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Review Of MAKING A LIVING
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Chicago, 1925
"Oh no, I will no handicap the lad like that. We'll wait until he grows up and let him choose his own career."
"Mrs. Chaplin and the boy are fine," he continued. "But they weren't up to the trip to New York yet, so I left them at home."The reporter also remarked on Charlie's gray hair:
The beloved actor was found in his room, rather sad faced, his countenance deeply lined, and his eyes somewhat sunken. And he is getting distinctly gray, he admitted it ruefully, the while stroking the curls once so black and now streaked so abundantly as to make them iron-gray.
But the Chaplin smile was still with him, and when he registered it, he looked like the old time Charlie again." (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 2nd. 1925)
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A roast duck becomes a football in MODERN TIMES (1936)
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Cover of FILM FUN, October 1918
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Chaplin by James Abbe, Paris, 1931
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United Artists, formed Feb. 5th, 1919
On this day 94 years ago, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith & Charlie Chaplin, seeking more artistic and financial control over the production and distribution of their films, founded a company that was the first of its kind, United Artists. At the time, they told reporters in a joint statement that it was a "declaration of independence from producers and exhibitors of machine-made films." It should also be noted that Charlie's brother, Sydney, was instrumental in the formation of the company.
Below is footage from the signing of the contracts. Charlie will eventually appear in his Tramp costume and the four will pose and clown for the cameras.
Below is footage from the signing of the contracts. Charlie will eventually appear in his Tramp costume and the four will pose and clown for the cameras.
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Charlie with "Dinky" Dean Riesner, c. 1922
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| These photos were taken at Charlie's Summit Drive home in Beverly Hills. |
Riesner played the mischievous child in Chaplin’s 1923 film (and one of my personal favorites), The Pilgrim. Almost fifty years later he would write the screenplays for the Clint Eastwood films Play Misty For Me & Dirty Harry.
Dean's father was Chuck Riesner who worked for Charlie for several years (including a role in The Pilgrim). When Chaplin was looking for a child for the film, Chuck suggested his son. Years later Dean remembered being able to do everything Charlie asked except slap him. "I was well-brought-up kid and a gentle child, and I was not a great slapper of people. And so when it came time to start slapping people I didn't want to do it. I don't want to hit Uncle Charlie....Finally he and Sydney were playing slapping games. And they'd say, 'Oh, I love to be slapped. I just adore being slapped' and he'd say, "Sydney, hit me again' and Sydney would give him a shot and Charlie would say 'Ho, ho, this is so much fun. I just love it!' He finally convinced me that slapping was a great charge to him."
Riesner also recalled that the flypaper was real ("I still haven't gotten it all off") and that the scene where Charlie gets his revenge and kicks the child in the butt was actually played by "a midget" named Billy. "I remember my father bringing him home the night before, and they were both drunk, smoking cigars."
As for his nickname: "I was called Dink ever since I was a little kid. I don't know what that came from. My father had some kind of fake story, he said 'such a dinky little baby' or something, but it never sounded right to me. I think my Uncle Dave gave me that nickname."
Riesner died in 2002 at the age of 83.
Sources:
Unknown Chaplin
Limelight, Winter 1997
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Charlie arrives at the New York City premiere of CITY LIGHTS, Feb. 6th, 1931
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KID AUTO RACES AT VENICE, released Feb. 7th, 1914
Chaplin biographer David Robinson refers to the “extraordinary phenomenon” that Kid Auto Races at Venice is, noting in particular that “at the time it was shot, the Chaplin persona had still not appeared on the screen. The spectators at the races were therefore the first people anywhere to glimpse the figure that was to become universally famous. We can observe this first audience, as they progress from initial bewilderment and embarrassment at the antics of this obstreperous little vagabond to uninhibited laughter as they realize he is an entertainer. Kid Auto Races is thus incidentally a documentary record of the world’s first encounter with its greatest clown.”
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EASY STREET (1917)
The T-shaped set for Easy Street is a throwback to the streets of Chaplin’s childhood, as well as the run-down buildings with the small doorways. You will see the T-shaped street and small doorways again in The Kid. The title Easy Street also suggests “East Street” the street of Chaplin’s birthplace.
The film includes plenty of social commentary: poverty, drugs, starvation and urban violence—all themes that will pop up again in later films.
