Charlie Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin.
Born: 16 April 1889.
Died: 25 December 1977.
Buried: Vaud, Switzerland

Chaplin’s Work at Different Studios.

Chaplin’s career began on the English stage. Mack Sennett saw Chaplin perform when the latter toured the United States as part of a vaudeville-style troupe in 1913, and Sennett signed Chaplin on to join his comedy-producing Keystone movie studio.

At Keystone, Chaplin learned the craft of making movies while working a grueling schedule, churning out a new short film every week or so. Chaplin’s Keystone films tend to be repetitive and not particularly imaginative. They are fast-paced and saturated with violence. Having characters throw bricks at each other was a popular theme.

Chaplin moved to Essanay studio for 1915, and the films Chaplin made here begin to show some of the early signs of genius which would come to full fruition when he switched studios once again at the end of the year.

The dozen films Chaplin made at Mutual Studios in 1916 represent the most brilliant comedic short subjects of the silent era, rivalled only by those made by Buster Keaton upon the latter’s separation from Fatty Arbuckle. Chaplin’s creativity is fully on display in these stunning little films, full of endlessly inventive gags and perfect pacing. The Mutual films certainly benefited from the presence of the enormous Eric Campbell, who was perfectly suited to play Charlie’s ever-enraged and violent foil, which he did in 11 of the 12 films made at Mutual.

Sadly, Campbell died in a car accident at the end of 1916. Chaplin’s subsequent short films never achieved the level of genius shown in the Mutuals, even though they were quite popular. But anyone watching all the films one after the other will notice a diminishing of the intensity and care in the later subjects, in comparison to the Mutuals.

But Chaplin’s interests had shifted to the making of feature films, to the advantage of the movie-watching public, for Charlie’s best silent feature films – The Gold Rush and City Lights especially – are considered amongst the greatest movies of all time.

If you watch multiple Chaplin films made at a given studio, you may find it great fun to identify the various actors and actresses who appear repeatedly in these films as part of Chaplin’s stock team. In fact, many times his co-stars will appear in two, and occasionally even three roles in the same film!