Friday, February 21, 2014

Chaplin's Smile by Geraldine and Oona Chaplin

From the movie, Modern Times, 1936 and still at No. 41 on IMDBs top 250 movies of all time.

Top 5000

87 min - Comedy | Drama - 25 February 1936 (USA)

8.6

Ratings: 8.6/10 from 88,773 users Metascore: 96/100
Reviews: 180 user | 107 critic | 4 from Metacritic.com

The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.

Director:

Charles Chaplin (as Charlie Chaplin)

Writer:

Charles Chaplin

Stars:

Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman |See full cast and crew »

Watchlist

Top 250 #41 | 3 wins & 1 nomination. See more awards »

Videos

Modern Times -- Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin's last outing as the Little Tramp, puts the iconic character to work as a giddily inept factory employee who becomes smitten with a gorgeous gamine (Paulette Goddard).

Photos

Still of Charles Chaplin in Modern Times (1936)

44 photos | 1 video | 26 news articles »

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City Lights (1931)

Certificate: Passed Comedy | Drama |Romance

8.7/10

The Tramp struggles to help a blind flower girl he has fallen in love with.

Director: Charles Chaplin

Stars: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee

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Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
	Charles Chaplin	...	A Factory Worker (as Charlie Chaplin)
	Paulette Goddard	...	A Gamin
	Henry Bergman	...	Cafe Proprietor
	Tiny Sandford	...	Big Bill (as Stanley Sandford)
	Chester Conklin	...	Mechanic
	Hank Mann	...	Burglar
	Stanley Blystone	...	Gamin's Father
	Al Ernest Garcia	...	President of the Electro Steel Corp. (as Allan Garcia)
	Richard Alexander	...	Prison Cellmate (as Dick Alexander)
	Cecil Reynolds	...	Minister
	Mira McKinney	...	Minister's Wife (as Myra McKinney)
	Murdock MacQuarrie	...	J. Widdecombe Billows (as Murdoch McQuarrie)
	Wilfred Lucas	...	Juvenile Officer
	Edward LeSaint	...	Sheriff Couler (as Ed Le Sainte)
	Fred Malatesta	...	Cafe Head Waiter

See full cast »

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Storyline

Chaplins last 'silent' film, filled with sound effects, was made when everyone else was making talkies. Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, (The use of sound in films ?) and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital... When he gets out, he is mistaken for a communist while waving a red flag, sent to jail, foils a jailbreak, and is let out again. We follow Charlie through many more escapades before the film is out. Written by Colin Tinto <cst@imdb.com>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Plot Keywords:

Taglines:

You'll never laugh as long and as loud again as long as you live! The laughs come so fast and so furious you'll wish it would end before you collapse! See more »

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 February 1936 (USA) See more »

Also Known As:

The Masses See more »

Filming Locations:

Santa Clarita, California, USA See more »

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$11,507 (USA) (9 January 2004)

Gross:

$163,245 (USA) (22 October 2004)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charles Chaplin Productions See more »

Show detailed company contact information on IMDbPro »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Noiseless Recording Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

See full technical specs »

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Did You Know?

Trivia

The film shares many themes with René Clair's À Nous la Liberté (1931). That film's production company Tobis Film sued Charles Chaplin upon the release of Modern Times(1936) to no avail. They tried again after World War II, this time settling with Chaplin out of court. Clair - who was a great admirer of Chaplin - was thoroughly embarrassed by Tobis Film's course of actions. See more »

Goofs

After a brick hits the police officer all the officers go over to the tramp. The gate he is in front of is open at first with a wheelbarrow in the gate opening. This position of the gate and wheelbarrow occur for two or so scenes. In the last scene the gate is suddenly closed and the wheelbarrow has been moved to outside of the gate. See more »

