Charles ChaplinFilmography

Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin

Actors: Sydney Pollack, Charles Chaplin, Johnny Depp, Robert Downey, Jr., Woody Allen, Milos Forman, Marcel Marceau

Synopsis: American film historian and author Richard Schickel directs the documentary Charlie: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin. Schickel offers an exploration into Chaplin's life, from his childhood in London until his death in 1977. The film also contains insight on his multifaceted film career and Read More

Chaplin Today: A Woman of Paris

Chaplin Today: A King in New York

The Tramp and the Dictator

Actors: Walter Bernstein, Ray Bradbury, Sydney Chaplin, Al Hirschfeld, Stanley Kauffmann

Synopsis: One of the most compelling strokes of fate in the past millenium is the fact that the 20th century's most hated dictator and most beloved film comedian were born within four days of each other in 1889. Although Adolf Hitler probably never gave Charlie Chaplin a second thought during his rise to Read More

Slapstick, Too!

Actors: Eli Wallach

Synopsis: In the early years of cinema, nothing kept audiences in stitches quite like a good dose of physical comedy -- affectionately known as slapstick. Though it may not be as prevalent today as it was in the days of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and W.C. Fields, audiences can still look back on this Read More

Judy Garland's Hollywood

Synopsis: Though many fans will always fondly recall Judy Garland's wonderful portrayal of young Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Garland herself was apparently most proud of the role she played in A Star Is Born. In this film, which opened in 1954, Garland portrayed an actress who sees her career blossom as Read More

Chaplin

Crew: Book Author

Actors: Robert Downey, Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin, Kevin Dunn, Anthony Hopkins

Synopsis: Partly based on Charlie Chaplin's My Autobiography, this humorous and dramatic biopic features an all-star cast including Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Anthony Hopkins, Kevin Kline, Diane Lane, and Chaplin's real-life daughter, Geraldine Chaplin, who portrays his mentally ill Read More

Emerging Chaplin

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Synopsis: Emerging Chaplin profiles the talent of the best-known actor of silent comedy, Charles Chaplin. Follow the emergence of Chaplin's genius, from his early films, to his stint at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios, to his classics: Kid Auto Races, The Bank, The Tramp, The Rink, and Easy Street. Read More

Hollywood

Synopsis: Produced for Britain's Thames television in 1979, Hollywood is a 13-part overview of the silent film era, lovingly assembled by historian Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. Each episode runs one hour, and each concentrates on a separate aspect of the art of the silent cinema. Chapter titles include Read More

The Hollywood Clowns

Unknown Chaplin: The Great Director

Synopsis: The second volume in a three-part series on the life and career of legendary director Charlie Chaplin. Unknown Chaplin, Vol. 2: The Director focuses on the heart of his directorial heyday and his development into one of the most successful and respected movie directors of all time. The video Read More

Unknown Chaplin: Hidden Treasures

Synopsis: This three part documentary offers interesting insight into the artistry of comedian Charles Chaplin between the years 1916-31. This part presents rare film clips from Chaplin's home movies, outtakes, and segments of projects that were later abandoned. The program includes excerpts from City Read More

Unknown Chaplin: My Happiest Years

Synopsis: Narrated by the incomparable James Mason and co-directed by David Gill and Kevin Brownlow, this documentary features rare behind-the-scenes footage of the great filmmaker and comic actor Charles Chaplin at work creating his films. The program offers commentary and interviews with numerous people Read More

Charlie Chaplin

Synopsis: A profile of Charlie Chaplin, most noted for his lovable "Little Tramp," from his childhood in England through his early career in vaudeville to his stardom in Hollywood. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Chaplin: A Character is Born

Synopsis: A film chronicling the evolution of Chaplin's "Little Tramp," including scenes from his early films, "The Pawnshop," "The Rink," and "The Immigrant." ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Gentleman Tramp

Synopsis: Gentleman Tramp utilizes clearer-than-usual vintage filmclips to trace the life and career of comedy giant Charlie Chaplin. This made-for-TV documentary was produced in the wake of Chaplin's "special Oscar" win of 1972 and the subsequent renewal of interest in his work. Walter Matthau provides the Read More

Smile

Crew: Featured Music

Actors: Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon, Michael Kidd, Geoffrey Lewis, Nicholas Pryor

