Mary Astor (born Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke; May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an American actress.
She is best remembered for her role as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941).
Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. She eventually changed to talkies. At first her voice was considered too masculine and she was off the screen for a year. She appeared in a play with friend Florence Eldridge, and the film offers came in, so she was able to resume her career in talking films.
Four years later her career was nearly destroyed due to scandal. In 1936 Astor was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband, in a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to greater success on screen, eventually winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Great Lie (1941).
Astor was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to work in film, television and on stage until her retirement in 1964. Astor was the author of five novels.
Her autobiography was a bestseller, as was her later book, A Life on Film, which was about her career. Director Lindsay Anderson wrote of her in 1990 that “when two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played”.
Astor was born in Quincy, Illinois, the only child of Otto Ludwig Langhanke (October 2, 1871 – February 3, 1943) and Helen Marie de Vasconcellos (April 19, 1881 – January 18, 1947).
Both of her parents were teachers. Her father, a German man from Berlin, emigrated to the United States in 1891 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen; her American mother was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, and had Irish and Portuguese roots. They married on August 3, 1904 in Lyons, Kansas.
Otto Ludwig Langhanke, Mary Astor’s father
Astor’s father taught German at Quincy High School until the U.S. entered World War I. Later on, he took up light farming. Astor’s mother, who had always wanted to be an actress, taught drama and elocution. Astor was home-schooled in academics and was taught to play the piano by her father, who insisted she practice daily. Her piano talents came in handy when she played piano in her films The Great Lie and Meet Me in St. Louis.
In 1919, Astor sent a photograph of herself to a beauty contest in Motion Picture Magazine, becoming a semifinalist. When Astor was 15, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, with her father teaching German in public schools. Astor took drama lessons and appeared in various amateur stage productions. The following year, she sent another photograph to Motion Picture Magazine, this time becoming a finalist and then runner-up in the national contest. Her father then moved the family to New York City, in order for his daughter to act in motion pictures. He managed her affairs from September 1920 to June 1930.
A Manhattan photographer, Charles Albin, saw her photograph and asked the young girl with haunting eyes and long auburn hair, whose nickname was “Rusty”, to pose for him. The Albin photographs were seen by Harry Durant of Famous Players-Lasky and Astor was signed to a six-month contract with Paramount Pictures. Her name was changed to “Mary Astor” during a conference between Paramount Pictures chief Jesse Lasky, film producer Walter Wanger, and gossip columnist Louella Parsons.
Silent movie career
A 1924 publicity photo of Astor from Stars of the Photoplay
Astor’s first screen test was directed by Lillian Gish, who was so impressed with her recitation of Shakespeare that she shot a thousand feet of her.
Paramount let her contract lapse. She then appeared in some movie shorts with sequences based on famous paintings. She received critical recognition for the 1921 two-reeler The Beggar Maid. Her first feature-length movie was John Smith (1922), followed that same year by The Man Who Played God. In 1923, she and her parents moved to Hollywood.
The Beggar Maid (1921) Dir: Herbert Blache
After appearing in several larger roles at various studios, she was again signed by Paramount, this time to a one-year contract at $500 a week.
After she appeared in several more movies, John Barrymore saw her photograph in a magazine and wanted her cast in his upcoming movie. On loan-out to Warner Bros., she starred with him in Beau Brummel (1924).
Beau Brummel (1924) Dir: Harry Beaumont
Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Beau Brummel (1924)
The older actor wooed the young actress, but their relationship was severely constrained by Astor’s parents’ unwillingness to let the couple spend time alone together; Mary was only seventeen and legally underage.
It was only after Barrymore convinced the Langhankes that his acting lessons required privacy that the couple managed to be alone at all. Their secret engagement ended largely because of the Langhankes’ interference and Astor’s inability to escape their heavy-handed authority, and because Barrymore became involved with Astor’s fellow WAMPAS Baby StarDolores Costello, whom he later married.
In 1925, Astor’s parents bought a Moorish style mansion with 1 acre (4,000 m2) of land known as “Moorcrest” in the hills above Hollywood. The Langhankes not only lived lavishly off of Astor’s earnings, but kept her a virtual prisoner inside Moorcrest.
Moorcrest is notable not only for its ornate style, but its place as the most lavish residence associated with the Krotona Colony, a utopian society founded by the Theosophical Society in 1912.
Moorcrest Estate
The 6,432-square-foot gated estate was designed by philosophical architect Marie Russak Hotchener and built in 1921, combining Moorish, Gothic and Art Nouveau architectural influences to striking effect
Built by Marie Russak Hotchener, a Theosophist who had no formal architectural training, the house combines Moorish and Mission Revival styles and contains such Arts and Crafts features as art-glass windows (whose red lotus design Astor called “unfortunate”), and Batchelder tiles.
Moorcrest, which has since undergone a multimillion-dollar renovation, remains standing. Before the Langhankes bought it, it was rented by Charlie Chaplin, whose tenure is memorialized by an art glass window featuring the Little Tramp.
Astor’s parents were not Theosophists, though the family was friendly with both Marie Hotchener and her husband Harry, prominent TS members.
Marie Hotchener negotiated Astor’s right to a $5 a week allowance (at a time when she was making $2,500 a week) and the right to go to work unchaperoned by her mother.
The following year when she was 19, Astor, fed up with her father’s constant physical and psychological abuse as well as his control of her money, climbed from her second floor bedroom window and escaped to a hotel in Hollywood, as recounted in her memoirs.
Marie Rusak Hotchener (born Mary Ellen Barnard)
Hotchener facilitated her return by persuading Otto Langhanke to give Astor a savings account with $500 and the freedom to come and go as she pleased.
Nevertheless, she did not gain control of her salary until she was 26 years old, at which point her parents sued her for financial support. Astor settled the case by agreeing to pay her parents $100 a month. Otto Langhanke put Moorcrest up for auction in the early 1930s, hoping to realize more than the $80,000 he had been offered for it; it sold for $25,000.
Don Juan (1926) Dir: Alan Crosland
Mary Astor in Don Juan (1926)
Mary Astor and John Barrymore in Don Juan (1926)
Cast and crew of Don Juan (1926)
Astor continued to appear in movies at various studios. When her Paramount contract ended in 1925, she was signed at Warner Bros.
Among her assignments was another role with John Barrymore, this time in Don Juan (1926).
On loan to Fox Film Corporation, Astor starred in Dressed To Kill (1928), which received good reviews.
Dressed to Kill (1928)
Edmund Lowe and Mary Astor in Dressed to Kill (1928)
Ben Bard in Dressed t o Kill (1928)
That same year, she starred in the sophisticated comedy Dry Martini at Fox. She later said that, while working on the latter, she “absorbed and assumed something of the atmosphere and emotional climate of the picture.”
She said it offered “a new and exciting point of view; with its specious doctrine of self-indulgence, it rushed into the vacuum of my moral sense and captivated me completely.”
When her Warner Bros. contract ended, she signed a contract with Fox for $3,750 a week. In 1928, she married director Kenneth Hawks at her family home, Moorcrest.
Dry Martini (1928) Dir: Harry D’Arrast
Mary Astor and Albert Conti in Dry Martini (1928)
Mary Astor and Matt Moore in Dry Martini (1928)
He gave her a Packard automobile as a wedding present and the couple moved into a home high up on Appian Way, a small hilltop street in Laurel Canyon above the Sunset Strip. Their address was 8803 Appian Way.
Other celebrities who lived at different times on this short street include Errol Flynn and his French wife Lili Damita (8946 Appian Way); Ida Lupino (8761); fashion designer Jean Louis [Berthault] (8761); Ginger Rogers(8782); German composer Rudolf Friml (8782); Gypsy Rose Lee (8815 Appian Way); Carole King (8815); Courteney Cox (8815).
As the film industry made the transition to talkies, Fox gave her a sound test, which she failed because the studio found her voice to be too deep. Though this was probably due to early sound equipment and the inexperience of technicians, the studio released her from her contract and she found herself out of work for eight months in 1929.
Mary Astor and Kenneth Hawks on their Wedding Day
New beginnings
Astor took voice training and singing lessons in her time off, but no roles were offered. Her acting career was then given a boost by her friend, Florence Eldridge (wife of Fredric March), in whom she confided.
Eldridge, who was to star in the stage play Among the Married at the Majestic Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, recommended Astor for the second female lead. The play was a success and her voice was deemed suitable, being described as low and vibrant.
She was happy to work again, but her happiness soon ended. On January 2, 1930, while filming sequences for the Fox movie Such Men Are Dangerous, Kenneth Hawks was killed in a mid-air plane crash over the Pacific.
Astor had just finished a matinee performance at the Majestic when Florence Eldridge gave her the news. She was rushed from the theatre to Eldridge’s apartment; a replacement, Doris Lloyd, stepped in for the next show. Astor remained with Eldridge at her apartment for some time, then soon returned to work.
