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Charlie Chaplin
1889 - 1977
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Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona "the Tramp" and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, and encompassed both adulation and controversy.
Chaplin's childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship, as his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, and he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine. When he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an early age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor and comedian. At 19, he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, which took him to America. He was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. He directed his own films and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best-known figures in the world.
In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length film was The Kid (1921), followed by A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), and The Circus (1928). He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) without dialogue. He became increasingly political, and his next film The Great Dictator (1940) satirized Adolf Hitler. The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. He was accused of communist sympathies, while he created scandal through his involvement in a paternity suit and his marriages to much younger women. An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and settle in Switzerland. He abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967).
Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and composed the music for most of his films. He was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterized by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramp's struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. He received an Honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century" in 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work. He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on lists of the greatest films of all time.
Charlie Chaplin - Music from the Movies
Charlie Chaplin - Filmmusik
Modern Times
City Lights
A Dog`s Life
Modern Times
A King in New York
The Great Dictator
Limelight
The Pilgrim
A Countess from Hongkong
Shoulder Arms
Gold Rush
Orchesterarrangements und Dirigent: - Michel Villard
1918 A Dog`s Life
1918 Shoulder Arms
1921 The Kid
1923 A Woman of Paris
1923 The Pilgrim
1925 The Gold Rush
1928 The Circus
1931 City Lights
1936 Modern Times
1940 The Great Dictator
1952 Limelight
1957 A King in New York
1967 A Countess from Hong Kong
Charlie Chaplin short comedy 1-6
Charlie Chaplin - His New Job (1915)
Charlie Chaplin - A Film Johnnie (1914)
Charlie Chaplin - Work (1915) Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance
Charlie Chaplin - In The Park (1915)
Charlie Chaplin - A Woman (1915)
Charlie Chaplin - The Tramp (1915) - Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviancee
Charlie Chaplin short comedy 7-12
Charlie Chaplin The Adventurer (1917)
Charlie Chaplin - A Night In The Show (1915)
Charlie Chaplin - One A.M. (1916)
The Chamion (1915) - Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance
Charlie Chaplin comedy
The Bank (1915) Charlie Chaplin, with Edna Purviance, Carl Stockdale, Charles Inslee, Lloyd Bacon
Charlie Chaplin short comedy 13-18
Charlie Chaplin - The Idle Class (1921)
Charlie Chaplin - Pay Day (1922)
Charlie Chaplin - The Floorwalker (1916)
Charlie Chaplin - The Fireman (1916)
Charlie Chaplin - In The Vagabond (1916)
Charlie Chaplin - The Count (1916)
Charlie Chaplin short comedy 19-24
Charlie Chaplin - Behind The Screen (1916)
Charlie Chaplin - The Rink (1916)
Charlie Chaplin - Easy Street (1917)
Charlie Chaplin - The Cure (1917)
Charlie Chaplin - The Immigrant (1917)
Charlie Chaplin - Sunnyside 1919
A Dog's Life
A Dog's Life is a 1918 American short silent film written, produced and directed by Charlie Chaplin. This was Chaplin's first film for First National Films.
Chaplin plays opposite an animal as "co-star". "Scraps" (the dog) was the hero in this film, as he helps Charlie and Edna toward a better life. Edna Purviance plays a dance hall singer and Charlie Chaplin, The Tramp. Sydney Chaplin (Chaplin's brother) had a small role in this film; this was the first time the two brothers were on screen together.
Charles Lapworth, a former newspaper editor who had met Chaplin when he interviewed him, took a role as a consultant on the film.
Plot
Charlie is jobless and has few prospects for employment. He tries to steal food from a lunch cart and is nearly caught by a police officer, avoiding arrest by doing some fancy rolling back and forth under a fence. Later, Charlie saves a stray dog (Scraps) from other dogs. Charlie and Scraps become fast friends and partners in purloining food. Charlie enters a cabaret where dogs are not allowed. Charlie hides Scraps in his baggy trousers, but Scraps' tail emerges from the back end. Charlie meets a girl who works in the cabaret. She is disillusioned with life, so Charlie attempts to cheer her up. Charlie is ejected from the cabaret for having no money and returns to his normal outdoor sleeping spot. By chance, thieves have buried a stolen wallet nearby that is laden with a small fortune. Scraps digs up the wallet. Charlie returns to the cafe and shows the girl he has enough money for them to be married. The crooks discover that Charlie has the wallet and violently take it back from him. Charlie fights furiously to reclaim it. This leads to a frantic chase which culminates in the thieves' arrest. Charlie uses the money to buy a farm for himself and his bride. The movie ends with the newlyweds peering fondly into a cradle. It contains Scraps and her puppies.
Shoulder Arms
Shoulder Arms is Charlie Chaplin's second film for First National Pictures. Released in 1918, it is a silent comedy set in France during World War I. The main part of the film actually occurs in a dream. It co-starred Edna Purviance and Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's elder brother. It is Chaplin's shortest feature film as well as the first feature film that he directed.
