and gets frustrated.

Although this is a more complete plotted film thant Kid Auto Races, the plot detracts and there is less Charlie, so

Rating:
Content: 4/10
Print: 2/10

 

This film isn't exactly a laugh riot, but it holds a lot of historical interest.

First off, it's interesting to note that the Tramp is not even an integral character in the plot. He's completely superfluous, in fact, just dropped into scenes as comic relief (in a comedy!) Chaplin is also otherworldly because you can see one of the elements that would quickly separate him from his contemporaries - he refuses to align with the acting style of the day - no idiotic histrionics, and no heavy-handed pantomime to "explain" the plot. Even when playing an impetuous drunkard who simply wanders into other people's hotel rooms in his silly clothes, he's more real and natural than anything around him. I like Mabel Normand in other Keystone films, but here Chaplin is the only thing close to funny in the film.

 

A Thief Catcher
Shipped Jan 29, 1914
Released Feb 19 1914
One reel 8:16
Director: Henry Lehrman
Producer: Mack Sennett

This was the lost and only rumored Chaplin film - rediscovered only in 2009 at an antique sale - in which he appears as a Keystone Kop. He easily out acts the rest of them in his under a minute of screen time. Ford Sterling, the guy Chaplin was hired to replace, gives an incredibly broad performance as a crook. Two of the other crooks went on to more notable careers - Edgar Kennedy and Mack Swain (who had a major role in The Gold Rush).

Interesting that this film was the last film to be shot before Chaplin's first one was released (he made 4 films in January and the first was released Feb 2), so there was as of yet no reason to believe his star was on the rise.

That said, there is not that much here to delight. I have seen this two ways:
a.The 6 minute excerpt released on the Chaplin at Keystone Flicker Alley set.
b. The 8:16 version available on YouTube, which may or may not be complete. A Thief Catcher (1914) - Charles Chaplin »

The most complete version (possibly the same one that is on YouTube) on DVD would be on the Mack Sennett vol. 1 disc Flicker Alley issued subsequent to the Chaplin set. If anyone here does have that set, I would like to hear how long its version is and how much more Chaplin it contains as compared to the one on YouTube.

Rating:
Content: 1/10
Print: 3/10

 

I've only seen what you've seen (I don't have the Sennett set). This is obviously exciting as a curiosity (not to mention the fact that is it was MORE Chaplin when it seemed we would never see more). As with most of the Keystones I've seen that have limited or no Chaplin, you wonder sometimes how people laughed at this stuff. Chaplin is interesting playing the brash bully who clearly would have no issue with abusing the power of his badge. His small stature could have been used to comedic benefit ... but thankfully his apprenticeship with the Kops was short lived!

 

If you have a region-free converting player, skip the Flicker Alley release and purchase the BFI PAL set from overseas. The PAL to NTSC conversion was totally muffed and you'll see many artifacting frames that are not present in the PAL version. It's scary that my player does a better version with the conversion than a professional conversion!

I too keep hoping for a blu ray release of the Keystones.

Derek

 

Between Showers
Shipped Feb. 7, 1914
Released Feb 28, 1914
One reel 14:01
Director: Henry Lehrman
Producer: Mack Sennett
(Park Comedy #1)

This is the last of the 4 or 5 times Lehrman directed Chaplin, which was probably a relief to both as it seems they got along no better off the camera than on. With this being shipped the day Kid Auto Races was released, the bigger star here is Ford Sterling. Sterling was about to leave Keystone - the impetus for the studio to hire someone new in Chaplin. Chester Conklin makes a fairly minor appearance here as the policeman whose umbrella is stolen by Sterling and then changes hands a few times.

Chaplin and Sterling here function almost as a comedy duo competing for the attention of a lady who needs help getting across a puddle (there were apparently torrential rains in LA at the beginning of 1914, which created massive puddles such as this one, and Keystone was glad to take advantage of the unique meteorological situation). It is rather rare to find Chaplin effectively paired with someone else in this manner, and I thoroughly enjoy it. Sterling's style focuses more on broad motions than Chaplin's subtle gestures, but that makes it fun watching the two of them opposing one another with the same goal. It strikes me watching this how much the style of physical comedy Michael Richards' applied to the role of Cosmo Kramer owes to Ford Sterling. I wonder if Richards ever discussed this influence.

This film incorporates advances and new features of the "Tramp" character in several ways. This is his most sympathetic role to date, and we get our first glimpses of some of his characteristic moves, like skidding around a corner hopping on one foot, waving his hand while sticking it out from his nose in a "nyeah nyeah" kind of gesture, twirling an umbrella and his classic walk.

Halfway through the film it also settles into a park setting making this the first of many Chaplin comedies to take place in a park with a lake (in the Keystone days, this was invariably Echo Park, a few blocks from the studio), with typical features of such comedies (all contained in this film) including a dispute over an object and/or women, bricks getting thrown, and someone getting kicked in the rear and landing in the lake in a humorous fashion. Chaplin once famously said "All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” He did so many times, but this film is the prototype.

Putting aside my personal affection for the brief Kid Auto Races (I was probably over generous also giving it a 7 on the content scale - but watching the Tramp undiluted in that film easily makes up for the lack of much plot for me), I think this is more objectively the best of Chaplin's first 5 films. It is the longest film he made until he started into two reelers with Mabel at the Wheel.

Rating:
Content: 7/10
Print: 3/10

 

Or as we call it "thumbing your nose" at someone.