Quotes

[Listening to a phonograph record]
The Mechanical Salesman: Good morning, my friends. This record comes to you through the Sales Talk Transcription Company, Incorporated: your speaker, the Mechanical Salesman. May I take the pleasure of introducing Mr. J. Widdecombe Billows, the inventor of the Billows Feeding Machine, a practical device which automatically feeds your men while at work? Don't stop for lunch: be ahead of your competitor. The Billows Feeding Machine will eliminate the lunch hour, increase your production,...
See more »

Connections

Referenced in Brief Film Reviews: My DVD/Blu-Ray Collection (2010) See more »

Soundtracks

Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
(uncredited)
Music from the traditional folk song "Revive Us Again"
See more »

Monday, February 10, 2014

Chaplin at the Helsinki Art Museum

Helsinki Art Museum Tennis Palace

The Kid, Charles Chaplin and Jackie Coogan (1919–1921) © Roy Export SAS. Scan courtesy Cineteca di Bologna

Chaplin in pictures
14 Feb – 13 Jul 2014It is a hundred years from the birth of the most beloved character in the history of cinema, Charles Chaplin’s Tramp. Wearing an odd assortment of clothes and a bowler hat, the figure became hugely popular right from the start and made Chaplin one of the most famous persons on the planet. Through photographs and film clips, Chaplin in Pictures tells about the incredible life and career of the mythic artist.
Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889–1977) began his life in the slums of London and died a living legend in Switzerland. What happened in between is a big part of the history of film. Chaplin made most of his films in the United States, yet he was refused a visa for re-entry in 1952 on political and moral grounds when he was on a trip to London. Before his exile, he had made his most famous films in America, from the silent shorts to his first sound films. The Hollywood star cult was created in Chaplin’s time, when the prominence of actors and directors was put to use in marketing. There was even talk of a world-wide epidemic of ‘Chaplinitis’. Chaplin himself was one of the best-paid people in the United States in 1915.
Thanks to Chaplin, comedy was transformed from cheap entertainment into an artform to rival Shakespeare. Chaplin was a demanding and uncompromising prodigy of the silver screen who acted in, directed, scripted and produced, and even wrote the music for his films. The secret of Chaplin’s success was in his ability to connect the private to the public. In his films, the everyday life of the ordinary man in the street is paralleled by momentous historical events. The co-existence of the two worlds was also apparent in the character of the Tramp, who was simultaneously a seedy vagabond and a man of the world with the dignity and manners of a gentleman. Chaplin’s view of society was critical, yet the vehicle for his stories was comedy. His entire output is characterised by a warm, humane spirit.
The prestige of Chaplin’s films has had its ups and downs over the decades, reaching the nadir in the 1940s–50s. The scandals in his private life also undermined his popularity during his American years, yet he began receiving new honours again in the 1960s.
Chaplin in Pictures gives the audience a glimpse behind the scenes during the shooting of the films. The exhibition approaches Chaplin’s career through a number of themes that range from the creation of the little Tramp to the advent of sound in film. Chaplin was also an inspiration to countless other artists, including Fernand Legér andRobert Capa, who are both featured in the exhibition. The Chaplin phenomenon was prominent in Finland as well, as attested to the film posters, film magazines and photographs included in the show.
The exhibition is presented with the backing of the Chaplin Association organised in conjunction with the Cineteca di Bologna – progetto Chaplin and MK2. The exhibition curator is Sam Stourdzé.

Charlie poses (c. 1915) © From the Archives of the Roy Export Company Establishment, courtesy NBC Photographie, Paris

Charles Chaplin, City Lights (1931) © Roy Export S.A.S., courtesy NBC Photographie, Paris

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Chaplin's Long Lost Novel Revealed

Charlie Chaplin's only novel published for the first time

Out of Limelight … Chaplin in a still from the eponymous film. Photograph: W Eugene Smith/Time & Life Pictures

The only work of fiction ever written by Charlie Chaplin, a dark, nostalgic novella which was the root of his great film Limelight and which has lain unpublished for over 60 years, is being made public for the first time.