Plot
Charlie is in boot camp in the "awkward squad." Once in France he gets no letters from home. He finally gets a package containing limburger cheese which requires a gas mask and which he throws over into the German trench. He goes "over the top" and captures thirteen Germans ("I surrounded them"), then volunteers to wander through the German lines disguised as a tree trunk. With the help of a French girl he captures the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and is given a statue and victory parade in New York and then ... fellow soldiers wake him from his dream.
The Kid
The Kid is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin's first full-length film as a director (he had been a co-star in 1914's Tillie's Punctured Romance). It was a huge success, and was the second-highest-grossing film in 1921, behind The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In 2011, The Kid was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Innovative in its combination of comedic and dramatic elements, The Kid is widely considered one of the greatest films of the silent era.
Plot
An unknown woman (Edna Purviance) leaves a charity hospital carrying her newborn son. An artist (Carl Miller), the apparent father, is shown with the woman's photograph. When it falls into the fireplace, he first picks it up, then throws it back in to burn up. The woman decides to abandon her child in the back seat of an expensive automobile with a handwritten note imploring the finder to care for and love the baby. However, the car is stolen. When the two thieves discover the child, they leave him on the street. The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) finds the baby. Unwilling at first to take on the responsibility, he eventually softens and names the boy John. Elsewhere, the woman has an apparent change of heart and returns for the baby, but is heartbroken and faints upon learning of the baby having been taken away.
Five years pass, and the child (Jackie Coogan) becomes the Tramp's partner in minor crime, throwing stones to break windows that the Tramp, working as a glazier, can then repair. Meanwhile, the woman becomes a wealthy star. She does charity work among the poor to fill the void left by her missing child. By chance, the mother and child cross paths, but do not recognize each other. When the boy becomes sick, a doctor comes to see him. He discovers that the Tramp is not the boy's father. The Tramp shows him the note left by the mother, but the doctor merely takes it and notifies the authorities. Two men come to take the boy to an orphanage, but after a fight and a chase, the Tramp regains the boy. When the woman comes back to see how the boy is doing, the doctor tells her what has happened, then shows her the note, which she recognizes.
Now fugitives, the Tramp and the boy spend the night in a flophouse, but the manager (Bergman), having read of the $1,000 reward offered for the child, takes him to the police station to be united with his ecstatic mother. When the Tramp wakes up, he searches frantically for the missing boy, then returns to doze beside the now-locked doorway to their humble home. In his sleep, he enters "Dreamland," with angels in residence and devilish interlopers. He is awakened by a policeman, who places the Tramp in a car and rides with him to a house. When the door opens, the woman and John emerge, reuniting the elated adoptive father and son. The policeman, who is happy for the family, shakes the Tramp's hand and leaves, before the woman welcomes the Tramp into her home.
A Woman of Paris
A Woman of Paris is a feature-length American silent film that debuted in 1923. The film, an atypical drama film for its creator, was written, directed, produced and later scored by Charlie Chaplin. It is also known as A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate.
A Woman of Paris (Charlie Chaplin, 1923)(European ending)
A Woman of Paris (Charlie Chaplin, 1923)(American ending)
Plot
Marie St. Clair and her beau, aspiring artist Jean Millet, plan to leave their small French village for Paris, where they will marry. On the night before their scheduled departure, Marie leaves her house for a rendezvous with Jean. Marie's stepfather locks her out of the house, telling her to find shelter elsewhere.
Jean invites Marie to his parents' home, but his father also refuses to let her stay. Jean escorts Marie to the train station, and promises to return after going home to pack. When he arrives at home, he discovers his father has died. When Jean telephones Marie at the station to tell her they must postpone their trip, she gets on the train without him.
One year later in Paris, Marie enjoys a life of luxury as the mistress of wealthy businessman Pierre Revel. A friend calls and invites Marie to a raucous party in the Latin Quarter. She gives Marie the address but can't remember whether the apartment is in the building on the right or the left. Marie enters the wrong building and is surprised to be greeted by Jean Millet, who shares a modest apartment with his mother. Marie tells Jean she would like for him to paint her portrait and gives him a card with her address.
Jean calls on Marie at her apartment to begin the painting. Marie notices he is wearing a black armband and asks why he is in mourning. Jean tells Marie his father died the night she left without him.
Marie and Jean revive their romance, and Marie distances herself from Pierre Revel. Jean finishes Marie's portrait, but instead of painting her wearing the elegant outfit she chose for the sitting, he paints her in the simple dress she wore on the night she left for Paris.
Jean proposes to Marie. Jean's mother fights with him over the proposal. Marie arrives unexpectedly outside Jean's apartment just in time to overhear Jean pacify his mother, telling her that he proposed in a moment of weakness. Jean fails to convince Marie he didn't mean what she overheard, and she returns to Pierre Revel.