Newspaper article on Kenneth Hawks’ death
Shortly after her husband’s death, she debuted in her first “talkie”, Ladies Love Brutes (1930) at Paramount, which co-starred friend Fredric March.
Ladies Love Brutes Dir: Rowland W Lee (1930)
George Bancroft and Mary Astor in Ladies Love Brutes (1930)
Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock (5858852a) Fredric March, Mary Astor Ladies Love Brutes – 1930 Director: Rowland V. Lee Paramount USA Film Portrait
Mary Astor and Fredric March in Ladies Love Brutes (1930)
While her career picked up, her private life remained difficult. After working on several more movies, she suffered delayed shock over her husband’s death and had a nervous breakdown.
During the months of her illness, she was attended to by Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, whom she married on June 29, 1931.
Mary Astor and Dr Franklyn Thorpe
That year, she starred as Nancy Gibson in Smart Woman, playing a woman determined to retrieve her husband from a gold-digging flirtation.
The clever dialogue, played against the trappings of a lavish mansion, involves another man who is obviously in love with Astor’s character.
This wealthy lord, at the behest of Gibson, attracts the attention of the gold-digger during lazy days at the manor. The husband, initially set upon divorcing Nancy and marrying the intruder “Peggy Preston”, is dismayed to find Peggy attracted to the newcomer because of his extraordinary wealth. All done in a civil, but cunning, manner.
Smart Woman Dir: Gregory La Cava (1931)
Mary Astor and Johnny Halliday in Smart Woman (1931)
Mary Astor in Smart Woman (1931)
In May 1932, the Thorpes purchased a yacht and sailed to Hawaii. Astor was expecting a baby in August, but gave birth in June in Honolulu. The child, a daughter, was named Marylyn Hauoli Thorpe: her first name combined her parents’ names and her middle name is Hawaiian. When they returned to Southern California,
Mary Astor with her baby Marylin Hauoli Thorpe in 1932
In late 1932, Astor signed a featured player contract with Warner Bros. Meanwhile, besides spending lavishly, her parents invested in the stock market, which often turned out unprofitable.
While they remained in Moorcrest, Astor dubbed it a “white elephant”, and she refused to maintain the house. She had to turn to the Motion Picture Relief Fund in 1933 to pay her bills. In 1933, she appeared as the female lead, Hilda Lake, niece of the murder victims, in The Kennel Murder Case, co-starring with William Powell as detective Philo Vance.
The Kennel Murder Case Dir: Michael Curtiz (1933)
Mary Astor and William Powell in The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
Film critic William K. Everson pronounced it a “masterpiece” in the August 1984 issue of Films in Review.
Unhappy with her marriage, she took a break from movie-making in 1933 and went to New York alone. While there, enjoying a whirlwind social life, she met the playwright George Kaufman and they had an affair, which she documented in her diary.
George S Kauffman
Mary Astor Diary
Scandals
A legal battle drew press attention to Astor in 1936. Dr. Franklyn Thorpe divorced Astor in April 1935, and a custody battle resulted over their four-year-old daughter, Marylyn.
Los Angeles Examiner 14/07/1936
Thorpe threatened to use Astor’s diary in the proceedings, which told of her affairs with many celebrities, including George S. Kaufman. The diary was never formally offered as evidence during the trial, but Thorpe and his lawyers constantly referred to it, and its notoriety grew. Astor admitted that the diary existed and that she had documented her affair with Kaufman, but maintained that many of the parts that had been referred to were forgeries, following the theft of the diary from her desk.
The diary was deemed inadmissible as a mutilated document, and the trial judge, Goodwin J. Knight, ordered it sealed and impounded. In 1952, by court order, Astor’s diary was removed from the bank vault where it had been sequestered for 16 years and destroyed.
Astor had just begun work as Edith Cortwright, opposite Walter Huston in the title role of Dodsworth as news of the diary became public. Producer Samuel Goldwyn was urged to fire her, as her contract included a morality clause, but Goldwyn refused and the movie was a hit.
Dodsworth (1936) Dir: William Wyler
DODSWORTH, Walter Huston, Mary Astor, 1936
Dodsworth (1936) Directed by William Wyler Shown from left: Walter Huston, Mary Astor
Mary Astor and Walter Huston in Dodsworth (1936)
Mid-career
Ultimately, the scandals caused no harm to Astor’s career, which was actually revitalized because of the custody fight and the wide publicity it generated; Dodsworth (1936), with Walter Huston, was released to rave reviews, and the public’s acceptance assured the studios that she remained a viable commercial property.
In 1937, she returned to the stage in well-received productions of Noël Coward‘s Tonight at 8:30, The Astonished Heart, and Still Life. She also began performing regularly on radio.
Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor inThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
John Huston, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart – publicity shot forThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart inThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Sidney Greenstreet inThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart inThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
Medium shot of Mary Astor as Bridgid O’Shaughnessy/Miss. Wonderly/Miss. LaBlanc and Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, who wears hat/fedora.
Mary Astor and Humphrey Bogart inThe Maltese Falcon (1941)
Another noteworthy performance was her Oscar-winning role as Sandra Kovak, the selfish, self-centered concert pianist, who willingly gives up her child, in The Great Lie (1941). George Brent played her intermittent love interest, but the film’s star was Bette Davis.
The Great Lie (1941) Dir: Edmund Goulding
Bette Davis and Mary Astor inThe Great Lie (1941)
Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)
Bette Davis and Mary Astor inThe Great Lie (1941)
Mary Astor in The Great Lie (1941)
Davis wanted Astor cast in the role after watching her screen test and seeing her play Tchaikovsky‘s Piano Concerto No. 1. She then recruited Astor to collaborate on rewriting the script, which Davis felt was mediocre and needed work to make it more interesting. Astor further followed Davis’s advice and sported a brazenly bobbed hairdo for the role.
The soundtrack of the movie in the scenes where she plays the concerto, with violent hand movements on the piano keyboard, was dubbed by pianist Max Rabinovitch. Davis deliberately stepped back to allow Astor to shine in her key scenes. As a result of her performance, Astor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, thanking Bette Davis and Tchaikovsky in her acceptance speech. Astor and Davis became good friends.
Bette Davis and Mary Astor inThe Great Lie (1941)
Astor was not propelled into the upper echelon of movie stars by these successes, however.
She always declined offers of starring in her own right. Not wanting the responsibility of top billing and having to “carry the picture,” she preferred the security of being a featured player.
Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor inAcross the Pacific (1942)
Though usually cast in dramatic or melodramatic roles, Astor showed a flair for comedy as The Princess Centimillia in the Preston Sturges film, The Palm Beach Story (1942) for Paramount.
The Palm Beach Story (1942) Dir: Preston Sturges
Mary Astor inThe Palm Beach Story (1942)
Mary Astor and Joel McCreainThe Palm Beach Story (1942)
Mary Astor, Claudette Colbert and Rudy Vallee inThe Palm Beach Story (1942)
Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Claudette Colbert an Rudy Vallee inThe Palm Beach Story (1942)
Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Claudette Colbert an Rudy Vallee inThe Palm Beach Story (1942)
In February 1943, Astor’s father, Otto Langhanke, died in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital as a result of a heart attack complicated by influenza. His wife and daughter were at his bedside.
That same year, Astor signed a seven-year contract with MGM, a regrettable mistake.
She was kept busy playing what she considered mediocre roles she called “Mothers for Metro.”
After Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), the studio allowed her to debut on Broadway in Many Happy Returns (1945). The play was a failure, but Astor received good reviews. On loan-out to 20th Century Fox, she played a wealthy widow in Claudia and David (1946).
Meet Me in St Louis (1944) Dir: Vincente Minelli
Tom Drake, Mary Astor and Leon Ames inMeet Me in St Louis (1944)
Mary Astor and Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me in St Louis (1944)
Lucille Bremer, Mary Astor and Judy Garland inMeet Me in St Louis (1944)
Mary Astor on the set ofMeet Me in St Louis (1944)
Claudia and David (1946) Dir: Walter Lang
Mary Astor in Claudia and David (1946)
Mary Astor and Dorothy McGuire in Claudia and David (1946)
Mary Astor and Robert Taylor in Claudia and David (1946)
She was also loaned to Paramount to play Fritzi Haller in Desert Fury (1947) playing the tough owner of a saloon and casino in a small mining town.
Desert Fury (1947) Dir: Lewis Allen
Lisabeth Scott and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)
Burt Lancaster, Lisbeth Scott, John Hodiak and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)
Lisbeth Scott, John Hodiak and Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)
Mary Astor in Desert Fury (1947)
Burt Lancaster, Mary Astor and Lisbeth Scott in Desert Fury (1947)
Before Helen Langhanke died of a heart ailment in January 1947, Astor said she sat in the hospital room with her mother, who was delirious and did not know her, and listened quietly as Helen told her all about terrible, selfish Lucile.