Synopsis: The American beauty-contest ritual is skewered by screenwriter Jerry Belson and director Michael Ritchie in Smile. The film takes place during an annual pageant in Santa Rosa, CA. The event is supervised by local mover and shaker Brenda DiCarlo (Barbara Feldon), to whom the contest is the most Read More

Chaplinesque: My Life and Hard Times

Synopsis: This biographical documentary examines the early life and career of Charlie Chaplin. A repeated feature of American Public television, the film is narrated by Gloria Swanson. Some of Chaplin's early short films are shown in excerpt, but they are taken out of context so that the roles can be Read More

Chaplin's Art of Comedy

Synopsis: This documentary on the work of the silent screen's greatest comedian features excerpts from a number of Charlie Chaplin's earliest screen appearances restored from original nitrate prints for this release. Chaplin's Art of Comedy also includes precious outtakes from Chaplin's films and highlights Read More

The Funniest Man in the World

Synopsis: A video compilation of cutting-room-floor footage from the works of Charles Chaplin. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. narrates. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

A Countess from Hong Kong

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Sydney Chaplin, Tippi Hedren, Patrick Cargill

Synopsis: Charles Chaplin wrote, directed, and scored this old-fashioned romantic comedy, which proved to be his last film. Wealthy American diplomat Ogden Mears (Marlon Brando) is sailing from Hong Kong to Hawaii, where he hopes to meet and reconcile with his estranged wife Martha (Tippi Hedren). However Read More

The Eternal Tramp

Hollywood and the Stars: Funny Men

Actors: Joseph Cotten

30 Years of Fun

Synopsis: The fourth of Oscar-winning short-subject director Youngson's comedy compilations (the earlier ones were Golden Age of Comedy, When Comedy was King, and Days of Thrills and Laughter) is, amazingly, almost as full and fresh as those earlier efforts, containing highlights from such silent comedy Read More

Days of Thrills and Laughter

Synopsis: This is one in a series of entertaining cinematic compilations by Robert Youngson that reviews aspects of the history of film (The Golden Age of Comedy and When Comedy Was King directly preceded this release). As in its predecessors, this compilation looks back on the more distant past. Renowned Read More

When Comedy Was King

Synopsis: Robert Youngson's second feature-length compilation of silent comedy highlights (the first was The Golden Age of Comedy), When Comedy Was King covers the years 1914 to 1929. Using snipettes from the 1929 Charley Chase 2-reeler Movie Night as a framing device, Youngson offers vintage clips from the Read More

Clown Princes of Hollywood

Synopsis: This documentary video offers a variety of clips from the silent screen's funniest men. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

A King in New York

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Dawn Addams, Oliver Johnston, Maxine Audley, Harry Green

Synopsis: King Shadov (Charles Chaplin), the newly deposed monarch of a small European country, arrives in New York to face a life in exile. No sooner does he get here, however, than he discovers that his prime minister has stolen the entire royal treasury and departed for parts unknown. Stranded in New Read More

Limelight

Crew: Choreography, Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Nigel Bruce, Sydney Chaplin, Andre Eglevsky, Melissa Hayden, Buster Keaton

Synopsis: London, 1914. Calvero (Charles Chaplin), a once-great music hall comedian, weaves drunkenly home to his shabby flat. As he arrives home, he is suddenly sobered by a bad smell. It isn't his shoes, as he originally assumes, but the smell of gas, emanating from behind a locked door. Calvero smashes Read More

Chase Me Charlie

Synopsis: This film is comprised of extracts from several Charlie Chaplin silent shorts made around 1915, including The Bank, His New Job, The Tramp, The Champion, and A Night in the Show. The clips are edited together into a loose storyline. Michael Howard narrates. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Monsieur Verdoux

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Ada-May, Marjorie Bennett, Isobel Elsom, Audrey Betz, Marilyn Nash, Virginia Brissac

Synopsis: "Von Clausewitz said that war is the logical extension of diplomacy; Monsieur Verdoux feels that murder is the logical extension of business." With his controversial "comedy of murders" Monsieur Verdoux, Charles Chaplin makes his final, definitive break with the Little Tramp character that had Read More

