Charlie Chaplin Filmography Continued
KEYSTONE ESSANAY MUTUAL UNITED ARTISTS
F
I R S T N A T I
O N A L
How
To Make Movies
1918/1982
- 2 reels
In
this comedy documentary begun during the construction of his new studios
in 1917, and continued after its
completion, Charlie Chaplin gives us a
look, however staged, inside the Chaplin
workplace. Although never
completed by Chaplin, who wanted
to use it to help fulfil his First
National
contract, it was reconstructed in 1982 by scholars Kevin Brownlow
and David Gill from material they found at
the Chaplin estate. They got the
editing continuity from a page
of titles they found in the Chaplin archive.
Some
of the footage was used in 1959 by Chaplin as a prologue to his
compilation, The Chaplin Revue, and
used again for the documentary on
Chaplin,
The Gentleman Tramp.
The
film begins with a stop action sequence of the studio being built. Then
it shows a dapper, 29 year old Chaplin arriving
at work, greeting his
staff, reading his fan
mail. His butler is instructed to bring
his famous
costume, which he retrieves
from the studio vault. Chaplin is seen
rehearsing his cast and coaching a
starlet through a screen test. We are
taken into the Chaplin Studio
laboratory where we're shown how film is
developed and processed, and we
see Chaplin at work in the editing room.
Then
Chaplin is seen dressing in his Tramp costume and applying the famous
mustache. A few scenes from an
unreleased Mutual follow, showing Chaplin,
Eric Campbell and Albert Austin on the golf
links.
Ideas from these
sequences were later used for
Chaplin's The Idle Class. This would be
Chaplin's
final pairing with Campbell who died in an auto accident soon
after filming. At the end of
the work day Chaplin bids us 'Au Revoir". How
To
Make Movies offers us a rare glimpse inside Chaplin's studio, and
although he was always guarded
about revealing his working methods, it
gives us the feeling of those
exciting, creative days.
Cast
(as themselves)
Charles
Chaplin
Edna
Purviance
Henry
Bergman
Loyal
Underwood
Jack
Wilson
Eric
Campbell
Albert
Austin
Tom
Wood
Tom
Harington
Granville
Redmond
Nellie
Bly Baker
Toraichi Kono
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Screenwriter, Director
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
A
Dog's Life
1918
- 39 min.
Charlie
Chaplin's first "Million Dollar Picture" for the First National
Exchange
was also the first made in his new studio, which he built in a
then residential area of
Chaplin
left Mutual under friendly circumstances, after brother Syd
Chaplin
had negotiated his new contact. It called
for eight two reel comedies in a
year for which First National would give him
a substantial production
budget and a share in the
profits from his films. The nature of the
agreement would change however,
due to Chaplin's desire to expand his films
to longer forms and augment the dramatic
aspect of his stories and
character.
A
Dog's Life is set in the same London-like slums as his Mutual Easy
Street,
the milieu in which Chaplin grew up. Charlie is truly a Tramp
again. His clothes are
tattered and he has no tie or cane. We first see him
sleeping in an empty lot,
partially surrounded by a fence. He's awakened by
a hot dog salesman from whom he attempts
to steal his breakfast, but he's
observed and chased away by a
cop. At an employment office, he tries
applying for a job at a brewery,
but in a remarkably timed comic near-
dance, he is beaten to the
wicket by other hopefuls each time he
approaches. Charlie meets his
counterpart in the character of Scraps, a
small dog he rescues from a
dog fight. Scraps is as much like the
Tramp
character as was Jackie Coogan in the later film The Kid, and parallels
are drawn between them throughout the film.
Charlie
and Scraps visit a lunch wagon run by Syd Chaplin.