The following night, Jean slips a gun into his coat pocket and goes to the exclusive restaurant where Marie and Pierre are dining. Jean and Pierre get into a scuffle, and Jean is ejected from the dining room. Jean fatally shoots himself in the foyer of the restaurant.
The police carry Jean's body to his apartment. Jean's mother retrieves the gun and goes to Marie's apartment, but Marie has gone to Jean's studio. Jean's mother returns and finds Marie sobbing by Jean's body. The two women reconcile and return to the French countryside, where they open a home for orphans in a country cottage.
One morning, Marie and one of the girls in her care walk down the lane to get a pail of milk. Marie and the girl meet a group of sharecroppers who offer them a ride back in their horse-drawn wagon. At the same time, Pierre Revel and another gentleman are riding through the French countryside in a chauffeur-driven automobile. Pierre's companion asks him, "What ever happened to that Marie St. Clair?" Pierre replies that he doesn't know. The automobile and the horse-drawn wagon pass each other, heading in opposite directions.
The Pilgrim
The Pilgrim is a 1923 American silent film made by Charlie Chaplin for the First National Film Company, starring Chaplin and Edna Purviance.
The film marks the last time Edna Purviance would co-star with Chaplin and the last film he made for First National. Purviance also starred in Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (1923), in which Chaplin had a brief cameo. It was Chaplin's second-shortest feature film, constructed more like a two-reeler from earlier in his career. It is also noted as the first film for Charles Riesner, who became a screenwriter in his later years.
In 1959, Chaplin included The Pilgrim as one of three films comprising The Chaplin Revue. Slightly re-edited and fully re-scored, the film contained a song, "I'm Bound For Texas", written and composed by Chaplin, and sung by Matt Monroe.
Plot
The Pilgrim, an escaped convict, steals a minister's clothes to replace his prison uniform. At a train station, he encounters an eloping couple who want him to marry them. The woman's father shows up and takes her away.
The convict then picks a destination at random and ends up in Devil's Gulch, Texas, on a Sunday. A delegation is waiting to welcome their new parson. With the sheriff nearby, the Pilgrim has to keep playing his part. A large deacon takes him to the church, where he improvises a sermon about David and Goliath.
It has been arranged for the parson to board with Mrs. Brown and her attractive daughter. The latter and the Pilgrim are attracted to each other. A complication arises when the crook, the Pilgrim's old cellmate, spots him. Curious, the man pretends to be the Pilgrim's old college friend and is invited to tea by Mrs. Brown. Among the other guests are a man and wife and their young boy, who proceeds to annoy everyone. Also present is the large deacon, who refuses to accept Mrs. Brown's mortgage payment on the Sabbath. Despite the Pilgrim's best efforts, the crook later steals the money and flees. The Pilgrim promises Miss Brown he will get the money back. After he leaves, however, the sheriff shows the young woman a wanted poster for her boarder.
The crook heads to a casino. Despite a robbery in progress, the Pilgrim manages to retrieve the money. He gives it and the church collection to Miss Brown. When he is apprehended by the sheriff, Miss Brown comes to his defense, revealing what he has done. As a result, the sheriff takes his prisoner to the border and orders him to pick him some flowers on Mexican land. Not taking the hint, the Pilgrim returns. The sheriff has to literally kick him out of American jurisdiction before he recognizes the lawman's act of kindness. However, his enjoyment of the peace of a new land proves to be short-lived; several gunmen pop out of the undergrowth and start shooting at each other. The frightened Pilgrim hastens away, straddling the border as he ponders his options.
The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush is a 1925 American comedy film written, produced, and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film also stars Chaplin in his Little Tramp persona, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, and Malcolm Waite.
Chaplin drew inspiration from photos of the Klondike Gold Rush as well as from the story of the Donner Party who, when snowbound in the Sierra Nevada, were driven to cannibalism or eating leather from their shoes.[3] Chaplin, who believed tragedies and comics were not far from each other, decided to combine these stories of deprivation and horror in comedy. He decided that his famous rogue figure should become a gold-digger who joins a brave optimist determined to face all the pitfalls associated with the search for gold, such as sickness, hunger, loneliness, or the possibility that he may at any time be attacked by a grizzly. In the movie, we see scenes like Chaplin cooking and dreaming of his shoe, or how his starving friend Big Jim sees him as a chicken.
The Gold Rush received Academy Award nominations for Best Music and Best Sound Recording upon its re-release in 1942. It is today one of Chaplin's most celebrated works, and he himself declared several times that it was the film for which he most wanted to be remembered.
Plot
Big Jim, a gold prospector during the Klondike Gold Rush, has just found an enormous gold deposit on his parcel of land when a blizzard strikes. The Lone Prospector gets lost in the same blizzard while also prospecting for gold. He stumbles into the cabin of Black Larsen, a wanted criminal. Larsen tries to throw him out when Jim also stumbles inside. Larsen tries to scare both out using his shotgun but is overpowered by Jim, and the three agree to an uneasy truce where they all can stay in the cabin.