After her death, Astor said she spent countless hours copying her mother’s diary so she could read it and was surprised to learn how much she was hated. Back at MGM, Astor continued being cast in undistinguished, colorless mother roles. One exception was when she played a prostitute in the film noirAct of Violence (1948).
Act of Violence (1948) Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Van Heflin and Mary Astor in Act of Violence (1948)
Act of Violence (1948) Lobby Card
Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Moviestore/Shutterstock (2389494a) ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948) Mary Astor, Van Heflin Act of Violence – 1948Editorial use only. No book cover usage. Mandatory Credit: Photo by Mgm/Kobal/Shutterstock (5876856a) Mary Astor, Van Heflin Act Of Violence – 1948 Director: Fred Zinnemann MGM USA Scene Still Acte de violence
Mary Astor and Berry Kroeger in Act of Violence (1948)
Act of Violence (1948) Dir: Fred Zinnemann
The last straw came when she was cast as Marmee March in Little Women (1949).
She later described her disappointment with her cast members and the shoot in her memoir My Story: An Autobiography: “The girls all giggled and chattered and made a game of every scene. Taylor was engaged, and in love, and talking on the telephone most of the time (which is fine normally, but not when the production clock is ticking away the company’s money). June Allyson chewed gum constantly and irritatingly, and Maggie O’Brien looked at me as though she were planning something very unpleasant.”
Little Women (1949) Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Mary Astor in Little Women (1949)
Margaret O’Brien, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor, June Alyson and Elisabeth Taylor in Little Women (1949)
June Alyson and Mary Astor in Little Women (1949)
June Alyson and Mary Astor in Little Women (1949)
Margaret O’Brien, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor, June Alyson and Elisabeth Taylor in Little Women (1949)
Astor found no redemption in playing what she considered another humdrum mother and grew despondent. The studio wanted to renew her contract, promising better roles, but she declined the offer.
Middle years
At the same time, Astor’s drinking was growing troublesome. She admitted to alcoholism as far back as the 1930s, but it had never interfered with her work schedule or performance. She hit bottom in 1949 and went into a sanitarium for alcoholics.
In 1951, she made a frantic call to her doctor and said that she had taken too many sleeping pills. She was taken to a hospital and the police reported that she had attempted suicide, this being her third overdose in two years, and the story made headline news. She maintained it had been an accident.
Mary Astor and Sandra Dee in Stranger in My Arms (1959)
That same year, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous and converted to Roman Catholicism. She credited her recovery to a priest, Peter Ciklic, also a practicing psychologist, who encouraged her to write about her experiences as part of therapy. She also separated from her fourth husband, Thomas Wheelock (a stockbroker she married on Christmas Day 1945), but did not actually divorce him until 1955.
In 1952, she was cast in the leading role of the stage play The Time of the Cuckoo, which was later made into the movie Summertime (1955), and subsequently toured with it. After the tour, Astor lived in New York for four years and worked in the theater and on television.
Mary Astor and Doro Merande in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: Mrs Herman and Mrs Fenimore (1958)
Mary Astor in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: Mrs Herman and Mrs Fenimore (1958)
Mary Astor and Franchot Tone in Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Episode: The Impossible Dream (1959)
Mary Astor in Dr Kildare “Operation Lazarus” (Season 1 Episode 33)
Mary Astor in Rawhide – Episode: Incident Near the Promised Land (1961)
In 1954, she appeared in the episode “Fearful Hour” of the Gary MerrillNBC series Justice in the role of a desperately poor and aging film star who attempts suicide to avoid exposure as a thief. She also played an ex-film star on the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller, in an episode titled “Rose’s Last Summer.”
Mary Astor signed still from Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)
Mary Astor in Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)
Mary Astor signed still from Thriler – Episode: Rose’s Last Summer (1960)
She starred on Broadway again in The Starcross Story (1954), another failure and returned to Southern California in 1956. She then went on a successful theatre tour of Don Juan in Hell directed by Agnes Moorehead and co-starring Ricardo Montalban.
Astor’s memoir, My Story: An Autobiography, was published in 1959, becoming a sensation in its day and a bestseller. It was the result of Father Ciklic urging her to write. Though she spoke of her troubled personal life, her parents, her marriages, the scandals, her battle with alcoholism, and other areas of her life, she did not mention the movie industry or her career in detail.
Mary Astor autobiography – My Story: An Autobiography (1959)
In 1971, a second book was published, A Life on Film, where she discussed her career. It too became a bestseller. Astor also tried her hand at fiction, writing the novels The Incredible Charley Carewe (1960), The Image of Kate (1962), which was published in 1964 in a German translation as Jahre und Tage, The O’Conners (1964), Goodbye, Darling, be Happy (1965), and A Place Called Saturday (1968).
Mary Astor – My Life on Film (1971)
She appeared in several movies during this time, including A Stranger in My Arms (1959). She made a comeback in Return to Peyton Place (1961) playing Roberta Carter, the domineering mother who insists the “shocking” novel written by Allison Mackenzie should be banned from the school library, and received good reviews for her performance. According to film scholar Gavin Lambert, Astor invented memorable bits of business in her last scene of that film, where Roberta’s vindictive motives are exposed.
Mary Astor in Return to Peyton Place (1961)
Final years and death
After a trip around the world in 1964, Astor was lured away from her Malibu, California home, where she was gardening and working on her third novel, to make what she decided would be her final film.
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)
She was offered the small role as a key figure, Jewel Mayhew, in the murder mystery Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, starring her friend Bette Davis. She filmed her final scene with Cecil Kellaway at Oak Alley Plantation in southern Louisiana. In A Life on Film, she described her character as “a little old lady, waiting to die.” Astor decided it would serve as her swan song in the movie business. After 109 movies in a career spanning 45 years, she turned in her Screen Actors Guild card and retired.
Olivia De Havilland, Mary Astor and William Walker in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Astor later moved to Fountain Valley, California, where she lived near her son, Tono del Campo (from her third marriage to Mexican film editor Manuel del Campo), and his family, until 1971.
That same year, suffering from a chronic heart condition, she moved to a small cottage on the grounds of the Motion Picture & Television Country House, the industry’s retirement facility in Woodland Hills, California, where she had a private table when she chose to eat in the resident dining room.
She appeared in the television documentary series Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film (1980), produced by Kevin Brownlow, in which she discussed her roles during the silent film period. After years of retirement she had been urged to appear in Brownlow’s documentary by a former sister-in-law Bessie Love who also appeared in the series.
Astor died on September 25, 1987, at age 81, of respiratory failure due to pulmonary emphysema while in the hospital at the Motion Picture House complex.
She has been quoted as saying, “There are five stages in the life of an actor: who’s Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who’s Mary Astor?” Several other actors, among them Jack Elam and Ricardo Montalban, have been quoted as saying this.
Jump up^Lindsay Anderson “Mary Astor”, Sight and Sound, Autumn 1990, reprinted in Paul Ryan (ed) Never Apologise: The Collected Writings, 2004, London: Plexus, pp. 431–36, 431
This month we celebrate our 7th year anniversary, and I would like to thank all of our readers, followers, members and participants for a wonderful and truly overwhelming support received so far.
Film Dialogue had began as a hub for the latest film history and industry related news on twitter, and in its seven years it evolved into a fully developed on line film history magazine.
I am delighted to see that we are attracting new members and followers every day across all platforms, with twitter and Film Dialogue Cinematheque on You Tube being the most popular.
Our blog had received a lot of support from cinephiles around the world, and it was simply astonishing to learn that more than 20 000 film loving souls have read our illustrated biographies of film directors and stars.
Our original collection of silent film documentaries and audio files, has by now been replaced by the On Line Cinematheque Playlists. This has been our most successful introduction to date, as so many of you enjoyed finding some very rare films of all genres in our collection.
Silent and experimental films appear to be amongst the most popular.
Our instagram and pinterest pages have provided the readers with photographs, posters and other memorabilia, while facebook gave us a selection of articles on filmmakers from the best magazines and industry publications.
As we grow, we carefully consider all of the feedback received, and believe that now is the time to make our film loving hub even more interactive.
So here are the changes that we are planning to introduce.
Our daily recommendations will be provided in a different format from today, focusing on a greater variety of films and genres. However, it is our intention to continue recommending the films from the BFI Archive, BFI Mediatheque and BFI Player.
Many of those are rare and not accessible through any other on line forums.
All of you who are London based, will know that a great deal of investment has been made over the years by the BFI in order to create its own Mediatheque and live streaming services.
BFI Mediatheque provides us with a variety of films and documentaries of all lengths, and is based at the BFI Southbank. I feel privileged to have been able to use it from its very first day. One of my early explorations of its catalogue brought a delightful discovery of the early Graham Cutts films from 1920s that featured Alfred Hitchcock in the role of his main assistant.