Gaslight Follies

Synopsis: One of producer Joseph Levine's earliest projects, Gaslight Follies is a compilation of silent film footage narrated by Metropolitan Operan stalwart Milton Cross. Unlike the more respectful compilations of Robert Youngson (The Golden Age of Comedy, Laurel and Hardy's Laughing 20s etc.), Follies Read More

The Great Dictator

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Billy Gilbert

Synopsis: "This is the story of the period between two world wars--an interim during which insanity cut loose, liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was kicked around somewhat." With this pithy opening title, Charles Chaplin begins his first all-talking feature film, The Great Dictator. During World War I Read More

The Movies March On

Actors: Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, William S. Hart, Charles Chaplin, Ben Turpin

Synopsis: The Movies March On was Number 12, volume 9 of Louis de Rochemont's March of Time series. Narrated by the stentorian Westbrook Van Vorhees, this fascinating documentary manages to squeeze 40 years of filmmaking into a mere two reels. Beginning with the once scandalous The Kiss (1898), the film Read More

Modern Times

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Chester Conklin

Synopsis: This episodic satire of the Machine Age is considered Charles Chaplin's last "silent" film, although Chaplin uses sound, vocal, and musical effects throughout. Chaplin stars as an assembly-line worker driven insane by the monotony of his job. After a long spell in an asylum, he searches for work Read More

City Lights

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Harry Myers, Allan Garcia, Hank Mann, Florence Lee

Synopsis: Charles Chaplin was deep into production of his silent City Lights when Hollywood was overwhelmed by the talkie revolution. After months of anguished contemplation, Chaplin decided to finish the film as it began--in silence, save for a musical score and an occasional sound effect. Once again cast Read More

Show People

Actors: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson, Paul Ralli, Tenen Holtz

Synopsis: This Marion Davies vehicle was loosely inspired by the career of Gloria Swanson. Davies plays would-be starlet Peggy Pepper, who arrives at the gates of MGM Studios with her dad Colonel Pepper (Dell Henderson) in hopes of becoming a great dramatic actress. Instead, she a scores a hit as an ingenue Read More

The Circus

Crew: Cinematographer, Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Allan Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Henry Bergman, Harry Crocker, John Rand, Stanley "Tiny" Sandford

Synopsis: The Circus is generally considered to be a lesser Charlie Chaplin effort, coming as it does between two unquestioned masterpieces, The Gold Rush (1925) and City Lights (1931). To be sure, the film is not one of Chaplin's best, but it has a lot going for it. Director Chaplin casts star Chaplin in Read More

The Gold Rush

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Editor, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite

Synopsis: He may be called "The Lone Prospector" in The Gold Rush, but the character played by Charlie Chaplin is the same wistful, resourceful Little Tramp that had been entertaining the world and its brother since 1914. A most unlikely participant in the 1898 Yukon gold rush, Charlie finds himself sharing Read More

A Woman of Paris

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Edna Purviance, Adolphe Menjou, Carl Miller, Lydia Knott, Charles French

Synopsis: Charles Chaplin's first, long-awaited, independent production for United Artists begins with an only partially true caveat from its creator: "To The Public -- In order to avoid any misunderstanding, I wish to announce that I do not appear in this picture. It is the first serious drama written and Read More

The Pilgrim

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Phyllis Allen, Monta Bell, Henry Bergman, Edith Bostwick, Mack Swain, Loyal Underwood, Kitty Bradbury, Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance

Synopsis: 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. Chaplin is an escaped convict who steals the clothes of a swimming minister. At the railroad station he nearly gives himself away by guiltily running Read More

Souls for Sale

Actors: Eleanor Boardman, Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr, Richard Dix, Frank Mayo

Synopsis: This comedy-melodrama, based on the novel by Rupert Hughes (who also directed), blends fiction and reality to tell the story of a young woman's rise in Hollywood; the film uses real stars and productions (even Charles Chaplin filming A Woman of Paris) as its backdrop. Eleanor Boardman plays Read More

Pay Day

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Phyllis Allen, Mack Swain, Edna Purviance, Sidney Chaplin

Synopsis: 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. Chaplin is a construction worker, who arrives late for work, bringing a flower as peace offering Read More

The Kid

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance, Carl Miller, Tom Wilson

Synopsis: 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 Read More

The Idle Class

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Mack Swain

Synopsis: 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 Miami on the same train Read More

The Nut

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite de la Motte, William Lowery, Gerald Pring, Morris Hughes