The broke
Charlie
is able to sneak hot dogs for Scraps and pastries for himself from
under the nose of the
increasingly suspicious proprietor, until he is again
observed by the cop and chased
away. Next, Charlie wanders into the
seedy
Green
Lantern cafe, hiding Scraps in his copious trousers, which becomes
obvious to everyone when
Scraps' tail emerges from a hole in the seat of
his pants. Charlie meets Edna Purviance, a soulful singer who starts
everyone crying with her song,
but is inept as a dancehall girl who must
flirt with the customers to
get them to buy drinks. Although Charlie
doesn't get her attempts at
flirtation at first, he's clearly interested,
but is ejected by a waiter when it becomes
clear he can't afford the price
of a drink.
Meanwhile,
two toughs from the saloon rob a rich drunkard and bury his
wallet in the vacant lot where
Charlie soon returns to sleep. The crooks
return to the Green Lantern
and when Edna refuses their advances, she's
fired by the manager (popular
artist Granville Redmond) and despondently
sits at a table and cries. While Charlie
sleeps, Scraps digs up the wallet
and Charlie returns to the saloon. About to
celebrate his new found wealth
with Edna, Charlie is knocked over the head
and robbed by the crooks who
have recognized the wallet. In the ensuing
fight Charlie is again ejected
from the saloon. He sneaks back in and
regains the money in an hilarious
scene in which, from behind a
curtain, he knocks out one of the crooks and
substitutes his own arms for the
crook's, cajoling and knocking out the
second robber. Escaping the
Green Lantern, he's chased by the thieves into
the lunch stand and is receiving a beating
until Scraps rescues him, just
as Charlie had done for the dog earlier.
The cops arrive and arrest the
crooks, but the threesome
escape. We next see them in scene of domestic
bliss - Charlie now a farmer
planting his crops, Edna now his mate
preparing tea, and in the cradle
by the fireplace - Scraps with >her< new
litter.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Tramp
Edna
Purviance - Bar Singer
Mut - Scraps
Syd Chaplin - Lunch Wagon Owner
Henry
Bergman - Unemployed Man and Dance Hall Lady
Charles
"Chuck" Riesner - Clerk and Musician
Albert
Austin - Crook
Granville
Redmond - Dance Hall Manager
Dave
Anderson - Unemployed Man
Ted
Edwards - Unemployed Man
Louis
Fitzroy - Unemployed Man
James
T. Kelly - Unemployed Man
Loyal
Underwood -Unemployed Man, Man in Dance Hall
Rob
Wagner - Dance Hall Man
Tom
Wilson - Policeman
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
The
Bond
1918
- 10 min.
This
short promotional film for the
in a few days during the shooting of
Shoulder Arms. Using rather stark,
expressionistic sets and props, it
tells the story of the various types of
bonds between people. The
bond of friendship, shows Charlie meeting friend
Albert
Austin who tells him jokes, borrows money, then invites him for a
drink with the money he's
borrowed. The bond of love is represented by
Charlie
and Edna, who are struck by cupid's arrows and soon enter into the
bond of matrimony. But the "most
important of all" is the
Edna
is Miss Liberty, threatened by the Kaiser who is subdued a soldier in
uniform. Charlie is seen buying
bonds from Uncle Sam who gives the money in
turn to a worker, who gives a guns to a
soldier and sailor. Finally,
Charlie
kayos the Kaiser with a mallet inscribed "
extorts the audience to help
the cause.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Himself
Syd Chaplin - The Kaiser
Edna
Purviance - Herself
Dorothy
Rosher - Cupid
Albert
Austin - Friend
and Uncle Sam
NB:
- Although production stills show Henry Bergman in costume for
the role of John Bull, he does not appear in
the finished film.
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Producer, Director, Writer
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
Shoulder
Arms
1918
- 40 min.
Shoulder
Arms was Charlie Chaplin's final contribution to the World War I
effort, along with his
personal appearances selling
film The Bond. It was released shortly before
the end of the war and
Chaplin
made prints available to soldiers fighting overseas, for which he
was lauded for cheering the severely tested
troops.
Charlie
is a member of the "Awkward Squad" and we first see him
being put through his paces
in training camp. He has problems with making a
proper about-face and with
marching, his out-turned feet constantly
annoying his drill
sergeant. Exhausted after a hard drill
he collapses on
his cot.