Needless to say, exploring those service’s is truly a must.
BFI Player, the Institute’s live streaming service has been in operation for a few years by now, and it certainly delivers, with many feature films and documentaries on its lists. Britain on Film section is always of a particular interest as many of its titles are unavailable elsewhere and in many cases have not been seen since their original release date.
We have been recommending quite a number of films from its Forgotten Features and Unavailable on DVD collections, and will continue to explore some of their less well known titles.
It is tremendous, that we can now access previously unseen materials with such ease on line, compared to not so distant past, when they could be viewed only in film museums and cinematheques.
I would strongly encourage everyone to use and thoroughly explore those services.
In addition, our recommendations will also focus on cinema releases and tv programmes. We have been supporting Talking Pictures from their early days, and will continue to do so. We relish their daily screenings of long forgotten classics, and always look forward to their remarkable display of previously unseen features and rare titles.
There are many more articles to come your way on our blog, with illustrated biographies of Charles Chaplin, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, King Vidor, Clarence Brown, Michael Curtiz to name only a few.
We also have a podcast planned for the future months, and if successful, we may also run a live discussion forum on you tube and twitch, dedicated to cinephilia, film history and industry news.
Personally, I have found the new means of on line live interaction through twitch and you tube to be unparalleled with anything witnessed in the past. No longer do we need to go to our favourite haunts to meet the like minded souls who share our interests. Now we can do it from the comfort of our own home and even on a fully global level.
Film lovers from around the world can now join us at any time, from any place, with our discussions becoming more diverse and fertile than ever before. Seeing and hearing another viewpoint, that may be linked to a different geographical location does make all of our debates richer in content and significantly more educational.
Discussing films has now been promoted to the remarkable, thoroughly enjoyable, and truly dizzying new heights.
Let’s explore those new methods of communication, make new friends, share our deep seated film passions with others, remain kind and attentive, and by doing so make this world a better place for us all.
Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for half a century.
After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy, wisecracking blonde, she was a Pre-Code staple of Warner Bros. pictures and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during this time, she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers. Blondell continued acting in major film roles for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil (1951).
Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films — Grease (1978) and The Champ (1979) — released shortly before her death from leukemia.
Rose Joan Blondell was born in New York to a vaudeville family; she gave her birthdate as August 30, 1909. Her father, Levi Bluestein, a vaudeville comedian known as Ed Blondell, was born in Poland to a Jewish family in 1866.
He toured for many years starring in Blondell and Fennessy’s stage version of The Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell’s mother was Catherine (known as “Kathryn” or “Katie”) Caine, born in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York (later Brooklyn, New York City) on April 13, 1884, to Irish-American parents. Joan’s younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. Broccoli. The Blondell sisters had a brother, Ed Blondell, Jr.
Joan’s cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place and she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love. Her family comprised a vaudeville troupe, the “Bouncing Blondells”.
Joan had spent a year in Honolulu (1914–15) and six years in Australia and had seen much of the world by the time her family, who had been on tour, settled in Dallas, Texas, when she was a teenager.
Under the name Rosebud Blondell, she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant, was a finalist in an early version of the Miss Universe pageant in May 1926, and placed fourth for Miss America 1926 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that same year.
She attended Santa Monica High School, where she acted in school plays and worked as an editor on the yearbook staff. While there (and after high school), she gave her name as Rosebud Blondell, such as when she attended North Texas State Teacher’s College (1926–1927), now the University of North Texas in Denton, where her mother was a local stage actress.
Career
Around 1927, she returned to New York, worked as a fashion model, a circus hand, a clerk in a store, joined a stock company to become an actress, and performed on Broadway.
In 1927, the actress made her Broadway debut with a small role in “The Trial of Mary Dugan.”
In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in her third play, Penny Arcade on Broadway. Penny Arcade lasted only three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Bros., with the proviso that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version, then renamed Sinners’ Holiday (1930).
Penny Arcade (1930)
Sinner’s Holiday (1930)
Placed under contract by Warner Bros., she moved to Hollywood, where studio boss Jack L. Warner wanted her to change her name to “Inez Holmes”, but Blondell refused. She began to appear in short subjects and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931.
Wampas Baby Stars (1931)
Blondell was paired several more times with James Cagney in films, including The Public Enemy (1931), and she was one-half of a gold-digging duo with Glenda Farrell in nine films.
During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest-paid individuals in the United States. Her stirring rendition of “Remember My Forgotten Man” in the Busby Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, became an anthem for the frustrations of unemployed people and the government’s failed economic policies.
The Public Enemy (1931)
Gold Diggers of 1933
In the years that folowed, Joan Blondell made almost 50 films, with 1930s being the most productive period of her career. Some of the most successful included Night Nurse (1931), The Greeks had a Word for Them (1932), The Crowd Roars (1932), Three on a Match (1932), Footlight Parade (1933), We’re in the Money (1935), Bullets or Ballots (1936), Three Men on a Horse (1936), and Stand‐In (1937).
In most of these films she appeared as the wisecracking working girl who was the lead’s best friend. In gangster films and musicals she was mostly the second lead.
Often cast opposite the era’s leading male stars, she appeared frequently opposite Mr. Cagney (seven times) and Dick Powell (also seven times)
Night Nurse (1931)
The Greeks had a Word for Them (1932)
The Crowd Roars (1932)
Three on a Match (1932)
Footlight Parade (1933)
We’re in the Money (1935)
Bullets or Ballots (1936)
In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in The Perfect Specimen. By the end of the decade, she had made nearly 50 films. She left Warner Bros. in 1939.
The Perfect Specimen (1937)
In 1943, Blondell returned to Broadway as the star of Mike Todd’s short-lived production of The Naked Genius, a comedy written by Gypsy Rose Lee.
She was well received in her later films, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after 1945, when she was billed below the title for the first time in 14 years in Adventure, which starred Clark Gable and Greer Garson.
In 1948, she left the screen for three years and concentrated on theater, performing in summer stock and touring with Cole Porter‘s musical, Something for the Boys. She later reprised her role of Aunt Sissy in the musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for the national tour, starred opposite Tallulah Bankhead in the play Crazy October (which closed on the road) and played the nagging mother, Mae Peterson, in the national tour of Bye Bye Birdie.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Crazy October (1948) with Tallullah Bankhead and Estelle Winwood
Blondell was widely seen in two films released not long before her death – Grease (1978), and the remake of The Champ (1979) with Jon Voight and Rick Schroder. She also appeared in two films released after her death – The Glove (1979), and The Woman Inside (1981).
Blondell also guest-starred in various television programs, including three 1963 episodes as the character Aunt Win in the CBS sitcom The Real McCoys, starring Walter Brennan and Richard Crenna.
Grease (1978)
THE CHAMP, Joan Blondell, 1979, (c) MGM
The Champ (1979)
The Glove (1979)
The Woman Inside (1981)
Also in 1963, Blondell was cast as the widowed Lucy Tutaine in the episode, “The Train and Lucy Tutaine”, on the syndicatedanthology series, Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. In the story line, Lucy sues a railroad company, against great odds, for causing the death of her cow. Noah Beery Jr., was cast as Abel.
In 1965, she was in the running to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball’s sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series The Lucy Show. Unfortunately, after filming her second guest appearance as Joan Brenner (Lucy’s new friend from California), Blondell walked off the set right after the episode had completed filming when Ball humiliated her by harshly criticizing her performance in front of the studio audience and technicians.
The Lucy Show (1965)
Blondell continued working on television. In 1968, she guest-starred on the CBS sitcom Family Affair, starring Brian Keith. She replaced Bea Benaderet, who was ill, for one episode on the CBS series Petticoat Junction. In that installment, Blondell played FloraBelle Campbell, a lady visitor to Hooterville, who had once dated Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady).
That same year, Blondell co-starred in all 52 episodes of the ABC Western series Here Come the Brides, set in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century. Her co-stars included singer Bobby Sherman and actor-singer David Soul. Blondell received two consecutive Emmy nominations for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a dramatic series for her role as Lottie Hatfield.
In 1972, she had an ongoing supporting role in the NBC series Banyon as Peggy Revere, who operated a secretarial school in the same building as Banyon’s detective agency. This was a 1930s period action drama starring Robert Forster in the title role. Her students worked in Banyon’s office, providing fresh faces for the show weekly. The series was replaced midseason.
Banyon (1972)
In 1974, Blondell played the wife of Tom D’Andrea‘s character in the television film, Bobby Parker and Company, with Ted Bessell in the starring role as the son of Blondell and D’Andrea. Coincidentally, D’Andrea had earlier played Jim Gillis, the television husband of Blondell’s younger sister, Gloria Blondell, in the NBC sitcom The Life of Riley.