Footlights, which runs to 34,000 words, traces the same story as Chaplin's valedictory film Limelight – that of an ageing, alcoholic clown Calvero and the ballerina he saves from suicide.

The film, in which Chaplin played Calvero and Claire Bloom the ballerina, was the final American movie Chaplin made before he was banned from the country for alleged communist sympathies. The novella, which Chaplin wrote in 1948, before the film script, widens and deepens the story, giving an insight into the author's state of mind at the time.

It has lain in Chaplin's archive for decades, but has now been pieced together from a mix of handwritten and typed scripts by Chaplin's biographer David Robinson. It is published by the Cineteca di Bologna, an Italian film restoration institute which has been digitising the Chaplin archive for his family.

Cecilia Cenciarelli, co-director of the Cineteca's Chaplin project, said the novella "has shadows. It's the story of a comedian who has lost his public, by a comedian who at that time had lost his public, who was referred to in the press of the time as a 'former comedian', a 'former successful film maker'".

It is a prequel of sorts to the film, in that it fleshes out "why Calvero has nightmares, why he is so disenchanted with his career, with the public", she said. "The book deals a little more with the relationship of the artist to his audience, with the meaning of art."

"I know I'm funny," says Calvero in the novella, "but the managers think I'm through … a has-been. God! It would be wonderful to make them eat their words. That's what I hate about getting old – the contempt and indifference they show you. They think I'm useless … That's why it would be wonderful to make a comeback! … I mean sensational! To rock them with laughter like I used to … to hear that roar go up … waves of laughter coming at you, lifting you off your feet … what a tonic! You want to laugh with them, but you hold back and laugh inside … God, there's nothing like it! As much as I hate those lousy – I love to hear them laugh!"

Chaplin was going through a bad time in America when he wrote the novella, said Robinson. "He was a big target for J Edgar Hoover … which was effective to the extent that a great deal of middle America turned against him. This was a shock to him, who had been the best loved man in the world for 30 years." These feelings, said Robinson, "work themselves out in the story of Calvero".

Footlights, complete with Robinson's commentary and description of the story's evolution, is being launched by the Cineteca this week, with an event at the British Film Institute Southbank, London, featuring Robinson and Bloom, to whom the book is dedicated. The book will be available from the publisher's website and Amazon, although it does not yet have a British or American publisher – something Cenciarelli is hoping will change.

"It is astonishing that this man who went to school for six months in his life managed to become a writer," she said. "The reason it has never been published before is because the family has been a little protective … but eventually they were convinced this would be a good thing to do."

"He never meant it for publication," said Robinson. "It was something absolutely private … he wrote it for himself."

In his commentary, Robinson writes that Chaplin "can move without warning from the baldly colloquial to dazzling yet apparently effortless imagery, as when the crushed Calvero gazes 'wearily into the secretive river, gliding phantom-like in a life of its own … smiling satanically at him as it flecked myriad lights from the moon and from the lamps along the embankment'".

Chaplin's childhood in south London can be seen, he writes, in a child character's "aversion to parks – 'the dreary, forlorn patches of green, and the people who sat about them, were the living graveyards of the hopeless and the destitute'". The novella also shows "the delight in fine or strange words of the self-confessed autodidact, who kept a dictionary beside him and set out to learn a new word every day: brattled, selenic, efflorescing, fanfaronading and – to the end of his life his all-purpose favourite – ineffable."

"Once he'd got a word he liked to use it, even if it was not quite right for the situation," Robinson said. "Nevertheless he does write amazingly. With his films he worked and worked until it came right, and it is the same with this book. It's a good read. Strange, but good."

Pamela Hutchinson, who blogs about silent film atwww.silentlondon.co.uk, called the publication "very exciting".

"There is always tremendous interest in Chaplin – and when so much has been written about him over the years the chance to read his own words, especially ones we haven't heard before, is refreshing," she said. "One of the things that is really wonderful about Limelight is that it shows Chaplin returning to the London of his youth: the tenements and music halls that he knew.