When the storm is taking so long that food is running out, the three draw lots for who will have to go out into the blizzard to obtain some more food. Larsen loses and leaves the cabin. While outside looking for food, he encounters Jim's gold deposit and decides to ambush him there when Jim returns.
Meanwhile, the two remaining in the cabin get so desperate that they cook and eat one of the Prospector's shoes. Later, Jim gets delirious, imagines the Prospector as a giant chicken and attacks him. At that moment, a bear enters the cabin and is killed, supplying them with food.
After the storm subsides, both leave the cabin, the Prospector continuing on to the next gold boom town while Jim returns to his gold deposit. There, he is knocked out by Larsen with a shovel. While fleeing with some of the mined gold, Larsen is killed by an avalanche. Jim recovers consciousness and wanders into the snow, but he has lost his memory from the blow. When he returns to the town, his memory has been partly restored and he remembers that he had found a large gold deposit, that the deposit was close to a certain cabin and that he had stayed in the cabin with the Prospector. But he knows neither the location of the deposit nor of the cabin. So, he goes looking for the Prospector, hoping that he still knows the location of the cabin.
The Prospector arrives at the town and encounters Georgia, a dance hall girl. To irritate Jack, a ladies' man who is making aggressive advances toward her and pestering her for a dance, she instead decides to dance with "the most deplorable looking tramp in the dance hall", the Prospector, who instantly falls in love with her. After encountering each other again, she accepts his invitation for a New Year's Eve dinner, but does not take it seriously and soon forgets about it. While waiting for her to arrive to the dinner, the Prospector imagines entertaining her with a dance of bread rolls on forks. When she does not arrive until midnight, he walks alone through the streets, desperate. At that moment, she remembers his invitation and decides to visit him. Finding his home empty but seeing the meticulously prepared dinner and a present for her, she has a change of heart and prepares a note for him in which she asks to talk to him.
When the Prospector is handed the note, he goes searching for Georgia. But at the same moment, Jim finds him and drags him away to go search for the cabin, giving the Prospector only enough time to shout to Georgia that he soon will return to her as a millionaire. Jim and the Prospector find the cabin and stay for the night. Overnight, another blizzard blows the cabin half over a cliff right next to Jim's gold deposit. The next morning the cabin rocks dangerously over the cliff edge while the two try to escape. At last Jim manages to get out and pull the Prospector to safety right when the cabin falls down the chasm.
One year later both have become wealthy. But the Prospector was not able to find Georgia. They return to the contiguous United States on a ship on which, unknown to them, Georgia is also travelling. When the Prospector agrees to don his old clothes for a photograph, he falls down the stairs, encountering Georgia once more. After she mistakes him for a stowaway and tries to save him from the ship's crew, the misunderstanding is cleared up and both are happily reunited.
The Circus
The Circus is a 1928 silent film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The film stars Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Harry Crocker, George Davis and Henry Bergman. The ringmaster of an impoverished circus hires Chaplin's Little Tramp as a clown, but discovers that he can only be funny unintentionally, not on purpose.
The production of the film was the most difficult experience in Chaplin's career. Numerous problems and delays occurred, including a studio fire, the death of Chaplin's mother, as well as Chaplin's bitter divorce from his second wife Lita Grey, and the Internal Revenue Service's claims of Chaplin's owed back taxes, all of which culminated in filming being stalled for eight months. The Circus was the seventh highest grossing silent film in cinema history taking in more than $3.8 million in 1928. The film continues to receive high praise.
Plot
At a circus midway, the penniless and hungry Tramp (Chaplin) is mistaken for a condemnable pickpocket and chased by both the police and the real crook (the latter having stashed a stolen wallet and watch in the Tramp's pocket to avoid detection). Running away, the Tramp stumbles into the middle of a performance and unknowingly becomes the hit of the show.
The ringmaster/proprietor of the struggling circus gives him a tryout the next day, but the Tramp fails miserably. However, when the property men quit because they have not been paid, he gets hired on the spot to take their place. Once again, he inadvertently creates comic mayhem during a show. The ringmaster craftily hires him as a poorly paid property man.
The Tramp befriends Merna (Kennedy), a horse rider who is treated badly by her ringmaster stepfather. She later informs the Tramp that he is the star of the show, forcing the ringmaster to pay him accordingly. With the circus thriving because of him, the Tramp also is able to secure better treatment for Merna.
After overhearing a fortune teller inform Merna that she sees "love and marriage with a dark, handsome man who is near you now", the overjoyed Tramp buys a ring from another clown. Alas for him, she meets Rex (Crocker), the newly hired tightrope walker. The Tramp eavesdrops as she rushes to tell the fortune teller that she has fallen in love with the new man. With his heart broken, the Tramp is unable to entertain the crowds. After several poor performances, the ringmaster warns him he has only one more chance.