She wrote a novel titled Center Door Fancy (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972), which was a thinly disguised autobiography with veiled references to June Allyson and Dick Powell.
Center Door Fancy – Joan Blondell Novel (1972)
Personal life
circa 1934: Joan Blondell (1903 – 1979), the Hollywood actress signed by Warner Brothers and First National. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Blondell was married three times, first to cinematographerGeorge Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on January 4, 1933, at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child, Norman Scott Barnes, who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive known as Norman Powell. Joan and George divorced in 1936.
Joan Blondell and George Barnes
On September 19, 1936, she married her second husband Dick Powell, an actor, director, and singer. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage under the name Norman Scott Powell. Blondell and Powell were divorced on July 14, 1944. Blondell was less than friendly with Powell’s next wife, June Allyson, although the two women would later appear together in The Opposite Sex (1956).
Joan Blondell and Dick Powell
Dick Powell, Ellen Powell and Joan Blondell
Joan Blondell and Dick Powell in Stage Struck (1936)
On July 5, 1947, Blondell married her third husband, producerMike Todd, whom she divorced in 1950. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster.
She once accused him of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles. He was also a heavy spender who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling (high-stakes bridge was one of his weaknesses) and went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage.
Joan Blondell and Mike Todd
An often-repeated myth is that Mike Todd left Blondell for Elizabeth Taylor, when in fact, she had left Todd of her own accord years before he met Taylor.
^“[Unknown]”. The Republic. Columbus, Indiana. October 7, 1971. p. 26. Archived from the original on February 16, 2018. The Katzenjammer Kids will be presented in Franklin this evening, the company having passed through here this morning on the way to that place. “Eddie Blondell’s true name is Levi Bluestein, and he was a resident of Columbus many years ago, living with his father at the foot of Washington street
^“[Unknown]”. The Republic. Columbus, Indiana. January 29, 1906. p. 1. Archived from the original on February 16, 2018. No allowance was made for alimony, but Mrs. Blondell seemed to be satisfied. The Blondells, who in private life were Mr. and Mrs. Levi Bluestein, have been annoyed by a case of incompatibility of temper for a long time. They were formerly a member of Katzenjammer Kids’ company….
^“[Unknown]”. Variety. November 1916. Archived from the original on March 18, 2017. Rowland & Clifford, a western producing firm, have also a production in preparation under the title of ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’, securing the rights from Blondell & Fennessy. Both shows are scheduled to play over the International, with the Hill production to be ready by Jan. 1.
^ Jump up to:abcdLiebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0786446971.
Cast: Charley Chase, Blanche Mehaffey, Jack Gavin, Eddie Baker, Leo Willis, Chet Brandenburg, Lyle Tayo
Prepared by Daniel B Miller
Powder and Smoke (1924) is a Charley Chase one reeler produced by Hal Roach for the popular Jimmy Jump series.
Charley Chase made 104 films for Hal Roach, many of which were directed and written by his brother James Parrott.
In addition to its highly entertaining content, this film is a true archive gem, full of long forgotten personalities, events, facts and trivia from the golden era of silent cinema.
In this delightful little comedy, Chase was joined by the usual suspects of many Hal Roach Studio comedies. Those were fronted by Blanche Mehaffey who played the daughter and his love interest, followed by Jack Gavin as the Sheriff, Eddie Baker in the role of the Real Estate Agent, and with Leo Willis as the Bandit Chief.
Mehaffey and Gavin are hardly remembered by the filmgoers of today, but their lives and careers are certainly of interest.
Blanche Mehaffey
In her early years, Blanche Mehaffey was considered a huge potential, and began her career as a dancer with the Ziegfeld Foillies,
Mehaffey’s presence was described as “truly mesmerising” by many theater lovers of the day who watched her on stage. Those dedicated fans enchanted her boss Florenz Ziegfeld with so many endless compliments, that in return she began describing Mehaffey as “the girl with the most beautiful eyes in the whole world”.
Such great publicity opened the whole world of possibilities for the young performer.
Blanche Mehaffey
In no time she spearheaded the Baby Stars of 1924, where she was joined by Clara Bow, Dorothy Mackaill and Hazel Keneer.
Her film debut was in Hal Roach Studios one reeler Fully Insured (1923) directed by George Jeske and featuring two other silent comedy heavyweights, Snub Pollard and James Finlayson.
The success of this film had led to her pairing with Charley Chase and later Glenn Tyron. With Chase she made a selection of films in addition to Power and Smoke. Those included April Fool (1924), Just a Minute (1924), At First Sight (1924), One of the Family (1924) and Position Wanted (1924).
Blanche Mehaffey in The Samaritan (1931)
Her films with Tyron included Meet the Missus (1924), The Wages of Tin (1925), Tell it to the Policeman (1925), and The Haunted Honeymoon (1925).
Her comedy talent flourished when playing the love interest for those two leading men. Her biggest success of this period was in Malcolm St. Clair’s comedy A Woman of the World (1925), where she joined Paula Negri and Charles Emmet Mack.
Her persona in Powder and Smoke gave a contemporary touch to the female characters of 1920s westerns, also paving the way to prominent parts in a number of bigger productions.
Some of those films performed badly at the box office, and in 1927 she decided to use the name of Joan Alden to detach from those pictures. In 1928 she married a sound engineer and producer Ralph M Like hoping to rescue her career.
Unlike many other silent films stars, she prepared for the transition to sound in advance. She took a decision to depart from the industry for a full year, in order to study languages and enhance her voice techniques.
It is likely that being absent at the height of her silent film career, coupled with some box office failures affected her relationships with the leading producers and directors.
Blanche Mehaffey
She returned to silver screen two years later, with her first sound feature, again a western called The Sunrise Trail (1931), where she joined Bob Steele and Jack Rube Clifford.
Her presence in westerns continued, mainly in B productions, that supported other major features. Those never brought back the early successes of her silent comedies.
Similar to other actors of the silent and early sound periods, she drifted into obscurity. Her last film was made in 1938 and she died in 1968.
Jack Gavin
Another person of interest in Powder and Smoke was the film director and actor Jack Gavin (born John Francis Henry Gavin) who played the Sheriff.
Gavin came to Hollywood from Australia.
He was one of the early filmmakers of the 1910s, and a true pioneer of Australian cinema. Gavin’s versatility, coupled with the multitude of talents and highly developed entrepreneurial skills, enabled his early rise to prominence.
Jack Gavin in His Convict Bride (1918)
He is remembered for making films in Australia about bushrangers such as Thunderbolt (1910), Moonlite (1910), Ben Hall and His Gang (1911) and Frank Gardiner, the King of the Road (1911).
He was known by the nickname “Jack” and worked in collaboration with his wife Agnes who wrote many of his films. Most of those have not survived.
Everyones Magazine remarked in 1920: “although Gavin was prolific his later surviving work shows that his entrepreneurial talent outweighed any he might have had as director.”
He displayed a variety of talents and was never afraid to take up any role offered, if it guaranteed success or career enhancement. His life was eventful and highly productive but also full of difficult challenges.
Jack Gavin in Thunderbolt (1910)
He was accredited with Australia’s first animated short, an advertising film which featured a koala taking cough syrup.
Gavin was born in Sydney and described himself as busy since his early childhood, claiming that he worked for the circus company already at age ten.
He moved to the country and worked as cattle drover, being involved in a record cattle drive from Camooweal to Adelaide. He served for a time in the Sydney Lancers as the captain of a squadron. During his service he became interested in acting and received an offer to join the touring company of Bland Holt.
He stayed with them for a number of seasons, then travelled to the USA where he worked with Barnum and Bailey’s Circus, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He married Agnes in 1898.
Gavin returned to Australia and organised his own Wild West Show which was successful at the Melbourne Cyclorama, although plagued by a number of legal troubles. Gavin eventually had a company of 150 before moving into filmmaking. In 1908 he started managing theatres which he did for the next few years, displaying versatility with entrepreneurial knowledge and skill.
His debut feature film was about Thunderbolt in 1910, produced by H A Forsyth, and its success launched his career.
Jack Gavin filming Moonlite (1910)
He followed this up with Moonlite in the same year. He directed and starred in both films which was well noted. By February 1911 The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People described:”more film has been used over Jack Gavin than over any other Australian biograph actor.” They described him as “the beauteous bushranger”.
Overall success of Gavin’s bushranging films was attributed to two main factors: the quality of horsemanship in them, and the fact they were normally shot on the actual locations where the events occurred.
General Gossip: The Referee stated in 1911 that “The pictures already turned out by Mr. Gavin demonstrates that in biographic art Australian producers are in no way behind their European and American brothers. Clearness in detail and execution, with the cleverly-constructed stories by Agnes Gavin enable Mr. Gavin to offer attractive films.”