Synopsis: Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was making the transition from modern romantic stories to adventures when The Nut was made -- The Mark of Zorro was the picture before this one, and The Three Musketeers would come after. He doesn't do as many of his famous stunts here, either -- he suffered a serious injury Read More

A Day's Pleasure

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: 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 Brea and De Longpre in Hollywood) for a day's outing. The Read More

Sunnyside

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: 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 Read More

How to Make Movies

Crew: Director

Synopsis: 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 fulfill his First National Read More

Triple Trouble

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Billy Armstrong, Wesley Ruggles, Leo White

Synopsis: Triple Trouble, although commonly acknowledged in Chaplin filmographies, was not really a Charlie Chaplin film in that it was released without his permission, and much to his annoyance by Essanay three years after he left them. Its jumbled story is cobbled together out of pieces of Police, Work Read More

The Bond

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: This short promotional film Charlie Chaplin made for the U.S. Liberty Loan bond campaign was shot 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 Chaplin Read More

Chase Me Charlie

Synopsis: During the 1910s, comic actor and filmmaker Charles Chaplin was without peer. He was so popular that pirated versions of his pictures were frequently pieced together and sold to exhibitors. This five-reel mish-mosh of Chaplin, however, wasn't pirated -- it was made up of several of his Essanay Read More

A Dog's Life

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A Dog's Life was Charlie Chaplin's initial release for First National Studios, and also his first three-reeler. Chaplin plays a tramp (duh!), who shambles around the cold, cruel world with his dog Scraps. Unable to land a job, Charlie and Scraps cadge a meal from lunchwagon proprietor Syd Chaplin Read More

Cure

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: In Charlie Chaplin's 10th film in his series for Lone Star/Mutual, and one of the funniest, he plays a gentleman of means who is at a health spa to take the cure, presumably for his alcoholism. His costume is somewhat different from that of his classic Tramp's: he wears a light-colored jacket and Read More

National Association's All-Star Picture

Synopsis: Compiled by the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry and distributed to theaters across the United States, National Association's All-Star Picture, features selected scenes from various popular films, offering glimpses of many of the biggest stars of the day. Included are clips of Read More

The Adventurer

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: The Adventurer was Charlie Chaplin's last film in his contract for Lone Star/Mutual, and it is the fastest paced, with its opening and closing chases which are the apotheosis of the Keystone-style rally. It begins with a manhunt filmed on the coast near Santa Monica, California. (During the Read More

Shoulder Arms

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Sidney Chaplin, Loyal Underwood, Henry Bergman

Synopsis: Shoulder Arms was Charlie Chaplin's final contribution to the World War I effort, along with his personal appearances selling Liberty Bonds and his 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 Read More

The Immigrant

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Eric Campbell, Edna Purviance, Henry Bergman, Albert Austin

Synopsis: Charles Chaplin's next-to-last Mutual Studios 2-reeler is as funny as his other 11 Mutual entries, though there's a stronger inner lining of poignancy. En route by boat from an unnamed country, immigrant Chaplin tries to make the best of the nausea-inducing rough seas. He then befriends fellow Read More

Easy Street

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell, Albert Austin

Synopsis: Arguably the best of Charlie Chaplin's 12 Lone Star/Mutual comedies, Easy Street gives us a look at the environment in which Chaplin grew up, the slums of South London. Indeed the title of the film is likely a reference to the street where Chaplin was born, East Street in Walworth. Charlie begins Read More

The Count

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: The Count, filmed during Charlie Chaplin's 1916-17 Mutual period, is a rowdy throwback to his Keystone days. Chaplin plays the assistant to bombastic clothes-presser Eric Campbell. While dallying with the cook at the Moneybags Mansion, Charlie spots Eric, posing as Count Broko. Eric tries to hide Read More

Police

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's last film for Essanay (not counting the compilation, Triple Trouble) was released after he had moved on to the Mutual Film Corporation. Charlie is released from prison with the customary few dollars in his pocket. He's approached on the street by a fake preacher who asks Charlie Read More

The Floorwalker

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin launched his 670,000-dollar contract with the Mutual Film Corporation with the hilarious The Floorwalker. The film's chief comedic device, the store escalator, was inspired by Chaplin's visit to New York, where, at an elevated train station, he saw a minor accident involving one. Read More