"To read what he was writing about this world in the 40s confirms our fondly-held belief that Chaplin never forgot his British roots throughout his successes in the States.

"The subject matter of Limelight – poverty, mental health and the variety stage – as well as its London setting, could have been plucked straight from his childhood. The drafts of this novella confirm that these things were still playing on his mind late in his life."

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Gene Kelly and Charlie Chaplin Have Something in Common

Two events combined today, 2 Feb, for the book I'm writing, Bold, Brash and Brilliant, about the lives and work of Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly and Steve Jobs:http://www.boldbrashandbrilliant.com/

Charlie Chaplin made his screen debut on this date in 1914 in the movie, Making a Living. He had not yet developed his Tramp outfit, but within 1 year he would be known the world over and be making a million dollars a year by 1916.

Gene Kelly died on this day in 1996. He will forever be remembered in the movie,Singin' in the Rain .

Steve Job's breakout computer, the Mac, came out almost exactly 30 years ago.

Gene Kelly's Death: A Sad Day for Fans

The Death of Gene Kelly

Fans around the world mourned the death of the famed Actor, Singer, Dancer, Choreographer, Director, Entertainer, and all around genius of the stage, Gene Kelly, on 2 Feb 1996.

He was the most versatile performer along with Fred Astaire as his contemporary and friend. They were the best dancers in the business.

Synopsis

Born on August 23, 1912 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Gene Kelly was an American film actor and director whose athletic style and classical ballet technique transformed the film musical. He boldly blended solo dancing, mass movement and offbeat camera angles to tell a story in purely visual terms. Kelly is remembered for his lead role in Singin' in the Rain, regarded by some as the best dance film ever made.

QUOTES

"I didn't want to be a dancer. What I really wanted to be was shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pittsburgh Pirates lost a hell of a shortstop."

– Gene Kelly

Early Life

Athletic and energetic, Gene Kelly was the king of the musicals in the 1940s and '50s. Not only did Kelly star in some of the genre's most famous films, he worked behind the scenes, breaking new ground with his choreography and direction.

One of five children, Kelly was born on August 23, 1912, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While his friends were playing baseball, he was taking dance lessons. Kelly put his lessons to good use in college, teaching at a local studio to help him pay for his education. He also performed with his brother, Fred.

In the late 1930s, Kelly made his way to the Broadway stage. He had small roles in Leave It to Me! starring Mary Martin, and One For the Money. In 1940, Kelly played the lead in the popular musical comedyPal Joey. MGM executive Louis B. Mayer caught Kelly's stellar performance and offered him a movie contract with his studio. In 1942, Kelly made his film debut opposite Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal.

Career Highlights

While he often was compared to another famous film dancer, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly had his own unique style. He brought dance into real life in his movies, performing largely in regular clothes and in common settings. "All of my dancing came out of the idea of the common man," Kelly once explained. He also produced some of film's most innovative and enthusiastic dance numbers, pushing the limits of the genre.

In Anchors Aweigh (1945), Kelly danced a duet with Jerry, a cartoon mouse—a feat that had not been seen before. He had sailors performing ballet moves in On the Town (1949), in which he starred with Frank Sinatra. Working with director Vincente Minnelli, Kelly continued to take dance on film into uncharted territory with An American in Paris (1951). He choreographed the movie, including its groundbreaking finale—a lengthy ballet sequence. For his efforts on the film, Kelly received a honorary Academy Award "in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film."

Kelly starred in one of his most famous films the following year. Accompanied only by an umbrella, Kelly put together one of the most joyous dances ever filmed in Singin' in the Rain (1952). He explained that his inspiration for the famous street dance scene was the way children like to play in the rain.

Later Years

As interest in the movie musical began to fade in the 1960s, Kelly turned to television.