"Over
there", somewhere in
and Chaplin gives us a hilarious view on the
difficulties experienced by
the troops - flooded quarters (which he
shares with a sergeant played by
brother Sydney Chaplin),
constant shelling, sniping and homesickness. In
a touching scene, a mail-less Charlie reads
a letter from home over the
shoulder of another soldier and
on his face we can see his emotional
reactions to the good and bad
news that the soldier reads. Charlie is sent
over the top and ends up capturing a squad of
German soldiers single
handedly. His next foray, in the guise of a tree,
provides a wonderful
look at Chaplin's pantomime talents as he
"becomes" a tree each time the
enemy soldiers approach.
Escaping the enemy squad he hides in a bombed out
house where a French girl,
Edna Purviance, lives. She discovers him in
her bed and tends to his wounds. Soon
they're beset by the enemy squad,
searching for Charlie. In the
chase they collapse the rickety house and
Charlie
escapes, but Edna is arrested for aiding the enemy. Meanwhile
Charlie's
sergeant buddy is captured while attempting to telegraph
information on the enemy to the
allied camp.
Edna
and Sydney are both brought to the enemy headquarters and Edna is
threatened by the evil
commandant. Charlie, sneaking down the
chimney of
the commandant's house rescues Edna from his
advances and locks him in a
closet. At that moment the
Kaiser, Crown Prince and their General arrive at
the camp. Charlie, rushing to the closet,
takes the commandant's uniform
and impersonates him. Taking charge of Edna
and escorting her outside, he
is recognized by his captive buddy, and the
three of them overcome and
restrain the Kaiser's driver and
guards and replace them. When the Kaiser
and the others enter the limousine, the
allies drives them off to the
American
camp, where Charlie is hailed as a hero and is hoisted on the
shoulders of his comrades. But it
was all a dream - in the classic
Chaplinesque style Charlie is shaken
awake by his drill sergeant - still in
boot camp!
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Doughboy
Edna
Purviance - The Girl
Sydney
Chaplin - Charlie's Comrade and the Kaiser
Henry
Bergman - Fat Whiskered German Soldier, the Kaiser's General and
Bartender
Albert
Austin - American Soldier, Clean Shaven and Bearded German Soldiers
Jack
Wilson - German
Crown Prince
Tom
Wilson -
Training
Loyal
Underwood - Small German Officer
John
Rand - US Soldier
Park
Jones - US Soldier
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Producer, Director, Writer
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
Sunnyside
1919 - 3 reels - 34 min.
Charlie
Chaplin's third film in his First National contract is a simple
story of country life, an
idyll, which contains two separate dream
sequences, a characteristic
Chaplin story device. Charlie is a farm
hand
and general factotum at a combination farm,
general store and hotel. His
boss, Tom Wilson, drives him hard, waking him
early to prepare breakfast
while he sleeps in. Charlie
has devised some labor saving techniques, such
as sitting a chicken on the frying pan so
she can lay an egg in it, or
milking the cow directly into
the coffee cups. After Sunday breakfast the
boss goes off to church along with most of
the town, while Charlie must
tend to the cows. Charlie, reading the bible,
loses the herd as they stroll
peacefully up a country road. He
finds them in town and must shoo them out
of various buildings. When the whole parrish comes running out of the
church, Charlie enters
heroically and comes out riding the bull, which
eventually dumps him in a stream
below a wooden bridge. Unconscious,
Charlie
dreams of dancing through the meadows with four lovely wood nymphs,
in a scene of balletic grace and humor. Awakened at the bottom of the
stream, he's pulled out by
four men including his boss, who kicks him all
the way home.
Sunday
afternoon is Charlie's time for visiting his girl, Edna Purviance,
bringing her flowers and a ring.
Their romantic tryst is hampered by her
mischievous teenage brother, until
Charlie sends him out to play blind
man's buff in traffic. Then
Edna's father (Henry Bergman) interrupts
their musical interlude at
the pump organ, ordering Charlie away.