Gavin’s films were also often accompanied by popular lecturer Charles Woods, whose tales would delight the audiences country wide.
Jack Gavin in He Forgot to Remember (1926)
His first two movies were made for H.A. Forsyth at Southern Cross Motion Pictures but he and Forsyth had a falling out and Gavin went his separate way, publicly announcing the fact in January 1911.
In July 1911 he set up his own company, the Gavin Photo Play Company, based out of Waverley.
He was involved in the formation of the Australian Photo-Play Company, but then established his own production company in October 1911. When bushranging films were banned in Australia in 1912, he turned to dramatising other true characters, such as Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt.
In 1912 Gavin was arrested for owing money to a business associate though he was later released.
In January 1917 he took out a lease on a studio at North Sydney and announced plans for make four feature films over a year, starting with The Murder of Captain Fryatt. He also started up a film school and spoke of offers from America.
As making movies in Australia became increasingly difficult for him, Gavin moved to Hollywood, where he lived for eight years.
Jack Gavin in Looking for Sally (1925)
He told reporters from The Film Trade: Maitland Weekly Mercury NSW in 1927, that he appeared in over 300 films. Claimed he was a good friend of Lon Chaney, Rudolph Valentino and Lon Chaney.
In Hollywood he also worked with harold Lloyd and Snub Pollard.
Gavin always stated that he was particularly pleased with his public efforts to popularise the drinking of tea in Hollywood.
Jack Gavin in Official Officers (1925)
He returned to Australia in February 1922 to make several outback films, including a serial based on notorious criminal Ned Kelly. He also set up a new company in Brisbane, but faced serious censorship problems and could not raise enough capital for what was to be his major project.
Disappointed, he went back to Hollywood in May 1923, where he faced further challenges with casting and overall working conditions, then returned to Australia in 1925.
As a great supporter of the domestic production and the Australian cinema overall, he gave evidence at the 1928 Royal Commission on the Moving Picture Industry in Australia.
He passionately argued for a regular and easily verifiable quota for Australian films.
Agnes Gavin ( formerly Wangnheim, Kurtz ) in The Assigned Servant (1911) directed by her husband Jack Gavin
His contemporaries described Gavin as “a big man with a generous and naive personality… more enthusiasm and stubborn persistence than talent.”
Towards the end of his life he lived in a flat in Neutral Bay and suffered from rheumatism.
He died in 1938 survived by his wife Agnes and their daughters.
His personality, highly cinematic presence in so many one and two reelers as well as versatility, drive us to futher research and strongly stimulate further learning about his contemporaries from the 1920s.
Eddie Baker
Eddie Baker, who played the Real Estate Agent, is another actor and director from the golden age of silent cinema. He made more than 300 films.
Eddie Baker
Baker played supporting roles in many silent comedies with Gale Henry, Snub Pollard, Jobyna Ralston, James Parrott, Stan Laurel, Katherine Grant, Charlie Chase, Harry Langdon, Bobby Vernon, Bill Dooley and Jimmie Adams. He was also one of the original Keystone Cops.
Sadly he is only remembered for his presence in Laurel and Hardy films, and for his uncredited role as a boxing referee in Charles Chaplin’s City Lights (1931).
Eddie Baker in Get Busy (1924)
He represented those early cinema actors who subscribed to the Hollywood assembly line of mass production, men and women who would embrace any opportunity offered.
Baker would play any given role from cafe owner, laundry worker, german agent, stable hand, cop, prospector, boss, to detective, train official and plantation owner.
His talent for slapstick and situational comedy thrived when in some of the films he joined the biggest stars of that period.
With Stan Laurel he excelled in Oranges and Lemons (1923), A Man About Town (1923), Short Orders (1923) Gas and Air (1923) and Smithy (1924). With Charley Chase in addition to Powder and Smoke he was in Hard Knocks (1924), and Publicity Pays (1924). With Harry Langdon he was in Sea Squawk (1925), Tied for Life (1933), Knight Duty (1933) and Tired Feet (1933).
Eddie Baker in A Man About Town (1923)
With the onset of sound in pictures, he was demoted to minor, episodic roles for which he was rarely credited. Baker died in 1968 from emphysema.
Leo Willis
Leo Willis was also a veteran of early silent years, whose career began in films of Thomas Ince with William S Hart.
Leo Willis
Similar to Edie Baker he played tough characters on either side of the law and a selection of comic villains in films with Chase, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy.
He was a Hal Roach Studios regular and is best remembered for The Bulls Eye (1917), The Rent Collector (1921), Timber Queen ,(1922), Wild Bill Hickok (1923), Isn’t Life Terrible (1925), and The Kid Brother (1927).
Leo Willis in Sittin’Pretty (1924)
Similar to Baker, in sound pictures he was given insignificant parts and worked as an extra. He died in 1952.
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. Chaplin 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.
The Tramp – Charles Chaplin
Chaplin’s childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, 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. Chaplin was scouted for the film industry and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios.
Charles Chaplin and Stan Jefferson Laurel with Fred Karno Company c.1913
He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from an early stage 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.
The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and his popularity declined rapidly. He was accused of communist sympathies, while his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women caused scandal.
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 characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramp’s struggles against adversity. Many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. In 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work, Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century”.
He continues to be held in high regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator often ranked on industry lists of the greatest films of all time.
Charlie Chaplin receives an Honorary Academy Award (1972)
Charles Chaplin in Shoulder Arms ( Charles Chaplin, 1918)
Biography
1889–1913: Early years
Background and childhood hardship
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin (born Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill) and Charles Chaplin Sr.
There is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London. His mother and father had married four years previously, at which time Charles Sr. became the legal carer of Hannah’s illegitimate son, Sydney John Hill.
Charles Chaplin Sr
Hannah Chaplin
Sidney Chaplin
At the time of his birth, Chaplin’s parents were both music hall entertainers. Hannah, the daughter of a shoemaker, had a brief and unsuccessful career under the stage name Lily Harley, while Charles Sr., a butcher’s son, was a popular singer.
Although they never divorced, Chaplin’s parents were estranged by around 1891. The following year, Hannah gave birth to a third son – George Wheeler Dryden – fathered by the music hall entertainer Leo Dryden. The child was taken by Dryden at six months old, and did not re-enter Chaplin’s life for 30 years.
George Wheeler Dryden
Chaplin’s childhood was fraught with poverty and hardship, making his eventual trajectory “the most dramatic of all the rags to riches stories ever told” according to his authorised biographer David Robinson.
Chaplin’s early years were spent with his mother and brother Sydney in the London district of Kennington; Hannah had no means of income, other than occasional nursing and dressmaking, and Chaplin Sr. provided no financial support.
Young Charles Chaplin c 1901
As the situation deteriorated, Chaplin was sent to Lambeth Workhouse when he was seven years old. The council housed him at the Central London District School for paupers, which Chaplin remembered as “a forlorn existence”.
He was briefly reunited with his mother 18 months later, before Hannah was forced to readmit her family to the workhouse in July 1898. The boys were promptly sent to Norwood Schools, another institution for destitute children.
Young Charlie as Billy, the page boy, in Sherlock Holmes, 1903
“I was hardly aware of a crisis because we lived in a continual crisis; and, being a boy, I dismissed our troubles with gracious forgetfulness.”
– Chaplin on his childhood
Lambeth Workhouse – The Cinema Museum is located there today
In September 1898, Hannah was committed to Cane Hill mental asylum – she had developed a psychosis seemingly brought on by an infection of syphilis and malnutrition. For the two months she was there, Chaplin and his brother Sydney were sent to live with their father, whom the young boys scarcely knew.
Hannah entered a period of remission but, in May 1903, became ill again. Chaplin, then 14, had the task of taking his mother to the infirmary, from where she was sent back to Cane Hill.
He lived alone for several days, searching for food and occasionally sleeping rough, until Sydney – who had enrolled in the Navy two years earlier – returned. Hannah was released from the asylum eight months later, but in March 1905, her illness returned, this time permanently. “There was nothing we could do but accept poor mother’s fate”, Chaplin later wrote, and she remained in care until her death in 1928.
Cane Hill Hospital
Young performer
Between his time in the poor schools and his mother
succumbing to mental illness, Chaplin began to perform on stage. He later recalled making his first amateur appearance at the age of five years, when he took over from Hannah one night in Aldershot.
This was an isolated occurrence, but by the time he was nine Chaplin had, with his mother’s encouragement, grown interested in performing.
He later wrote: “[she] imbued me with the feeling that I had some sort of talent”. Through his father’s connections, Chaplin became a member of the Eight Lancashire Ladsclog-dancing troupe, with whom he toured English music halls throughout 1899 and 1900. Chaplin worked hard, and the act was popular with audiences, but he was not satisfied with dancing and wished to form a comedy act.