The Vagabond

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's third film in his Mutual period is his first minor masterpiece. It combines comedy and drama in the style that Chaplin had developed in his earlier Essanay film The Tramp and anticipates later dramatic comedies such as The Kid and City Lights. Charlie plays an itinerant violinist Read More

The Rink

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 2-reel laugh parade The Rink was based on "Skating," a sketch Chaplin had previously performed while a member of the Fred Karno stage troupe. Chaplin plays a waiter who determines what his customers have had for dinner by checking the food spots on their clothes. After quitting Read More

The Fireman

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: The second of Charles Chaplin's Mutual two-reelers, The Fireman is virtually wall-to-wall slapstick. Chaplin is an earnest but inept member of a ramshackle small town fire department. His boss, Eric Campbell, has entered into an unhanded deal with the wealthy father of heroine Edna Purviance; the Read More

One A.M.

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's fourth film for Mutual is a tour de force solo performance, with Chaplin playing his classic drunk, returning home in the wee hours. The only other character in the film is the taxi driver who is oblivious to Charlie's difficulties getting out of the cab. Charlie has equal Read More

Behind the Screen

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell

Synopsis: In Behind the Screen, the seventh of his 12 Mutual Studios two-reelers, Charlie Chaplin pokes some less than gentle fun at his former employer Mack Sennett. Chaplin and Eric Campbell play a couple of bumbling stagehands at Gigantic Picture Studios. They knock each other about, break for lunch, and Read More

The Pawnshop

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's sixth film for the Mutual Film Corporation is a marvel of sight gags, comic transformations and brilliant pantomime. Charlie plays an assistant in a pawnshop, where he arrives late for work and is scolded by the portly Pawnbroker, played by Henry Bergman in his first role in a Read More

The Burlesque on Carmen

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, John Rand, Ben Turpin, Leo White

Synopsis: Burlesque on Carmen was intended by Charlie Chaplin to be a two-reel film, but to his annoyance additional material, shot by Leo White and featuring Ben Turpin, was added for its release after Chaplin left Essanay. It is a parody of two contemporary films based on Bizet's opera, by Cecil B. De Mille Read More

In the Park

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Bud Jamison, Leo White, Margie Reiger

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's fourth release for Essanay is very similar to his Keystone Twenty Minutes of Love. He had taken longer than planned to complete his previous film, The Champion, and he felt obliged to give Essanay a new film quickly, so he shot and edited this park farce in the course of a week. Read More

Shanghaied

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Fred Goodwins, Bud Jamison, Paddy McGuire, Edna Purviance

Synopsis: Shanghaied, Charlie Chaplin's 11th film for Essanay was shot largely on board the SS Vaquero, which Chaplin had rented for the film. Chaplin's cameraman, Harry Ensign, devised a pivot for the camera which simulated the violent rocking of the ship as well as rockers for the stage, anticipating the Read More

A Woman

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Charles Insley, Marta Golden, Margie Reiger

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's ninth film for Essanay contains his third and last female impersonation. It begins, as so many of Chaplin's early films do, in a park. Edna Purviance is seated on a park bench with her parents (Charles Insley and Marta Golden). Mother has fallen asleep and is snoring loudly, much Read More

Work

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Charles Insley, Marta Golden, Billy Armstrong

Synopsis: Work, Charlie Chaplin's eighth film for Essanay casts Charlie as a wallpaper-hanger's assistant who must pull the wagon containing the boss (Charles Insley) and all his gear through the city streets and up some imposing hills (created by using tilted camera angles). Charlie is little more than a Read More

A Night Out

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Ben Turpin, Edna Purviance

Synopsis: In his second Essanay comedy Charlie Chaplin is teamed with cross-eyed comic Ben Turpin as two drunks on a spree. It is noteworthy as his first film with Edna Purviance, who was to be his love interest in films for the next eight years, and in real life for the next three. It combines elements Read More

The Tramp

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Fred Goodwins, Lloyd Bacon, Paddy McGuire

Synopsis: The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin's sixth film for Essanay, is generally considered his first masterpiece. It is the first of his films that blended pathos with comedy and contains subtle pantomime along with the knockabout slapstick. Charlie is truly a tramp in this film, wandering down a dusty country Read More