Back
at the store/hotel Charlie is again scolded for being late. A
traffic
accident outside brings a new
visitor, a "city slicker" who is injured and
must stay at the hotel. He's attended to by a
horse doctor and shown to his
room by Charlie, who later sits down to rest.
Later,
the slicker is preparing to leave when Edna enters the store and
attracts the handsome visitor
who follows her out of the store. Worried by
the competition, Charlie eventually arrives
at Edna's, observing through a
window his rival's fashionable
ways - the spats on his shoes, the
handkerchief up his sleeve and the
cigarette lighter in the handle of his
walking stick. Seeing that he's losing Edna, Charlie returns
home and
tries to emulate his rival by
putting old socks over the tops of his shoes
and rigging a match to the end of a stick.
When he visits Edna she rejects
him, giving back his ring. Despondent,
Charlie walks out to the street and
stands in the way of an
approaching car. The impact he feels, however, is
from the boot of his boss as he awakens
Charlie from his second reverie.
The
guest is really leaving this time, and when Edna enters the store she
gives the slicker's advances the
cold shoulder as Charlie proclaims his
devotion to her. He helps the slicker load his baggage into
the car and
receives a tip. Charlie and Edna
celebrate his departure with a loving hug,
as the camera irises in.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Farm handyman
Edna
Purviance - Village Belle
Tom
Wilson - Boss
Albert
Austin - Doctor
Henry
Bergman - Villager and Edna's Father
Tom
Terriss - Young Man from the City
Loyal
Underwood - Fat Boy's Father
Tom
Wood - Fat Boy
Olive
Burton - Nymph
Helen
Kohn - Nymph
Willie
Mae Carson - Nymph
Olive
Alcorn - Nymph
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Screenwriter, Director, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
A
Day's Pleasure
1919
- 20 min.
Charlie
Chaplin's fourth film for First National is generally considered
a lightweight entry and a throwback to
earlier days. It begins with
Charlie,
Edna and their two boys leaving their house (actually a corner of
Chaplin's
studio at La
outing. The family piles into the family flivver, and
after Charlie's
amusing efforts to keep the
engine running, they arrive at a dock and board
a crowded day cruiser.
Charlie
has a disagreement with another passenger (Tom Wilson), when he
squeezes himself into a place on
the bench next to the fellow's hefty wife,
(Babe
races off the boat to get it.
As the vessel pulls away from the dock, a
large woman with a baby
carriage tries to board, but ends up stretched
between the dock and the
boat. Charlie, returning with his hat
uses her as
a gangplank, then tries to pull her aboard
with a grappling hook.
Once
the boat is under way, the passengers dance to the music of a small
combo, but soon everyone is
feeling the effects of the violently rocking
cruiser. Charlie has to stop
dancing with the lovely Edna to sit by the
railing near the trombonist,
whose own mal de mer turns the black man quite
pale. Meanwhile, Edna and the kids are
napping on deck chairs and Charlie
decides to join them. In
typical Chaplinesque fashion, he cannot seem to
assemble his chair. Overcome by
seasickness he collapses into the lap of
the equally bilious Babe and is covered with
a blanket by a helpful
steward. When the lady's jealous husband returns with
drinks he tries to
attack Charlie, but becomes
too nauseated to continue, of which the now
recovered Charlie takes advantage.
The
return trip in the family car is equally eventful. Charlie runs afoul
of a couple of traffic cops, is blocked by
some irate pedestrians, one of
whose foul language spurs
Charlie to indicate the divine retribution
awaiting him, and backs into a
tar truck which spills its contents on the
street. The cops, berating Charlie for blocking
traffic, get stuck in the
tar along with Charlie, but he cleverly
steps out of his large shoes and
drives off with his family,
much to the amusement of the onlookers. This
last scene may have originally been intended
to occur earlier in the film,
according to continuity sheets
existing in the Chaplin archives, but was
placed at he end of the film
for the released version.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Father
Edna
Purviance - Mother
Tom
Wilson - Large Husband and Cop
Babe
Henry
Bergman - Captain, Man in Car and Cop
Marion
Feducha - Small Boy
Bob
Kelly - Small Boy
Jackie
Coogan - Smallest Boy
Loyal
Underwood - Angry Little Man in Street
Arthur
Thalasso - Fat Woman
Toraichi Kono
- Chauffeur
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Director, Screenwriter, Producer, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
The
Kid
1921
- 54 min.
The
Kid was Charles Chaplin's first self-produced and directed feature
film; 1914's 6-reel Tillie's Punctured
Romance was a Mack Sennett
production in which Chaplin merely
co-starred.
The
story "with a smile and perhaps a tear," begins with unwed
mother
Edna
Purviance leaving the Charity Hospital, babe in
arms. Her burden is
illustrated with a title card
showing Christ bearing the cross. The father
of the child is a poor artist who cares
little for of his former lover,
carelessly knocking her photo into
his garret fireplace and cooly returning
it there when he sees it is too badly
damaged to keep. The mother
sorrowfully leaves her baby in the
back seat of a millionaire's limousine,
with a note imploring whoever finds it to
care for and love the child. But
thieves steal the limo, and,
upon discovering the baby, ditch the tot in an
alleyway trash can. Enter
Charlie, out for his morning stroll, carefully
selecting a choice cigarette butt
from his well used tin. He stumbles upon
the squalling infant and, after trying to
palm it off on a lady with
another baby in a carriage,
decides to adopt the kid himself. Meanwhile
Edna
has relented, but when she returns to the mansion and is told that the
car has been stolen, she collapses in
despair. Charlie outfits his flat for
the baby as best he can, using an old coffee
pot with a nipple on the spout
as a baby bottle and a cane chair with the
seat cut out as a potty seat.
Charlie's
attic apartment is a representation of the garret Chaplin had
shared with his mother and brother
in
is a recreation of the ones he knew as a
boy.
Five
years later, Charlie has become a glazier, while his adopted son (the
remarkable Jackie Coogan) drums up business for his old man by cheerfully
breaking windows in the neighborhood. Edna meanwhile has become a world
famous opera singer, still
haunted by the memory of her child, who does
charity work in the very slums
in which he now lives. Ironically, she gives
a toy dog to little Jackie. Charlie and
Jack's close calls with the law and
fights with street toughs are
easily overcome, but when Jack falls ill, the
attending doctor learns of the
illegal adoption and summons the Orphan
Asylum social workers who try to separate
Charlie from his foster son. In
one of the most moving scenes in all of
Chaplin's films, Charlie and Jackie
try to fight the officials, but Charlie is
subdued by the cop they have
summoned. Jackie is roughly
thrown into the back of the Asylum van,
pleading to the welfare official
and to God not to be separated from his
father. Charlie, freeing
himself from the cop, pursues the orphanage van
over the rooftops and, descending into the
back of the truck, dispatches
the official and tearfully reunites with his
"son". Returning to check on
the sick boy, Edna encounters the doctor and
is shown the note which she
had attached to her baby five years earlier.
Charlie and Jack, not daring
to return home, settle in a flophouse for
the night. The proprietor sees a
newspaper ad offering a reward
for Jackie's return and kidnaps the sleeping
boy. After hunting fruitlessly, a grieving
Charlie falls asleep on his
tenement doorstep and dreams
that he has been reunited with the boy in
Heaven
(that "flirtatious angel" is Lita Grey,
later Chaplin's second
wife). Woken from his dream by the cop, he is
taken via limousine to Edna's
mansion where he is welcomed by
Jackie and Edna, presumably to stay.
