My Autobiography (1964/ This edition with new introduction 2007) by Charlie Chaplin: The first third of Charlie Chaplin's autobiography was excerpted and sold as its own book, My Early Life. This suggests that Chaplin (or someone in his estate) knew that his autobiography was excellent pretty much right up to the point that he became the most famous person, film star or otherwise, on Earth -- in 1916, roughly speaking.
The first third details Chaplin's Dickensian childhood in London, England. And it is detailed, and marvelously described. Chaplin didn't use a ghost writer -- the prose is all his, with some corrections for spelling and grammar. He's a gifted memoirist, at least until he becomes famous. Then he becomes an anecdotalist, with the narrative switching to an exhausting string of Chaplin's encounters with famous people.
The first third of My Autobiography, though, is dynamite. Chaplin draws a picture of late Victorian England that is grimy but often full of life and heartbreak. His early adventures on the stage as a member of a travelling acrobatic troupe, as an actor, and ultimately as a dance-hall comedian are memorable and informative.
The introduction to this edition -- written 40 years after the initial mid-1960's release -- notes some of Chaplin's curious omissions. Unless his long-time collaborators are actresses, he omits them almost entirely. He also omits almost any mention of the process of making his films, especially once he's on his own. His first two wives get less than a page's worth between them. He does deal with his 1940's trial and subsequent exile to Switzerland, along with his last marriage, to the then-18-year-old daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill when Chaplin was in his mid-50's. He fails to mention his last movie -- A King in New York -- at all.
Oh, well. Some of the anecdotes are interesting, depending on your tolerance for name-dropping, especially when many of those names have faded into history. The several pages devoted to Chaplin's relationship with William Randolph Hearst and his mistress Marion Davies are probably the most rewarding of the lot.
One thing is certain -- Chaplin was no Communist, even if he did get branded as such for some of the speechifying he did in person and on film. He really, really loves money and he lets it show. Given his impoverished background, it all makes sense.
In all, My Autobiography is immensely rewarding for the first 150 pages or so. After that, one really must proceed at one's own risk. Recommended.
The Gold Rush: written and directed by Charles Chaplin; narrated by Charles Chaplin; starring Charles Chaplin (The Lone Prospector), Mack Swain (Big Jim), Tom Murray (Black Larsen) and Georgia Hale (Georgia) (1925; 1942 sound re-release): Chaplin thought this was the one movie he'd most like to see survive forever. It's certainly the most purely comic of all his full-length movies, with the maudlin and the mawkish mostly excluded from the proceedings. Well, the original, silent proceedings.
This is the 1942 re-edited version, with narration by Chaplin replacing the title cards. Chaplin's re-edit trimmed about ten minutes from the original. Eliminating title cards eliminated another ten minutes! So you get a 72-minute, trimmed-to-the-bone piece of Chaplin. Unfortunately, Chaplin's tendency to the maudlin and the over-stated overpowers some of the narration. He also has a tendency to tell you basic things that you can already see on the screen.
But the monumental nature of the comic set-pieces here still charms and amazes and amuses. Chaplin wasn't great at exploiting the filmic aspects of film as Buster Keaton was: editing and camera movement are not his stock in trade. But he knew how to fill a shot and stage a scene. His command of motion and of mise-en-scene was top-notch. I also always get a kick out of the cabin perched on the edge of an abyss. Easily one of the hundred finest English-language movies ever made. Highest recommendation.
Tillie's Punctured Romance: written by Hampton Del Ruth, Craig Hutchinson, Mack Sennett, A. Baldwin Sloane, and Edgar Smith; directed by Mack Sennett and Charles Bennett; starring Marie Dressler (Tillie), Charles Chaplin (The Stranger) and Mabel Normand (Mabel) (1914): Writer/director/producer Mack Sennett (of Keystone Cops fame) was the first director to have the young Charles Chaplin in his films. Chaplin would move on soon after this movie to control his own productions. Thank God.
The top-billed star, though, is Cobourg, Ontario's own Marie Dressler. Dressler was already 46 when this movie was released, and her career would decline up until the introduction of sound into film. Then she would undergo an amazing renaissance while in her sixties, winning a Best Actress Oscar and being named the top female box-office draw for three straight years before dying of cancer at the age of 66 in 1934. Her girl-hood home is a historical site in Cobourg.
There's lots of fairly basic slapstick here, much of it literally involving slapping, hitting, punching, and kicking. The rudimentary plot involves Chaplin's stranger eloping with rural naif Dressler in order to steal her money. Hijinks ensue, and the Keystone Cops make a late-movie appearance.
Sennett was not the man to discover any of the possibilities of the camera. Most shots are static, proscenium-arch set-ups from roughly the same vantage point in relation to the characters in the shot. Editing is rudimentary, and in-shot camera movement non-existent. There are a few close-ups, if you're counting, but not many.
The static camera will begin to wear on one after awhile, as will the haphazard relation of the locations of one shot to the next. The rules of Classic Hollywood shot-to-shot geography and geometry were just at the start of being formulated; get ready for characters to seemingly run the wrong way out of one shot and into the next. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.
Chaplin is as good as possible with what he has to work with, as is Dressler -- they're both gifted physical comedians. If you're going to watch this, you may want to do so in two or three sittings. At 70 minutes, it feels awfully long. Recommended.
The Circus: written and directed by Charlie Chaplin; starring Charlie Chaplin (The Little Tramp), Merna Kennedy (A Circus Rider) and Harry Crocker (Rex, A Tightrope Waker) (1928): Chaplin's last fully silent film is a small gem. It lacks the almost epic comic scale of some of his other features that include The Gold Rush and City Lights, but it is nonetheless filled with comic setpieces of often astonishing ingenuity.
The Little Tramp gets hired by a circus after he's discovered to be an inadvertant comic genius. He falls in love with the stepdaughter of the Ringmaster/Owner, who is constantly mistreated by her stepfather. That's pretty much the entire spoiler-free plot.
Chaplin can suffer quite a bit when compared to contemporary Buster Keaton as a director, at least when one looks at shot-to-shot composition and the exploitation of the unique qualities of film. Chaplin generally uses the shot as a proscenium arch: he's interested in what he can do within the mise-en-scene. And a lot of his physical comedy relies upon startling the viewer with what seem to be impossible feats, simply filmed.
But what physical comedy! There's something ridiculously amusing about the Tramp's reaction to good news in this film (and others), for instance: he runs around kicking people in the stomach. Why? I have no idea. But it's hilarious.
Chaplin made this film while in the midst of a court trial. His studio burned down during production. And the footage of him performing a tightrop scene while actually 40 feet above the ground was damaged, forcing him to quickly do what he considered an inferior (but much safer) reshoot. And after The Circus was completed, Chaplin had a nervous breakdown. Frankly, it's amazing the film wasn't a tragedy. Recommended.