When Rex cannot be found for a performance, the ringmaster (knowing that the Tramp has been practicing the tightrope act in hopes of supplanting his rival) sends the Tramp out in his place. Despite a few mishaps, including several mischievous escaped monkeys, he manages to survive the experience and receives much applause from the audience. However, when he sees the ringmaster slapping Merna around afterward, he beats the man and is fired.
Merna runs away to join him. The Tramp finds and brings Rex back with him to marry Merna. The trio go back to the circus. The ringmaster starts berating his stepdaughter, but stops when Rex informs him that she is his wife. When the traveling circus leaves, the Tramp remains behind : he prefers to fade to allow them to be happy. Melancholic, he picks himself up and starts walking jauntily away.
City Lights
City Lights is a 1931 American pre-Code silent romantic comedy film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplin's Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) and develops a turbulent friendship with an alcoholic millionaire (Harry Myers).
Although sound films were on the rise when Chaplin started developing the script in 1928, he decided to continue working with silent productions. Filming started in December 1928 and ended in September 1930. City Lights marked the first time Chaplin composed the film score to one of his productions and it was written in six weeks with Arthur Johnston.
City Lights was immediately successful upon release on January 30, 1931 with positive reviews and box office receipts of $5 million. Today, many critics consider it not only the highest accomplishment of Chaplin's career, but one of the greatest films of all time. In 1991, the Library of Congress selected City Lights for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it 11th on its list of the best American films ever made. In 1949, the critic James Agee called the film's final scene "the greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid".
Plot
Citizens and dignitaries are assembled for the unveiling of a new monument to "Peace and Prosperity". After droning speeches the veil is lifted to reveal the Little Tramp asleep in the lap of one of the sculpted figures. After several minutes of slapstick he manages to escape the assembly's wrath to perambulate the city. He rebukes two newsboys who taunt him for his shabbiness, and while coyly admiring a nude statue has a near-fatal encounter with a sidewalk elevator.
The Tramp encounters the beautiful flower girl on a street-corner and in the course of buying a flower realizes she is blind; he is instantly smitten. Through an aural coincidence the girl mistakes her customer for the wealthy owner of a chauffeured automobile.
That evening the Tramp saves a drunken millionaire from suicide. The millionaire takes his new best friend back to his mansion for champagne, then (after another abortive suicide attempt) out for a night on the town. After helping the millionaire home the next morning, he sees the flower girl en route to her street-corner. The Tramp gets some money from the millionaire and catches up to the girl; he buys all her flowers and drives her home in the millionaire's car.
After the Tramp leaves, the flower girl tells her grandmother (Florence Lee) about her kind and wealthy friend. Meanwhile the Tramp returns to the mansion, where the millionaire – now sober – does not remember him and him thrown him out. Later that day, the millionaire is once more intoxicated and, seeing the Tramp on the street, invites him home for a lavish party. But the next morning history repeats itself: the millionaire is again sober and the Tramp is again out on his ear.
Finding that the girl is not at her usual street-corner, the Tramp goes to her apartment, where he overhears a doctor tell the grandmother that the girl is very ill: "She has a fever and needs careful attention." Determined to help, the Tramp takes a job as a street sweeper.
On his lunch break he brings the girl groceries while her grandmother is out selling flowers. To entertain her he reads a newspaper aloud; in it is a story about a Viennese doctor's blindness cure. "Wonderful, then I'll be able to see you," says the girl – and the Tramp is struck by what may happen should she gain her sight and discover that he is not the wealthy man she imagines. He also finds an eviction notice the girl's grandmother has hidden. As he leaves, he promises the girl that he will pay the rent.
The Tramp returns to work to find himself fired – he has been late once too often. A boxer convinces him to fight in a fake bout; they will "go easy" on each other and split the prize money. After the boxer flees after learning he is about to be arrested, he is replaced by a no-nonsense fighter who knocks the Tramp out despite the Tramp's creative and nimble efforts to keep out of reach.
The Tramp encounters the drunken millionaire a third time and is again invited to the mansion. The Tramp relates the girl's plight and the millionaire gives him money for her operation. Two burglars knock the millionaire out and flee with the rest of his money. The police find the Tramp with the money given him by the millionaire, who because of the knock on the head does not remember giving it. The Tramp evades the police long enough to get the money to the girl, telling her he will be going away for a time, but in due course he is apprehended and imprisoned.
Months later the Tramp is released. He goes to the girl's customary street corner but she is not there. We learn that the girl – her sight restored – now runs a busy flower shop with her grandmother. But she has not forgotten her mysterious benefactor, whom she imagines to be rich and handsome: when an elegant man enters the shop she wonders for a moment if "he" has returned.
The Tramp happens by the shop, where the girl is arranging flowers in the window. He stoops to retrieve a flower discarded in the gutter. After a brief skirmish with his old nemeses, the newsboys, he turns to the shop's window though which he suddenly sees the girl, who has been watching him without (of course) knowing who he is. At the sight of her he is frozen for a few seconds, then breaks into a broad smile. The girl is flattered and giggles to her employee: "I've made a conquest!" Via pantomime through the glass, she kindly offers him a fresh flower (to replace the crushed one he took from the gutter) and a coin.