Charlie Chaplin performed with The Eight Yorkshire Lads
The Eight Lancashire Lads pictured in 1899 and featuring a young Charlie Chaplin
In the years Chaplin was touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads, his mother ensured that he still attended school but, by age 13, he had abandoned education. He supported himself with a range of jobs, while nursing his ambition to become an actor.
At 14, shortly after his mother’s relapse, he registered with a theatrical agency in London’s West End. The manager sensed potential in Chaplin, who was promptly given his first role as a newsboy in Harry Arthur Saintsbury‘s Jim, a Romance of Cockayne. It opened in July 1903, but the show was unsuccessful and closed after two weeks. Chaplin’s comic performance, however, was singled out for praise in many of the reviews.
Charles Chaplin as Sammy in Jim A Romance of Cockayne c 1903
Saintsbury secured a role for Chaplin in Charles Frohman‘s production of Sherlock Holmes, where he played Billy the pageboy in three nationwide tours. His performance was so well received that he was called to London to play the role alongside William Gillette, the original Holmes.
“It was like tidings from heaven”, Chaplin recalled. At 16 years old, Chaplin starred in the play’s West End production at the Duke of York’s Theatre from October to December 1905. He completed one final tour of Sherlock Holmes in early 1906, before leaving the play after more than two-and-a-half years.
Charlie Chaplin 1903. Sherlock Holmes poster
Young Charlie as Billy, the page boy, in Sherlock Holmes, 1903
Stage comedy and vaudeville
Chaplin soon found work with a new company, and went on tour with his brother – who was also pursuing an acting career – in a comedy sketch called Repairs.
In May 1906, Chaplin joined the juvenile act Casey’s Circus, where he developed popular burlesque pieces and was soon the star of the show. By the time the act finished touring in July 1907, the 18-year-old had become an accomplished comedic performer. He struggled to find more work, however, and a brief attempt at a solo act was a failure.
Image of the vaudeville troupe Casey’s Court Circus, with a young Charlie Chaplin
Meanwhile, Sydney Chaplin had joined Fred Karno‘s prestigious comedy company in 1906 and, by 1908, he was one of their key performers.
In February, he managed to secure a two-week trial for his younger brother. Karno was initially wary, and considered Chaplin a “pale, puny, sullen-looking youngster” who “looked much too shy to do any good in the theatre.”
However, the teenager made an impact on his first night at the London Coliseum and he was quickly signed to a contract. Chaplin began by playing a series of minor parts, eventually progressing to starring roles in 1909.
Poster for Fred Karno’s Comedy Company with Charles Chaplin
In April 1910, he was given the lead in a new sketch, Jimmy the Fearless. It was a big success, and Chaplin received considerable press attention.
Karno selected his new star to join the section of the company, one that also included Stan Laurel, that toured North America’s vaudeville circuit.
The young comedian headed the show and impressed reviewers, being described as “one of the best pantomime artists ever seen here”.
Fred Karno Comedy Company Poster – The London Coliseum
His most successful role was a drunk called the “Inebriate Swell”, which drew him significant recognition. The tour lasted 21 months, and the troupe returned to England in June 1912.
Chaplin recalled that he “had a disquieting feeling of sinking back into a depressing commonplaceness” and was, therefore, delighted when a new tour began in October.
Fred Karno’s A Night In A London Club with Charles Chaplin
Charles Chaplin with Fred Karno’s Comedy Company
Charles Chaplin with Fred Karno’s Comedy Company
Fred Karno, Jr., Chaplin, Arthur Dando, Albert Austin, and Stan Laurel
1914–1917: Entering films
Keystone
Six months into the second American tour, Chaplin was invited to join the New York Motion Picture Company. A representative who had seen his performances thought he could replace Fred Mace, a star of their Keystone Studios who intended to leave.
Chaplin thought the Keystone comedies “a crude mélange of rough and rumble”, but liked the idea of working in films and rationalised: “Besides, it would mean a new life.”
He met with the company and signed a $150-per-week ($3,714 in 2017 dollars) contract in September 1913.
Chaplin’s first on-screen appearance in Making A Living (Henry Lehrman, 1914)
Chaplin arrived in Los Angeles, home of the Keystone studio, in early December 1913. His boss was Mack Sennett, who initially expressed concern that the 24-year-old looked too young.
He was not used in a picture until late January, during which time Chaplin attempted to learn the processes of filmmaking. The one-reelerMaking a Living marked his film acting debut and was released on 2 February 1914. Chaplin strongly disliked the picture, but one review picked him out as “a comedian of the first water”. For his second appearance in front of the camera, Chaplin selected the costume with which he became identified. He described the process in his autobiography:
“I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large … I added a small moustache, which, I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born.”
Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand in Mabel’s Strange Predicament (Mabel Normand, 1914)
Chaplin adopted the character as his screen persona and attempted to make suggestions for the films he appeared in. These ideas were dismissed by his directors. During the filming of his eleventh picture, Mabel at the Wheel, he clashed with director Mabel Normand and was almost released from his contract.
Sennett kept him on, however, when he received orders from exhibitors for more Chaplin films. Sennett also allowed Chaplin to direct his next film himself after Chaplin promised to pay $1,500 ($37,141 in 2017 dollars) if the film was unsuccessful.
Charles Chaplin in Kid Auto Races at Venice (Henry Lehrman, 1914) The Tramp’s first screen appearance
Charles Chaplin in Mabel at the Wheel (Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett, 1914)
Caught in the Rain, issued 4 May 1914, was Chaplin’s directorial debut and was highly successful.
Thereafter he directed almost every short film in which he appeared for Keystone, at the rate of approximately one per week, a period which he later remembered as the most exciting time of his career. Chaplin’s films introduced a slower form of comedy than the typical Keystone farce, and he developed a large fan base.
In November 1914, he had a supporting role in the first feature length comedy film, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, directed by Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, which was a commercial success and increased his popularity. When Chaplin’s contract came up for renewal at the end of the year, he asked for $1,000 a week ($24,761 in 2017 dollars) – an amount Sennett refused as too large.
Charles Chaplin in Caught in the Rain (Charles Chaplin, 1914) – Chaplin’s Directorial Debut
Charles Chaplin and Marie Dressler in Tillie’s Punctured Romance (Mack Sennett, Charles Bennett, 1914) – Chaplin’s First Feature Film
Poster for Tillie’s Punctured Romance (Mack Sennett, Charles Bennett, 1914) – Chaplin’s First Feature Film
He joined the studio in late December 1914, where he began forming a stock company of regular players, including Leo White, Bud Jamison, Paddy McGuire and Billy Armstrong. He soon recruited a leading lady – Edna Purviance, whom Chaplin met in a cafe and hired on account of her beauty.
She went on to appear in 35 films with Chaplin over eight years; the pair also formed a romantic relationship that lasted into 1917.
Edna Purviance
Chaplin asserted a high level of control over his pictures and started to put more time and care into each film.
There was a month-long interval between the release of his second production, A Night Out, and his third, The Champion. The final seven of Chaplin’s 14 Essanay films were all produced at this slower pace.
Charles Chaplin in A Night Out (Charles Chaplin, 1915)
Poster for The Champion (Charles Chaplin, 1915)
Chaplin also began to alter his screen persona, which had attracted some criticism at Keystone for its “mean, crude, and brutish” nature. The character became more gentle and romantic; The Tramp (April 1915) was considered a particular turning point in his development.
The use of pathos was developed further with The Bank, in which Chaplin created a sad ending. Robinson notes that this was an innovation in comedy films, and marked the time when serious critics began to appreciate Chaplin’s work. At Essanay, writes film scholar Simon Louvish, Chaplin “found the themes and the settings that would define the Tramp’s world.”
Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance in The Tramp (Charles Chaplin, 1915)
Charles Chaplin in The Bank (Charles Chaplin, 1915)
During 1915, Chaplin became a cultural phenomenon. Shops were stocked with Chaplin merchandise, he was featured in cartoons and comic strips, and several songs were written about him. In July, a journalist for Motion Picture Magazine wrote that “Chaplinitis” had spread across America.
As his fame grew worldwide, he became the film industry’s first international star. When the Essanay contract ended in December 1915, Chaplin – fully aware of his popularity – requested a $150,000 signing bonus from his next studio. He received several offers, including Universal, Fox, and Vitagraph, the best of which came from the Mutual Film Corporation at $10,000 a week.
Charles Chaplin on the cover of Motion Pictures Magazine
Mutual
A contract was negotiated with Mutual that amounted to $670,000 a year, which Robinson says made Chaplin – at 26 years old – one of the highest paid people in the world.
The high salary shocked the public and was widely reported in the press. John R. Freuler, the studio president, explained: “We can afford to pay Mr. Chaplin this large sum annually because the public wants Chaplin and will pay for him.”