By the Sea

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Billy Armstrong, Margie Reiger, Bud Jamison

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's last one-reeler (with the exception of The Bond), is an impromptu film shot on the beach at Crystal Pier in Los Angeles, his first film shot there since leaving Keystone. It is superior to similarly made Keystone's in that the timing and gag ideas are much better realized. The Read More

The Bank

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Charles Insley, Carl Stockdale, Billy Armstrong

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 10th Essanay film marks a further development for him in story construction, gag development and the use of pathos along with physical comedy. Chaplin enters the bank importantly, strolls down a staircase and opens a large safe. He emerges carrying a mop and bucket and dons his Read More

Cave Man

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In his 35th and last Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin parodied the recent hit, D.W. Griffith's stone-age drama, Man's Genesis. Charlie is caveman Weakchin, dressed in derby, cane and bearskin. He plucks some fur from his bearskin and fills his pipe with it, lighting the pipe by picking up a stone Read More

A Jitney Elopement

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The title of Charlie Chaplin's fifth comedy for Essanay refers to the popular term for a Model T Ford, a jitney. Its theme of impersonation was one Chaplin had used before in Caught in a Cabaret and Her Friend the Bandit, and would use again in The Count and other films. Chaplin's girlfriend Edna Purviance Read More

His New Job

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin began his new job at Essanay Studios, who lured him away from Keystone with an offer of $1250 a week plus a bonus of $10,000, with a parody film on his former employer. It features two actresses at the beginning of their careers in minor roles -- Gloria Swanson and Agnes Ayres. Read More

The Champion

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The Champion, Chaplin's third film for Essanay, is easily one of the funniest and is his most advanced film to date in plotting and characterization. We meet Charlie and his bulldog sharing a found hot dog, which the dog won't eat until it is salted. They pass a gymnasium advertising for sparring Read More

A Night in the Show

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Fred Goodwins, Paddy McGuire, James T. Kelly, Edna Purviance

Synopsis: A Night at the Show is the most elaborate two-reeler directed by Charlie Chaplin during his 1915-1916 stay at Essanay studios. Based on "A Night in an English Music Hall," the Fred Karno-produced ensemble sketch which brought Chaplin to the U.S. in 1910, the film is set in a crowded theater, where Read More

Recreation

Crew: Director

Synopsis: For this half-reel quickie, Charlie Chaplin's 23rd Keystone comedy, Chaplin took cast and crew back to Westlake Park, scene of so many of the Keystones, and shot it in a day. While a sleeping sailor and his bored girlfriend occupy a park bench, the little Tramp is contemplating suicide on a nearby Read More

Gentlemen of Nerve

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 30th Keystone comedy is again set at the auto races, as were his earlier films, Kid's Auto Race, Mabel at the Wheel and Mabel's Busy Day. However this time, as Chaplin scholar Harry Geduld suggests, it was likely shot at the Keystone studios with shots of the race intercut. Read More

His New Profession

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Charley Chase, Gene Marsh, Cecile Arnold, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 25th Keystone comedy is a park farce on the same order as many of his earlier shorts. It opens with a famous shot of Charlie sitting on a park bench, reading Police Gazette, the National Enquirer of its time. A couple nearby are unhappy; the boy, Charles Parrot (later known as Charley Chase Read More

Making a Living

Synopsis: This typical Keystone slapstick comedy was Charlie Chaplin's first appearance on film. An Englishman (Chaplin) cons a newspaper reporter (Henry Lehrman) out of some money. The Englishman flirts with a young woman who later turns out to be the reporter's girlfriend, and the reporter and the Read More

The Masquerader

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 24th short for the Keystone company is a film about making films at Keystone. It is unusual in that we see Chaplin the actor, Charlie the Tramp, and Chaplin's second female impersonation in a film. The film opens outside the Keystone Studio where Chaplin, in street clothes, is Read More

The New Janitor

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Chaplin, John Francis Dillon, Gene Marsh, Al St. John, Glen Cavender

Synopsis: In Charlie Chaplin's 27th comedy for Keystone, and arguably his best, he plays not a homeless Tramp, but an inept janitor in a bank. The film is a forerunner of his later Essanay film The Bank. It is the first Chaplin film in which is seen a glimmer of the pathos mixed with comedy that would Read More