Chaplin
had difficulties getting The Kid produced. His inspiration, it is
suggested was the death of his own
first son, Norman Spencer Chaplin a few
days after birth in 1919. His determination
to make a serio-comic feature
was challenged by First National who
preferred two reel films, which were
more quickly produced and released. Chaplin wisely gained his
distributors' approval by inviting
them to the studio, where he trotted out
the delightful Jackie to entertain
them. Chaplin's divorce case from his
first wife Mildred Harris
also played a part; fearing seizure of the
negatives Chaplin and crew
escaped to
to complete the editing of the film. Chaplin's excellent and moving score
for The Kid was composed in 1971 for a
theatrical re-release, but used
themes that Chaplin had
composed in 1921. Chaplin re-edited the film
somewhat for the re-release,
cutting scenes that he felt were overly
sentimental, such as Edna's
observing of a May-December wedding and her
portrayal as a saint, outlined by
a church's stained glass window.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - The Tramp
Jackie
Coogan - The Kid
Edna
Purviance - Mother
Tom
Wilson - Policeman
Charles
"Chuck" Reisner - The Bully
Raymond
Lee - His Kid Brother
Lillita McMurray (Lita Grey) - Flirting Angel
Albert
Austin – Car thief and Man in Shelter
Arthur
Thalasso – Second car thief
Beulah
Bains - Bride
Nellie
Bly Baker - Slum Nurse
Henry
Bergman - Professor Guido (Impressario) and Flophouse
Proprietor
Kitty
Bradbury - Bride's Mother
Frank
Campeau - Welfare Officer
Jack
Coogan, Sr. - Guest, Pickpocket, Devil
Robert
Dunbar - Bridegroom
Rupert
Franklin - Bride's Father
Jules
Hanft - Physician
Baby
Hathaway - The Kid as a Baby
Walter
Lynch - Tough cop
John
McKinnon - Chief of Police
Carl
Miller – Artist
Granville
Redmond - Artist
Esther
Ralston - Extra in Heaven Scene
Edgar
Sherrod - Priest
Edith
Wilson - Woman with Pram
Baby
Wilson - Her Baby
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
The
Idle Class
1921
- 28 min.
Charlie
Chaplin's eighth film under his million dollar contract with First
National
is a return to the two reel form, and to the lightness of the
Mutual style. Chaplin plays dual
role, that of a vacationing Tramp, and a
high society inebriate husband.
Arriving
in
who descends from the coach, and Charlie,
who emerges from the baggage
compartment under a train car,
complete with baggage and golf clubs.
Charlie
hitches a ride on the back of Edna's limousine. Edna's forgetful,
alcoholic husband is a natty
double for Charlie. A telegram tells us he was
supposed to meet Edna at the
train. Already late, he leaves the hotel room
without his pants. Escaping
notice of the other guests in the lobby causes
him to delay his departure, to the point
where newly arrived Edna finds him
hiding in bed.
That
afternoon he receives a note telling him that his wife has moved to other
lodgings until he stops
drinking. He gazes longingly at Edna's picture and,
his back turned to the camera, appears to be
sobbing. As he turns, however,
we see the cocktail shaker he is expertly
manipulating.
Edna,
meanwhile, is out for a horseback ride, and Charlie has found the
nearby golf links. His
hilarious golf game, highlighted by his run-ins with
Mack
Swain and John Rand pauses when he sees Edna pass by on horseback.
After
looking longingly at her, he fantasizes rescuing her from her runaway
horse (in another of
Chaplin's dream sequences), imagining their lives all
the way through marriage and children. But
the dream ends and Charlie returns
to his golf game, in which his drive breaks
Swain's whisky bottle causing him
to burst into tears, and in which he again
runs afoul of
The
inebriate husband has received a note from his wife, saying that she
will forgive him if he attends her costume
ball. Dressed in a suit of armor,
his visor jams closed, preventing him from
taking a drink, and he spends great
effort trying to open it.
Meanwhile
Charlie has got himself in trouble with the law - while sitting
on a park bench his neighbor
has been pickpocketed and Charlie is the
suspect. Pursued by a cop, he
sneaks his way through an arriving limo
and into Edna's costume ball. Edna,
naturally mistaking him for her husband,
makes moves toward
reconciliation, which Charlie welcomes as affection.