Albert Austin and Charles Chaplin in The Adventurer (Charles Chaplin, 1917)
Eric Campbell and Charles Chaplin in The Adventurer (Charles Chaplin, 1917)
Charles Chaplin and Eric Campbell in The Floorwalker (Charles Chaplin, 1916)
Behind the Screen and The Rink completed Chaplin’s releases for 1916. The Mutual contract stipulated that he release a two-reel film every four weeks, which he had managed to achieve. With the new year, however, Chaplin began to demand more time. He made only four more films for Mutual over the first ten months of 1917: Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, and The Adventurer.
Charles Chaplin in Easy Street (1917)
Charles Chaplin in The Cure (1917)
Charles Chaplin in The Immigrant (1917)
Charles Chaplin in The Adventurer (1917)
With their careful construction, these films are considered by Chaplin scholars to be among his finest work. Later in life, Chaplin referred to his Mutual years as the happiest period of his career. However, Chaplin also felt that those films became increasingly formulaic over the period of the contract and he was increasingly dissatisfied with the working conditions encouraging that.
Chaplin was attacked in the British media for not fighting in the First World War. He defended himself, revealing that he would fight for Britain if called and had registered for the American draft, but he was not summoned by either country.
Despite this criticism Chaplin was a favourite with the troops, and his popularity continued to grow worldwide. Harper’s Weekly reported that the name of Charlie Chaplin was “a part of the common language of almost every country”, and that the Tramp image was “universally familiar”.
Charles Chaplin in Shoulder Arms (1918)
In 1917, professional Chaplin imitators were so widespread that he took legal action, and it was reported that nine out of ten men who attended costume parties dressed as the Tramp. The same year, a study by the Boston Society for Psychical Research concluded that Chaplin was “an American obsession”.
The actress Minnie Maddern Fiske wrote that “a constantly increasing body of cultured, artistic people are beginning to regard the young English buffoon, Charles Chaplin, as an extraordinary artist, as well as a comic genius”.
1918–1922: First National
Mutual were patient with Chaplin’s decreased rate of output, and the contract ended amicably. With his aforementioned concern about the declining quality of his films because of contract scheduling stipulations, Chaplin’s primary concern in finding a new distributor was independence; Sydney Chaplin, then his business manager, told the press, “Charlie [must] be allowed all the time he needs and all the money for producing [films] the way he wants … It is quality, not quantity, we are after.”
Sidney and Charles Chaplin
In June 1917, Chaplin signed to complete eight films for First National Exhibitors’ Circuit in return for $1 million. He chose to build his own studio, situated on five acres of land off Sunset Boulevard, with production facilities of the highest order. It was completed in January 1918, and Chaplin was given freedom over the making of his pictures.
Chaplin built this English cottage-style studio in three months beginning in November 1917
A Dog’s Life, released April 1918, was the first film under the new contract. In it, Chaplin demonstrated his increasing concern with story construction and his treatment of the Tramp as “a sort of Pierrot“. The film was described by Louis Delluc as “cinema’s first total work of art”.
Charles Chaplin in A Dog’s Life (1918)
A Dog’s Life (1918) – Chaplin with Edna Purviance
Chaplin then embarked on the Third Liberty Bond campaign, touring the United States for one month to raise money for the Allies of the First World War.
He also produced a short propaganda film, donated to the government for fund-raising, called The Bond.
The Bond (1918) – Chaplin with Edna Purviance
Chaplin’s next release was war-based, placing the Tramp in the trenches for Shoulder Arms. Associates warned him against making a comedy about the war but, as he later recalled: “Dangerous or not, the idea excited me.”
He spent four months filming the 45-minute-long picture, which was released in October 1918 with great success.
Charles Chaplin in Shoulder Arms (1918)
Charles Chaplin on the set of Shoulder Arms (1918)
United Artists, Mildred Harris, and The Kid
After the release of Shoulder Arms, Chaplin requested more money from First National, which was refused.
Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith – the signing ceremony
The arrangement was revolutionary in the film industry, as it enabled the four partners – all creative artists – to personally fund their pictures and have complete control. Chaplin was eager to start with the new company and offered to buy out his contract with First National. They refused and insisted that he complete the final six films owed.
Before the creation of United Artists, Chaplin married for the first time. The 16-year-old actress Mildred Harris had revealed that she was pregnant with his child, and in September 1918, he married her quietly in Los Angeles to avoid controversy.
Mildred Harris
Charles Chaplin with Mildred Harris
Sidney Chaplin with Mildred Harris 1929
Soon after, the pregnancy was found to be false. Chaplin was unhappy with the union and, feeling that marriage stunted his creativity, struggled over the production of his film Sunnyside. Harris was by then legitimately pregnant, and on 7 July 1919, gave birth to a son. Norman Spencer Chaplin was born malformed and died three days later. The marriage ended in April 1920, with Chaplin explaining in his autobiography that they were “irreconcilably mismated”.
Sunnyside (1919) Poster
Charles Chaplin in Sunnyside (1919)
Losing the child, plus his own childhood experiences, are thought to have influenced Chaplin’s film, which turned the Tramp into the caretaker of a young boy.
For this new venture, Chaplin also wished to do more than comedy and, according to Louvish, “make his mark on a changed world.” Filming on The Kid began in August 1919, with four-year-old Jackie Coogan his co-star.
It was developing into a long project, so to placate First National, he halted production and quickly filmed A Day’s Pleasure.The Kid was in production for nine months until May 1920 and, at 68 minutes, it was Chaplin’s longest picture to date. Dealing with issues of poverty and parent–child separation, The Kid was one of the earliest films to combine comedy and drama. It was released in January 1921 with instant success, and, by 1924, had been screened in over 50 countries.
The Kid (1921) Posters
Charles Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in The Kid (1921)
Charles Chaplin and Jackie Coogan on the set of The Kid (1921)
Chaplin spent five months on his next film, the two-reeler The Idle Class. Following its September 1921 release, he chose to return to England for the first time in almost a decade. He then worked to fulfil his First National contract, releasing Pay Day in February 1922. The Pilgrim – his final short film – was delayed by distribution disagreements with the studio, and released a year later.
The Idle Class, poster, Charlie Chaplin (twice), 1921. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
The Idle Class (1921) Poster
Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance in The Idle Class (1921)
1923–1938: Silent features
A Woman of Paris and The Gold Rush
Having fulfilled his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture as an independent producer. In November 1922, he began filming A Woman of Paris, a romantic drama about ill-fated lovers.
A Woman of Paris (1923) Posters
Chaplin intended it to be a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo.
He wished the film to have a realistic feel and directed his cast to give restrained performances. In real life, he explained, “men and women try to hide their emotions rather than seek to express them”.
A Woman of Paris premiered in September 1923 and was acclaimed for its innovative, subtle approach. The public, however, seemed to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and soon withdrew A Woman of Paris from circulation.
A Woman of Paris (1923) magazine promotion
Edna Purviance, Carl Miller and Adolphe Menjou in A Woman of Paris (1923)
Edna Purviance and Adolphe Menjou in A Woman of Paris (1923)
Charles Chaplin directing A Woman of Paris (1923)
Chaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself “This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!” Inspired by a photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–47, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls “an epic comedy out of grim subject matter.”
The Gold Rush (1925) Poster
In The Gold Rush, the Tramp is a lonely prospector fighting adversity and looking for love. With Georgia Hale as his new leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924. Its elaborate production, costing almost $1 million, included location shooting in the Truckee mountains with 600 extras, extravagant sets, and special effects. The last scene was shot May 1925 after 15 months of filming.
Charles Chaplin and Georgia Hale in The Gold Rush (1925)
Tom Murray, Charles Chaplin and Mack Swain in The Gold Rush (1925)
Charles Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925)
Chaplin felt The Gold Rush was the best film he had made. It opened in August 1925 and became one of the highest-grossing films of the silent era with a U.S. box-office of $5 million.
The comedy contains some of Chaplin’s most famous sequences, such as the Tramp eating his shoe and the “Dance of the Rolls”. Macnab has called it “the quintessential Chaplin film”. Chaplin stated at its release, “This is the picture that I want to be remembered by”.
Charles Chaplin directing The Gold Rush (1925)
Lita Grey and The Circus
Lita Grey, whose bitter divorce from Chaplin caused a scandal
While making The Gold Rush, Chaplin married for the second time. Mirroring the circumstances of his first union, Lita Grey was a teenage actress, originally set to star in the film, whose surprise announcement of pregnancy forced Chaplin into marriage. She was 16 and he was 35, meaning Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law.
(Original Caption) Charlie Chaplin is shown with his wife Lita Grey and writer Elinor Glynn.
He therefore arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on 25 November 1924. Their first son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born on 5 May 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin on 30 March 1926.
Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr., Lita Grey and Charles Chaplin
(Original Caption) Family Separated From Charlie Chaplin. A very recent picture of Mrs. