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Charlie and a few of his valentines
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A NIGHT OUT, released February 15th, 1915
Filmed in Niles, CA, this is the first film to feature Chaplin's long-time leading lady, Edna Purviance.
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Charlie's cane doubles as a toothpick.
Chaplin with fellow drunk, Ben Turpin, and Leo White (the Count)
A palm frond doubles as a toothbrush.
Edna...
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Dancing with Betsey Cushing, the former daughter-in-law of FDR, El Morocco nightclub, NYC, October 1940
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Chaplin through the years
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| Illustrated magazine, September 20th, 1952 |
Most of these dates are a little off. The photo from 1918 was actually taken c. 1910-11 & the photo from 1926 is really 1921. I think 1947 is actually 1952. 1913 should be 1914 and 1916 should be 1915. Yes, I'm a little obsessed with dates.
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Groundbreaking ceremony for Grauman's Chinese Theater, January 1926
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Liberty Loan rally, 1918
It's Presidents' Day here in the U.S. I hope some of you are enjoying a day off.
In the photo below, Charlie is kneeling with Marie Dressler in the front row. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks are behind them. Standing at left is future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was then a New York state senator.1 FDR was not the only U.S. president that Chaplin met. In 1927, he was introduced to (future) president Herbert Hoover at a press dinner in New York City. 2
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1Twenty-three years later, Chaplin would deliver the final speech from The Great Dictator at FDR’s third inaugural ball. You can listen to a recording of it here.
2Chaplin met Hoover again in 1940--also in New York City.
In the photo below, Charlie is kneeling with Marie Dressler in the front row. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks are behind them. Standing at left is future U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was then a New York state senator.1 FDR was not the only U.S. president that Chaplin met. In 1927, he was introduced to (future) president Herbert Hoover at a press dinner in New York City. 2
1Twenty-three years later, Chaplin would deliver the final speech from The Great Dictator at FDR’s third inaugural ball. You can listen to a recording of it here.
2Chaplin met Hoover again in 1940--also in New York City.
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Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Symphony Orchestra featured at Catalina Island Museum’s Silent Film Benefit
Via Gail Fornasiere, Director of Marketing & Public Relations at the Catalina Island Museum:
Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Symphony Orchestra featured at Catalina Island Museum’s Silent Film Benefit
Tickets on Sale Now!
AVALON – January 21, 2014
Charlie Chaplin has been described as an unrivaled genius of the silent cinema, and as critic Roger Ebert once wrote: “If only one of Charles Chaplin’s films could be preserved, City Lights would come the closest to representing all the different notes of his genius.”
The Catalina Island Museum will present Chaplin’s acclaimed silent masterpiece during its 27th Silent Film Benefit, which will take place on Saturday, May 17th. The film will be presented in the famed Avalon Casino Theater, one of the grandest movie palaces of the 1920s. For the first time in the Silent Film Benefit’s history, the film will be accompanied by a live symphony orchestra. Grammy Award-winning conductor Richard Kaufman will conduct a 39-piece orchestra performing the original score composed by Charlie Chaplin himself.
City Lights is widely recognized as “the crowning achievement of silent comedy,” and the American Film Institute ranks the film as the 11th greatest American film of all time. It is one of only a handful of films selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
Although it was released nearly three years after talking pictures had taken over the box office, City Lights was enthusiastically received. It became Chaplin’s most financially successful and critically acclaimed work. The Los Angeles Times called it “the first non-dialogue film of importance to be produced since the advent of the talkies.”
Chaplin was especially fond of the final scene, which many claim is one of the most memorable moments in cinematic history. Chaplin once stated that in “City Lights just the last scene… I’m not acting… Almost apologetic, standing outside myself and looking… It’s a beautiful scene, beautiful, and because it isn’t over-acted.”
Richard Kaufman is one of today’s leading conductors of symphonic film music. He is Principal Pops Conductor of the Pacific Symphony, Pops Conductor Laureate of the Dallas Symphony and conductor of the Chicago Symphony’s “Friday Night at the Movies” series. He has served as guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Tickets for this year’s Silent Film Benefit are on sale now! Tickets are $15 for members of the museum, $18 for general admission and $9 for those in period dress. Arrive in your best 1920’s dress and receive a 50% discount on admission to the Silent Film Benefit! Prizes will be awarded to the best-dressed individual and couple.
Purchasing tickets is easy. Please call 310-510-2414, visit the museum in person, go to the Silent Film event page on www.CatalinaMuseum.org or mail your payment to Catalina Island Museum, PO Box 366, Avalon, CA 90704 (Attn: Silent Film).
The Catalina Island Museum is Avalon’s sole institution devoted to art, culture and history. The museum, its digital theater and store are located on the ground floor of Avalon’s historic Casino and are open 7 days a week, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information, the museum may be reached by phone at 310-510-2414 or at its website: CatalinaMuseum.org.
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| Charlie & Paulette Goddard at Catalina Island, c. 1934 |
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Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette...
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Charlie gives his eldest sons, Charlie, Jr. (left) and Sydney, a piggyback ride, c. 1929
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Charlie greets the press & newsreel cameras aboard the Mauretania in Plymouth, England, February 19th, 1931
After Chaplin finished City Lights, he decided to take a brief European vacation to promote the film. He had not set foot in England, his native country, in nearly ten years. Although, he had initially planned to be abroad for only a month or so, he ended up staying for 18 months--traveling to all corners of the world. Watch Charlie nervously pose for the newsreel cameras here.
One year ago today my World Tour Revisited series officially began. It has been quite a learning experience for me and I have enjoyed the research (which I love anyway). This period of Charlie's life has always fascinated me. I will be sad when the series ends in June.
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One year ago today my World Tour Revisited series officially began. It has been quite a learning experience for me and I have enjoyed the research (which I love anyway). This period of Charlie's life has always fascinated me. I will be sad when the series ends in June.
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Two Pictures...
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| Santa Cruz Evening News, August 1927 |
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Chaplin watches a Circle Theater performance of The Doctor In Spite Of Himself
Charlie was closely associated with the Circle Theater in the late 1940s—directing plays (without credit) and allowing access to props from his movies. Charlie’s son, Sydney, was one of its founding members (Charlie, Jr. was also a member for a brief time).
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| Kathleen Freeman is addressing the audience, which includes such familiar faces as: Elizabeth Taylor (front row, far right), Roddy McDowell is next to Taylor, Gene Tierney is seated between Charlie and Oona. Constance Collier is on Oona's left. Co-founder of the Circle Theater, Jerry Epstein, is on Charlie's right. |
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Chaplin rehearses a scene for THE GREAT DICTATOR
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| Source: Syd Chaplin: A Biography by Lisa K. Stein |
Sydney Chaplin is standing at far right. Sydney, who had been absent from Hollywood since 1927, came to work for Charlie on the set of The Great Dictator. Although he was never given a title or had any real authority, it was Sydney who suggested Jack Oakie for the role of Benzino Napaloni.
Another note: most of the signs in the ghetto scenes are in the international language Esperanto. Read more about Esperanto & The Great Dictatorhere.
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Costume test showing Charlie as the wealthy duke that the blind girl in City Lights envisions as her benefactor
Chaplin ultimately discarded this idea for the film.
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A game of "Dougledyas" at the Fairbanks Studio, 1923
Dougledyas, or simply, Doug, was a game that was invented by Douglas Fairbanks. The rules were similar to tennis but six could play instead of four and a shuttlecock was used instead of a ball.
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| Front: CC & Douglas Fairbanks. Standing (L-R): Raoul Walsh, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jack Pickford, C. Carlton Bingham |
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Chaplin & Napoleon
Chaplin in costume as Napoleon, c.1930
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| Merna Kennedy wearing a Napoleon-style hat (the same one Harry Crocker is wearing below) in a photo taken at the Chaplin Studios. |
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| Lita Grey posing in Napoleonic jewels at an exhibition in New York City, 1932. During her marriage to Chaplin, they attended a fancy dress party as Napoleon and Josephine. Click here to see a photo. |
During the summer of 1934, Chaplin embarked on a screenplay for the Napoleon film with with his new friend, Alistair Cooke. Many months were spent on the script, which would be based on Napoleon's experiences in St. Helena, until Chaplin suddenly declared "it's a beautiful idea, for someone else."3
With Harry Crocker
Below is a home movie of Chaplin as Napoleon that was filmed by Alistair Cooke aboard Chaplin's yacht, Panacea, during the summer of 1933. Alistair Cooke describes the film in his book, Six Men:
Chaplin suddenly asked me to take some photographs, both still and in motion, of himself as Napoleon. He pulled his hair down into a ropy forelock, slipped one hand into his breast pocket, and slumped into a wistful emperor. He started to talk to himself, tossing in strange names to me--Bertrand, Montholon--and then took umbrage, flung an accusing finger at me and, having transformed his dreamy eyes into icicles, delivered a tirade against the British treatment of him on "the little island." His face was now a hewn rock of defiance. I still have it on film, and it's a chilling this to see.
For a more in-depth look at the Napoleon project and how it eventually morphed (somewhat) into The Great Dictator, click here to watch a 20-minute visual essay by Chaplin archivist Cecilia Cenciarelli entitled "Chaplin's Napoleon."
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1Lita Grey Chaplin, My Life With Chaplin
2Movie Classic, November 1932. Additional note: Chaplin was romantically linked to Taylor during the early part of 1924. There were even rumors of an engagement, but Taylor nipped that in the bud: "No, I couldn't take that kind of punishment. I will pick my own persimmons. Charlie isn't one of them." (Adela Rogers St Johns, Love, Laughter, and Tears)
3Alistair Cooke, Six Men
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Charlie & German director, Ernst Lubitsch, 1923
Lubitsch had just seen a rough cut of A Woman Of Paris, which he hailed as “a great step forward…a picture that left something to the imagination.” Some believe that Lubitsch's next film, The Marriage Circle, which also starred Adolphe Menjou, was influenced by A Woman Of Paris. I'm not sure exactly when Lubitsch saw the preview, but AWOP was released on October 1st, 1923 and Marriage Circle was already in production by then.
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J. Beagles postcard, c. 1920s
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Charlie and Edna with visitors on the set of THE CURE, 1917
Charlie is in costume as a bellhop, the character he had originally intended to play before switching to the drunk.
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| Eric Campbell is standing behind the fellow shaking Charlie's hand. |
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Cover of Cine Pour Tous, June 1922
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