When
greeted by Mack, who turns out to be Edna's father, Charlie expects
trouble from their golfing
encounter, but is amazed that Swain thinks he's
Edna's husband. Charlie denies that thy
are married, which gets him knocked
down several times. Caught together by the
still visored husband, Charlie
is attacked but the unknown assailant is
subdued by the other guests.
Eventually
he frees himself and identifies himself to Swain, who tries to
remove the helmet. Eventually
Charlie uses a can opener to peel back the
visor (revealing an unknown
actor double), and the confusion is explained.
Told
unceremoniously to leave, Charlie departs, but Edna decides they've
treated him shabbily and sends
Mack after him to apologize. Charlie accepts
his hand, but points to Mack's shoelace.
When Mack bends over to tie it,
Charlie
delivers a swift kick to the derriere, before sprinting off into
the distance.
How gorgeous is Edna in this frame capture?
The
golf sequences in The Idle Class were inspired by an earlier, unfinished
Mutual
called The Golf Links, featuring Eric Campbell and Albert Austin,
portions of which were included
in Chaplin's 1918, How to Make Movies. A
still, showing Campbell and
Chaplin teeing off on the same ball made its way
into Chaplin's autobiography, captioned as
being from The Idle Class (made four
years after
aficionados, until How to Make
Movies was assembled by Kevin Brownlow and
David
Gill. Chaplin's lovely score for The Idle Class was composed for its
reissue in 1971.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Tramp and Husband
Edna
Purviance - Neglected Wife
Mack
Swain - Her Father
Lillian
Mc Murray - Maid
Lillita Mc Murray (Lita Grey) - Maid
Allan
Garcia - Cop and Guest
John
Rand - Golfer/Guest
Henry
Bergman - Sleeping Hobo and Guest in Policeman Costume
Loyal
Underwood - Guest
Rex
Storey - Pickpocket and Guest
Edward
Knoblock - Extra
Production Team
Charles
Chaplin - Screenwriter, Director, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
Pay
Day
1922
- 22 min.
Charlie Chaplin's last two reeler recalls earlier comedies
such as
the Essanay Work,
with Chaplin casting himself as a worker rather than
a Tramp, but the film shows great advances
in film technique. Charlie is a
construction worker, who arrives
late for work, bringing a flower as peace
offering for his boss, Mack
Swain. As a ditch digger, Charlie leaves
something to be desired, but as a
brick catcher, he's amazing, due to a
very clever reverse action scene.
Lunchtime
brings Mack's daughter, Edna Purviance with his lunch
and
Charlie
seems smitten. He has no lunch, but is
lucky enough to partake of
some of his co-workers' food due to a very
active work elevator, which they
all seem to use as a sideboard.
It's pay day and Charlie argues about his
wages, despite being overpaid.
His
battleaxe wife Phyllis Allen (in their first re-teaming since the
Keystone
days) shows up at the end of the workday to collect his wages,
some of which he's able to retain despite her
efforts.
That
night, Charlie and his co-workers go drinking and are quite looped at
the end of the evening - bellicose but songful. In a rare night time
photography scene, Charlie tries to
catch the last streetcar home but is
pushed out one end when huge
Henry Bergman pushes his way on at the
other. In his drunkenness
Charlie boards a hot dog cart, thinking it's
another streetcar, holding onto
a suspended salami as a hand strap.
Arriving
home at daybreak, Charlie has just started undressing for bed when
the alarm clock rings, waking the wife.
Pretending to leave for work, he
tries to settle down to sleep
in the bathtub, but is caught and sent out to
work by his nagging mate.
Payday
began life as Come Seven, a story about two rich plumbers. Production
was interrupted by Chaplin's trip to
photographed.