He starred in two short-lived programs—Going My Way, an adaptation of the 1944 Bing Crosbymovie, and a 1971 variety show called The Funny Side. Kelly fared better with the 1967 television movie Jack and the Beanstalk, which he directed, produced and starred in. The children's telefilm netted him an Emmy Award. To promote and preserve the great film musicals of the past, Kelly also helped host the documentary That's Entertainment!

CONTENTS

Synopsis

Early Life

Career Highlights

Later Years

Death and Legacy

in the mid-1970s.

In the 1980s, Kelly largely retreated from acting. He made his last film appearance in the 1980 musical fantasy Xanaduwith Olivia Newton-John, which proved to be a box-office dud. On the small screen, Kelly had a few supporting roles and guest spots on such series as The Muppet Show and The Love Boat. He often appeared as himself on tribute specials.

Death and Legacy

In 1994 and in 1995, Kelly suffered a series of strokes. He died on February 2, 1996, at his home in Beverly Hills, California. Many Hollywood stars mourned his passing, including his Singin' in the Rain co-star, Debbie Reynolds. "There'll never be another Gene," she told the press. "I was only 18 when we made that movie, and the hardest thing was keeping up with his energy."

In July 2012, New York City's Film Society of Lincoln Center hosted a month-long program in honor of Kelly, showing nearly two dozen of Kelly's films.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Rare Chaplin in Color as The Tramp

This is an amazing, virtually never before seen color photo of Charlie Chaplin in his Tramp outfit. We always think of him in B&W as with all of the other Silent Stars, but for them, life was in striking color as you see here. We forget that watching the old flickering images on the screen in their stark contrasting blacks, grays and whites.

Lillian Gish. Harold Lloyd. The inimitable Buster Keaton. No discussion of silent movies is complete without mention of — and tribute to — those silver-screen pioneers. But no single figure epitomizes that Hollywood era as neatly as Charlie Chaplin’s immortal creation, “the Tramp.” Baggy pants, tight coat, small hat, mustache, that immediately recognizable, floppy-footed gait — these particulars have become so intimately bound up with our collective idea of what silent films look and feel like that, for countless moviegoers all over the world, Chaplin’s Tramp is the silent era.

It’s especially striking, then, to come upon a color photograph of Chaplin, in character, from so early in his career. The autochrome above, made around 1918, somehow heightens much of the Tramp’s already considerable appeal. Instead of the black-and-white icon of pluck and pathos we thought we knew, we meet a creature of flesh and blood. The pinkish tone of the cheek; the myriad colors evident in the vest; the shadows playing on Chaplin’s brow and neck — all of these details sharpen our interest in Chaplin the man, just as his films spark admiration for Chaplin the artist.

[See more autochromes in a recent LightBox post about color photos from World War I.]

Here, 100 years after Chaplin’s Feb. 2, 1914, screen debut (in a 13-minute one-reeler, Making a Living), LightBox shares this surprising, quiet Charles Zoller portrait of the London-born actor, writer and director. Zoller (1856-1934) was a furniture dealer from Rochester, N.Y., who was introduced to the tricky — but hugely rewarding — autochrome process in Paris in 1907, the very year that the Lumiere brothers first marketed the new picture-making technology. In fact, Zoller — whose archive is housed at the Eastman House — might well have been the first amateur American photographer to work with autochromes.

His Chaplin portrait, meanwhile, still transfixes us a full century after it was made. Standing in that quintessential pose, Chaplin might be mulling one of his trademark stunts, or reconsidering the sequence of a critical scene. But what really moves us is not the mystery of what’s on his mind, but the sense that we’re actually there with him, in the California sun, moments before someone (perhaps Chaplin himself) shouts that stirring, cinematic word: Action!

Friday, February 21, 2014

Modern Times (1936)

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Monday, February 10, 2014

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Charlie Chaplin's only novel published for the first time

Sunday, February 2, 2014

CONTENTS

QUOTES

CONTENTS

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Bold, Brash & Brilliant Links