Suddenly embarrassed, the Tramp starts to shuffle away, but the girl steps to the shop door and again offers the flower, which he shyly accepts. She takes his hand and presses the coin into it, but abruptly she stops; her smile turns to a look of puzzlement. She runs her fingers along his arm, his shoulder, his lapels, then catches her breath: "You?" The Tramp nods with an uncertain smile and asks, "You can see now?" The girl replies, "Yes, I can see now" and tearfully pulls his hand to her bosom. The uncertainty on the Tramp's face turns to joy as the film fades to black.
Modern Times
Modern Times is a 1936 American comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin in which his iconic Little Tramp character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and financial conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in Chaplin's view, by the efficiencies of modern industrialization. The movie stars Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford and Chester Conklin.
Modern Times was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress in 1989, and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Fourteen years later, it was screened "out of competition" at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
Plot
Modern Times portrays Chaplin in his Tramp persona as a factory worker employed on an assembly line. There, he is subjected to such indignities as being force-fed by a malfunctioning "feeding machine" and an accelerating assembly line where he screws nuts at an ever-increasing rate onto pieces of machinery. He finally suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, throwing the factory into chaos. He is sent to a hospital. Following his recovery, the now unemployed factory worker is mistakenly arrested as an instigator in a Communist demonstration. In jail, he accidentally ingests smuggled cocaine, mistaking it for salt. In his subsequent delirium, he avoids being put back in his cell. When he returns, he stumbles upon a jailbreak and knocks the convicts unconscious. He is hailed as a hero and given special treatment. When he is informed that he will soon be released due to his heroic actions, he argues unsuccessfully that he prefers it in jail.
Outside of jail, he applies for a new job but leaves after causing an accident. He runs into a recently orphaned girl, Ellen (Paulette Goddard), who is fleeing the police after stealing a loaf of bread. Determined to go back to jail and to save the girl, he tells police that he is the thief and ought to be arrested. A witness reveals his deception and he is freed. To get arrested again, he eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying. He meets up with Ellen in a paddy wagon, which crashes, and she convinces him to escape with her. Dreaming of a better life, he gets a job as a night watchman at a department store, sneaks Ellen into the store, and encounters three burglars: one of whom is "Big Bill", a fellow worker from the factory at the beginning of the film, who explains that they are hungry and desperate. After sharing drinks with them, he wakes up the next morning during opening hours and is arrested once more.
Ten days later, Ellen takes him to a new home – a run-down shack that she admits "isn't Buckingham Palace" but will do. The next morning, the factory worker reads about an old factory re-opening and lands a job there as a mechanic's assistant. His boss accidentally falls into the machinery, but the worker manages to extricate him. The other workers suddenly decide to go on strike. Outside, the worker accidentally launches a brick at a policeman and is arrested again.
Two weeks later, he is released and learns that Ellen is a café dancer. She gets him a job as a singer and waiter, where he goes about his duties rather clumsily. During his floor show, he loses his cuffs, which bear the lyrics to his song, but he rescues the act by improvising the lyrics using gibberish from multiple languages, plus some pantomiming. His act proves a hit. When police arrive to arrest Ellen for her earlier escape, the two flee again. Ellen despairs that there's no point to their struggling, but the factory worker assures her that they'll make it somehow. At a bright dawn, they walk down the road towards an uncertain but hopeful future.
The Great Dictator
The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, scored by and starring British comedian Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true sound film.
Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin plays both leading roles: a ruthless fascist dictator and a persecuted Jewish barber.
The Great Dictator was popular with audiences, becoming Chaplin's most commercially successful film. Modern critics have also praised it as a historically significant film and an important work of satire, and in 1997, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". The Great Dictator was nominated for five Academy Awards – Outstanding Production, Best Actor, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Supporting Actor for Jack Oakie, and Best Music (Original Score).
In his 1964 autobiography, Chaplin stated that he would not have made the film if he had known about the true extent of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps at the time.
Plot
On the Western Front in 1918, a Jewish Private (Charlie Chaplin) fighting for the Central Powers nation of Tomainia valiantly saves the life of a wounded pilot, Commander Schultz (Reginald Gardiner), who carries valuable documents that could secure a Tomainian victory. However, their plane crashes mid-flight, and the Private subsequently suffers memory loss. Upon being rescued, Schultz is informed that Tomainia has officially surrendered to the Allied Forces, while the Private is carried off to a hospital.
Twenty years later, still suffering from amnesia, the Private leaves the hospital to return to his previous profession as a barber in the ghetto. The ghetto is now governed by Schultz, who has been promoted in the Tomainian regime under the ruthless dictator Adenoid Hynkel (also Chaplin).