Dough and Dynamite

Crew: Director

Actors: Fritz Schade

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 29th comedy for Keystone was one of his most popular, grossing $130,000 in its initial year of release. It was shot before, but released after Those Love Pangs, and was originally conceived as an early sequence of the latter, showing Charlie and Chester Conklin at work in a Read More

Twenty Minutes of Love

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin once said, "All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl." In this, his 11th film for Keystone and arguably his first original screenplay, his milieu is just that -- Westlake Park, where most of the Keystone park films were shot. The Tramp makes fun of a Read More

Those Love Pangs

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Chester Conklin, Gene Marsh, Cecile Arnold, Vivian Edwards

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 28th Keystone comedy pits him against Chester Conklin as rival for the attentions of their landlady Gene Marsh and for Chester's girlfriend Cecile Arnold. After the midday meal, each of the rivals tries to chat up the landlady, only to be prevented by the other. They decide to go Read More

The Property Man

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Josef Swickard, Fritz Schade, Norma Nichols, Phyllis Allen

Synopsis: In Charlie Chaplin's 21st Keystone film, Chaplin is the prop man and general factotum at a vaudeville house. The artists arrive backstage as Chaplin swigs beer from a pitcher, refusing to share with his elderly, hunchbacked assistant, whom he mistreats throughout. The headliners are the Goo-Goo Read More

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Actors: Marie Dressler, Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Mack Swain

Synopsis: This Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin's 33rd, is the first feature-length comedy ever made and contributed to making Chaplin and his co-star Marie Dressler major stars. Chaplin plays a con artist (not the Tramp) who talks Tillie, an innocent country lass, into taking her father's savings and Read More

The Rounders

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In his 26th Keystone comedy Charlie Chaplin pairs off with fellow Keystone star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Chaplin and Arbuckle are both drunks and are both married to domineering wives. Chaplin, dressed in top hat and evening clothes, arrives drunk to his hotel and is confronted by wife Phyllis Allen Read More

The Star Boarder

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Minta Durfee, Alice Davenport, Edgar Kennedy, Gordon Griffith

Synopsis: In Charlie Chaplin's ninth Keystone comedy, Charlie is the star boarder in Minta Durfee's rooming house. We first see his Tramp's shoes as he lies in bed, a shot probably inserted to draw applause, a sign that the character was gaining popularity. He gets preferential treatment at the dinner Read More

Tango Tangles

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Ford Sterling, Edgar Kennedy, Chester Conklin

Synopsis: Tango Tangles is an impromptu Keystone comedy which exploited the current "tango craze." A tango contest and exhibition prompted Mack Sennett to send a crew out to a local dance hall where some of the film was shot. Charlie Chaplin appears in a tuxedo, sans the famous Tramp makeup and costume, as Read More

Mabel's Strange Predicament

The Face on the Bar Room Floor

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The Face on the Bar-Room Floor, Charlie Chaplin's 22nd Keystone comedy, was based on a well-known poem by Hugh Antoine D'Arcy, "The Face Upon the Floor." The film begins in a saloon where Charlie, a destitute Tramp, is bumming drinks. He offers to tell the story of his downfall to the other Read More

Cruel, Cruel Love

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Minta Durfee

Synopsis: In his eighth film for Keystone Charlie Chaplin, in frock coat and bushy mustache, is cast in the role of a melodramatic lover who attempts suicide over his lost love. The film is a farce, a parody of the overacted melodramas of the day. Mr. Dovey (Chaplin) is first seen on his knees proposing in Read More

A Film Johnnie

Synopsis: In Charlie Chaplin's fifth Keystone comedy we get a look inside the famous laugh factory. Charlie is a movie fan and we first see him creating havoc at a theatre where he gets too involved with the action on the screen and the beautiful actress in the film. Ejected from the theatre, he proceeds to Read More

The Fatal Mallet

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 15th comedy for Keystone is another violent park farce. It is the only teaming of this quartet of Keystone stars. Chaplin, Mack Sennett and Mack Swain are all suitors for the attentions of Mabel Normand. Charlie comes upon Sennett (playing his "dumb rube" character) and Normand Read More

Caught in the Rain

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 13th film for Keystone marked his first solo effort as writer and director. It follows the well-trodden path of the classic Keystone park/hotel farces with a few twists added in. The film opens in Westlake Park where a couple (Mack Swain and Alice Davenport) are seated on a Read More