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - Laborer
Phyllis
Allen - His Wife
Mack
Swain - Foreman
Edna
Purviance - Foreman's Daughter
Henry
Bergman - Workman/Drinking Companion
Syd Chaplin - Workman/Drinking Companion and
Lunch Cart Owner
Allan
Garcia - Drinking Companion
John
Rand - Workman/Drinking Companion
Loyal
Underwood - Workman/Drinking Companion
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Producer, Director, Writer, Music
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
The
Pilgrim
1923
- 44 minutes
In
the final film of his First National contract (an early working title
was The Tail End), Charlie Chaplin spoofs
small town life and morality.
Outside
a prison a guard posts a wanted notice - Charlie is an escaped
convict who steals the clothes
of a swimming minister. At the railroad
station he nearly gives himself
away by guiltily running away from an
eloping couple who want him to
perform an impromptu wedding. He boards a
train and travels to a small
town, Devil's Gulch,
welcomed by his congregation,
who have never met the new reverend they've
been expecting. He meets the townsfolk and is
enchanted by Edna, in whose
house he will be boarding. Charlie
arrives just in time for church services
and on the way he picks a liquor bottle from
the pocket of a large Deacon,
only to have it break when they both slip on
a banana peel. The Deacon
thinks that the spilled whisky
has come from his pocket.
The
plucky fugitive goes along with the ruse and after seeing to the church
collection, pitting one side of
the congregation against the other in
competition to see who contributes
the most, he gives a wonderful sermon in
pantomime - the story of David
and Goliath. His story is so effective that
a young boy breaks into wild applause
which Charlie acknowledges with the
aplomb of a seasoned
theatrical.
At
the home of Edna and her Mother, his impersonation is severely tested by
a visit from a couple with a mischievous
child, Dinky Dean Riesner. (In
later recollections Riesner tells of how he had to be cajoled into punching
and slapping his "Uncles" Charlie
and Syd, something abhorrent to him in
real life).
A
stroll with Edna through town brings him face to face with a former
cellmate, who is invited home
for tea by the unsuspecting Edna. During the
visit he observes the hiding
place of Mother's mortgage money and Charlie
valiantly but unsuccessfully
tries to prevent the crook from stealing it.
When
the thief escapes, Charlie gives chase, but the sheriff, by now aware
of Charlie's identity as an escapee, causes
everyone to believe that the
two are in league. Charlie however,
overpowers the crook and returns the
money to Edna.
When
the Pilgrim's true intentions are revealed, rather than arresting him,
the sheriff escorts him to the Mexican
border. He orders the fugitive to
pick a bouquet of flowers. When Charlie
obeys, the sheriff boots him across
the border and takes off, leaving him stranded
between warring bandit
factions on one side, and arrest
as a fugitive on the other, slowly walking
into the sunset with one foot in
Cast
Charles
Chaplin - The Pilgrim, aka Lefty Lombard, aka Slippery
Elm
Edna
Purviance - The Girl, Miss Brown
Syd Chaplin - Little Boy's
Father/Eloper/Train Conductor
Mack
Swain - Deacon Jones
Kitty
Bradbury - Edna's Mother, Mrs. Brown
Tom
Murray - Sheriff
Charles
"Chuck" Riesner - The
Crook, Howard Huntington aka Nitro Nick aka
Picking
Pete
Dinky
Dean Riesner - Bratty Little Boy
Phyllis
Allen - Congregation Member
Monta Bell - Policeman
Henry
Bergman - Sheriff on Train/Man in Railroad Station
Edith
Bostwick - Congregation Member
Raymond
Lee - Boy in Congregation
Loyal
Underwood - Small Deacon
May
Wells - Little Boy's Mother
Jack
Wilson - Swimming Minister
Production
Team
Charles
Chaplin - Director, Producer, Screenwriter, Composer
Charles
Hall - Production Designer
Roland
H. "Rollie" Totheroh
- Cinematographer
Jack
Wilson - Cinematographer
Music
score composed for the 1959 The Chaplin Revue
re-release by Charles
Chaplin,
including theme song "I'm Bound For