The Barber falls in love with a neighbor, Hannah (Paulette Goddard), and together they try to resist persecution by military forces. The troops capture the Barber and are about to hang him, but Schultz recognizes him and restrains them.
Meanwhile, Hynkel tries to finance his ever-growing military forces by borrowing money from a Jewish banker called Hermann Epstein, but the banker refuses to lend him the money. Furious, Hynkel orders a purge of the Jews. Schultz protests this inhumane policy and is sent to a concentration camp. He escapes and hides in the ghetto with the Barber. Schultz tries to persuade the Jewish family to mount an assassination attempt against Hynkel, but they decline to participate. Troops search the ghetto, arrest Schultz and the Barber, and send both to a concentration camp. Hannah and her family flee to freedom in the neighboring country of Osterlich. Hynkel has a dispute with the dictator of the nation of Bacteria, a man named Napaloni (Jack Oakie), over which country should invade Osterlich. After signing a treaty with Napaloni, Hynkel invades Osterlich, with Hannah and her family being trapped by the invading force.
Escaping from the camp in stolen uniforms, Schultz and the Barber, dressed as Hynkel, arrive at the Osterlich frontier, where a huge victory-parade is waiting to be addressed by Hynkel. The real Hynkel is mistaken for the Barber while out duck hunting in civilian clothes and is knocked out and taken to the camp. Schultz tells the Barber to go to the platform and impersonate Hynkel, as the only way to save their lives once they reach Osterlich's capital. The Barber has never given a public speech in his life, but he has no other choice.
The terrified Barber mounts the steps but is inspired to seize the initiative. Announcing that he (as Hynkel) has had a change of heart, he makes an impassioned plea for brotherhood and goodwill.
You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Finally, he addresses a message of hope to Hannah, in case she can hear him.
Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been given wings, and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow – into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us.
Hannah hears the Barber's voice on the radio. She turns her face, radiant with joy and hope, toward the sunlight, and says to her fellows, "Listen."
Limelight
Limelight is a 1952 comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The score was composed by Chaplin and arranged by Ray Rasch.
The film stars Chaplin as a washed-up comedian who saves a suicidal dancer, played by Claire Bloom, from killing herself, and both try to get through life; additional roles are provided by Nigel Bruce, Sydney Earl Chaplin, Wheeler Dryden, and Norman Lloyd with an appearance from Buster Keaton. In dance scenes, Bloom is doubled by Melissa Hayden.
Upon the film's release, critics' reception was divided; it was heavily boycotted in the United States, and commercially failed. However, the film was re-released in the United States in 1972 which included its first screening in Los Angeles. This allowed the decades-old film to be in contention for the 45th Academy Awards where Chaplin won his only competitive Academy Award. Today, the film is sometimes regarded as one of Chaplin's best and most personal works, and has since attained a cult following.
Plot
The movie is set in London in 1914, on the eve of World War I (and the year Chaplin made his first film). Calvero (Charles Chaplin), once a famous stage clown but now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer, Thereza "Terry" Ambrose (Claire Bloom), from suicide. Nursing her back to health, Calvero helps Terry regain her self-esteem and resume her dancing career. In doing so he regains his own self-confidence, but his attempts to make a comeback meet with failure. Terry says she wants to marry Calvero despite their age difference, although she has befriended Neville (Sydney Earl Chaplin), a young composer Calvero believes would be better suited to her. In order to give them a chance, Calvero leaves home and becomes a street entertainer. Terry, now starring in her own show, eventually finds Calvero and persuades him to return to the stage for a benefit concert. Reunited with an old partner (Buster Keaton), Calvero gives a triumphant comeback performance. He suffers a heart attack during a routine, however, and dies in the wings while watching Terry, the second act on the bill, dance on stage.
Charlie Chaplin - Limelight
(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Music
The theme to the film, titled "Terry's Theme" (written by Chaplin), became a popular and often-covered song as "Eternally", with words by Geoff Parsons and John Turner. In 1973, over 20 years after the film's first release, Chaplin and his musical collaborators Raymond Rasch and Larry Russell were awarded an Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score. In the case of Larry Russell, JazzWax journalist Marc Myers reports that this was a case of mistaken identity and Russell Garcia was the actual composer who should have been awarded the 1972 Oscar. Larry Russell's family denies the report. Regardless, it was the only competitive Academy Award that Chaplin ever received (he had previously received two Honorary Oscars).
A King in New York
A King in New York is a 1957 British comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin in his last leading role, which co-stars, among others, his young son Michael. The film presents a satirical view of the McCarthy communist-hunt era and certain other aspects of United States politics and society. The film, which was produced in Europe after Chaplin's exile from the U.S. in 1952, did not open in the United States until 1973.
Plot
"One of the minor annoyances in modern life is a revolution." Due to a revolution in his country Estrovia, King Igor Shadov (Charlie Chaplin) comes to New York City with almost no money, his securities having been stolen by his own Prime Minister. He tries to contact the Atomic Energy Commission with his ideas for using atomic power to create a utopia.