One of the few times Charlie ever injured himself while making a movie was during the filming of Easy Street. When he pulled the lamp post down on the bully (Eric Campbell) the lamp’s sharp metal edge cut him across the bridge of his nose requiring stitches. This injury contributed to a delay in the release of the film.
In a 1917 issue of Reel Life, Charlie published his reflections on the film:
If there is one human type more than any other that the whole wide world has it in for, it is the policeman type. Of course, the policeman isn’t really to blame for the public prejudice against his uniform--it’s just the natural human revulsion against any sort of authority--but just the same everybody loves to see the 'copper' get it where the chicken got the axe.
So, to begin with, I make myself solid by letting my friends understand that I am not a real policeman except in the sense that I've been put on for a special job--that of manhandling a big bully. Of course I have my work cut out tackling a contract like that and the sympathy of the audience is with me, but I have also the element of suspense which is invaluable in a motion picture plot. The natural supposition is that the policeman is going to get the worst of it and there is an intense interest in how I am to come out of my apparently unequal combat with 'Bully' Campbell.
There is further contrast between my comedy walk and general funny business and the popular conception of dignity that is supposed to hedge a uniformed police officer."
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Color photo, 1959
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Hollywood party at Fay Wray's, 1930
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| Georgia Hale is third from the left, next to Charlie. |
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| Photo source: New Movie, December 1930 |
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Trick film sequence with Sir Albert & Lady Naylor-Leyland, Chaplin Studios, 1923
(from the documentary The Gentleman Tramp)
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Photo of Charlie by Frank Fischbeck, 1967
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Cover of TIME magazine, Feb. 9th, 1931
The following is from the magazine's cover story about Charlie's latest film, City Lights (note the cover photo is from The Circus):
Hollywood is volatile, jealous and perhaps sinful. But it is intensely loyal to the little man whom it used to call Charlie before the wide world called him Charlot, Carlos, Cha-pu-rin and as many more variations as there are languages. Had City Lights been a failure, Hollywood would have been personally and bitterly depressed. But Hollywood was not depressed. Neither was it frightened. For though City Lights is a successful silent challenge to the talkies, its success derives solely from the little man with the battered hat, bamboo cane and black mustache. Critics agree that he, whose posterior would probably be recognized by more people throughout the world than would recognize any other man's face, will be doing business after talkies have been traded in for television.
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Aboard the Panacea with Paulette and Charlie, Jr., 1940
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With writer, Elmer Ellsworth, c. 1921
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| Clockwise from top: Albert Austin, Chuck Riesner (in costume for The Kid), Charlie, & Ellsworth. |
Weeks later Charlie ran into Elmer on the street. "'Say, listen,' said he, 'I've been seeing your pictures lately, and, by God, you're good! You have a quality entirely different from all the rest. And I'm not kidding. You're funny! Why the hell didn't you say so in the first place?' Of course, we became good friends after that."
Ellsworth worked for Chaplin for a brief time but their friendship came to an abrupt end when Charlie gave Ellsworth $300,000 to hold until his divorce from Mildred Harris was final. He immediately regretted the decision and worried that Ellsworth would not return the money. But instead of confronting him (direct confrontations were not Charlie's strong suit), he snubbed him instead. The story goes that when the time came for Ellsworth to give the money back, he produced a check for $290,000 claiming Charlie had promised him a bonus of $10,000 if he carried out the mission. This so infuriated Charlie that he fired Ellsworth and didn't speak to him for two years.
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Charlie leaves New York for England aboard the Mauretania, February 1931
"The disillusion of love, fame and fortune left me somewhat apathetic. There seemed nothing to turn to outside of my work, and that, after twenty years, was becoming irksome. I needed emotional stimulus.
I am tired of love and people and like all egocentrics I turn to myself. I want to live in my youth again, to capture the moods and sensations of childhood, so remote from me now - so unreal - almost like a dream. I need to turn back time, to venture into the blurred past and bring it into focus.
Thrilled with this adventure I buy maps of London and here in my California home I retrace road lines, bringing back memories of places that affected me as a boy."
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Essanay Red Letter Postcard, 1915
This is a card from By The Sea. Margie Reiger is next to Charlie.
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Charlie, Doug, & boxer Jack Dempsey, c. 1918
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