Between Showers

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Ford Sterling, Emma Clifton, Chester Conklin, Sadie Lampe

Synopsis: In his fourth film for Keystone, Charlie Chaplin was assigned for the last time to Henry Lehrman, his first director at Keystone. It was Chaplin's first film with the ostensible star of the film, Ford Sterling, who had announced that he would be leaving Keystone for a more lucrative deal well Read More

The Knockout

Crew: Director

Actors: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Minta Durfee, Edgar Kennedy, Charles Chaplin, Joe Bordeaux

Synopsis: Although better known as Charlie Chaplin's 17th appearance in a Keystone comedy, The Knockout is really a Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle film. The big event in Fatty's town is a prizefight in which champ Cyclone Flynn will meet all comers. Fatty is tricked into accepting the fight by two hobos who are Read More

Caught in a Cabaret

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 12th film for the Keystone company was also his directorial debut, receiving co-directing credit with co-star, Mabel Normand. Chaplin plays a waiter in a seedy cabaret who is always in trouble with his boss, Edgar Kennedy, and at odds with another waiter, Chester Conklin. While Read More

A Busy Day

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Notable as Charlie Chaplin's first female impersonation film, the half-reel A Busy Day is another of the Keystone shorts in which a film crew was dispatched to improvise a comedy at the site of a public event, in this case a parade celebrating the opening of a new harbor in San Pedro, California. Chaplin Read More

Getting Acquainted

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's penultimate Keystone comedy takes us back to the scene of so many of his Keystones, Westlake Park. It is unusual in that it is a story of two married couples with wandering husbands: Charlie and battle-ax Phyllis Allen, and Mack Swain and Mabel Normand. Mack and Mabel, taking the Read More

Mabel at the Wheel

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Chester Conklin, Mack Sennett, Harry McCoy

Synopsis: Mabel Normand wrote, directed and starred in Charlie Chaplin's 10th film for Keystone. After disagreements with the directors of his previous films, Sennett assigned him to Normand, but Chaplin was chomping at the bit to direct his own films so for this film at least, the Chaplin/Normand Read More

Laughing Gas

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 20th film for Keystone marks a turning point in his career. From this point on, with one exception, he was to write and direct all his future films. In Laughing Gas Chaplin plays a dentist's assistant who is first seen entering the office officiously. The patients are fooled into Read More

Mabel's Married Life

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In his 19th film for Keystone, Charlie Chaplin plays a somewhat more sympathetic role as the husband of comedienne Mabel Normand. As so many of his Keystone comedies do, it begins in a park where Mack Swain, dressed in a sporty outfit and carrying a tennis racquet, leaves his wife seated on a Read More

Mabel's Busy Day

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 18th film for Keystone was likely co-written and co-directed by co-star Mabel Normand. It was shot entirely on location at an automobile racetrack during a racing event. Mabel plays a hot dog vendor who sneaks in to the track by bribing the cop who guards the gate. As soon as she Read More

Kid Auto Races at Venice

His Favorite Pastime

Synopsis: In Charles Chaplin's seventh film for the Keystone Company, the Little Fellow's favorite pastime is drinking and chasing women. The film opens in a saloon where Charlie is partaking of a free lunch and teasing a down-on-his-luck Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle who is trying to bum a drink. We see an early Read More

Her Friend the Bandit

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Charlie Murray

Synopsis: Chaplin's 16th film for Keystone is the only Chaplin film thought to be lost. What we know of its plot comes from the movie magazines of the day. Apparently Charlie is the bandit who accosts a Count on his way to a society party and assumes his clothes, invitation and identity. He encounters rich Read More

His Trysting Place

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In his 32nd film for Keystone, Charlie Chaplin is a married man, an unusual state for his film character. His wife, played by Mabel Normand, complains that they have no money for new shoes for her or food for their baby. They have a fight and Charlie leaves, promising to bring a present home for Read More

His Musical Career

Crew: Director

Actors: Fritz Schade

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's musical career is as a piano mover for a music store in this, his 31st comedy for Keystone. The film was a direct inspiration for Laurel and Hardy's 1932 short, The Music Box. His Little Fellow is not a tramp but a hard-working laborer. Charlie is first seen applying for his job Read More