At a dinner party, some of which is televised live (unbeknown to him), he reveals he has had some experience in the theatre. He's approached to do TV commercials but does not like the idea. Later, he does make a few commercials in order to get some money.
Invited to speak at a progressive school, he meets Rupert Macabee (Michael Chaplin), editor of the school paper, a ten-year-old historian who gives him a stern anarchist lecture. Although Rupert himself says he distrusts all forms of government, his parents are communists who are jailed for not giving up names at a Joseph McCarthy-type hearing. Because young Rupert had spent time with him, Shadov is suspected of being a communist himself, and has to face one of the hearings. He is cleared of all charges, but not before a scene in which Shadov accidentally directs a strong stream of water from a fire hose at the members of the "House Committee on Un-American Activities" (HUAC), who scatter in panic. He decides to join his estranged queen in Paris for a reconciliation.
In the meantime, the authorities force the child to reveal the names of his parents' friends in exchange for his parents' freedom. Grieving and guilt-ridden, Rupert is presented to King Shadov as a "patriot". Shadov reassures him that the anti-communist scare is a lot of nonsense which will be over soon, and invites him to come to Europe with his parents for a visit.
In addition to its condemnation of HUAC's methods, the film takes witty potshots at American commercialism, popular music, celebrity culture, and film. A dinner party scene includes a number of satirical portrayals of actors and public figures of the period, including Sophie Tucker.
A Countess from Hong Kong
A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin and starring Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Tippi Hedren, and Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's third son. It was the last film directed, written, produced and scored by Chaplin, and one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role (the other was 1923's A Woman of Paris), as well as his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance.
The story is based loosely on the life of a woman Chaplin met in France, named Moussia Sodskaya, or "Skaya" as he calls her in his 1922 book, My Trip Abroad. She was a Russian singer and dancer who "was a stateless person marooned in France without a passport". The idea, according to a press release written by Chaplin after the movie received a negative reception, "resulted from a visit I made to Shanghai in 1931 where I came across a number of titled aristocrats who had escaped the Russian Revolution. They were destitute and without a country, their status was of the lowest grade. The men ran rickshaws and the women worked in ten-cent dance halls. When the Second World War broke out many of the old aristocrats had died and the younger generation migrated to Hong Kong where their plight was even worse, for Hong Kong was overcrowded with refugees."
It was originally started as a film called Stowaway in the 1930s, planned for Paulette Goddard, but production was never completed. This resulting film, created nearly 30 years after its inception, was a critical failure and grossed US$2,000,000 from a US$3,500,000 budget. However, it did prove to be extremely successful in Europe and Japan. In addition, the success of the music score was able to cover the budget.
Critics such as Tim Hunter and Andrew Sarris, as well as poet John Betjeman and director François Truffaut, viewed the film as being among Chaplin's best works. Actor Jack Nicholson is also a big fan of the film.
The film's theme music, written by Chaplin, became a worldwide hit song "This Is My Song" for Petula Clark reaching #1 in the UK, #3 in the United States, #4 in Canada, #1 for three weeks in Ireland, #1 for six weeks in Australia and reached the top of the Dutch charts for both the Netherlands and Belgium. "This Is My Song" also earned hit status in Finland (#8), India (#5), Malaysia (#1), New Zealand (#15), Norway (#6), Singapore (#1), Spain (#8), Thailand (#9) and Venezuela (#5). It also topped the charts in Rhodesia and South Africa.
Plot
Ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia Ogden Mears (Marlon Brando) sails back to America after touring the world. He meets Natascha, a Russian countess (Sophia Loren), in Hong Kong after she sneaks aboard in evening dress to escape her life at a sailors' dance hall. A refugee, she has no passport and is forced to stay in his cabin during the voyage.
Ogden dislikes the situation, being a married man although seeking a divorce, and he worries how it might affect his career if she is found. But he reluctantly agrees to let her stay. They must then figure out how to get her off the ship, and it is arranged that she marry his aged valet Hudson (Patrick Cargill).
Although it is only a formality, Hudson wishes to consummate the relationship, a wish she does not share. She avoids him until they dock at port, then jumps off the ship and swims ashore.
Ogden's wife (Tippi Hedren) then joins the cruise, having just missed Natasha. Ogden's lawyer friend Harvey (Sydney Earle Chaplin), who helped arrange the marriage, meets Natascha ashore and tells her that the immigration officers have accepted her as Hudson's wife. Ogden's wife then confronts him about Natasha, speaking rather roughly about her and her past lifestyle. He responds by asking if his wife would have done as well under such circumstances.
The film ends with Ogden and Natascha meeting in a hotel's cabaret where they begin dancing, since he has left the cruise and his wife behind.
Charlie Chaplin makes two brief appearances as an aged ship's steward.
JAMES LAST - This is my song (Charlie Chaplin)
Petula Clark ~ Charlie Chaplin - This Is My Song
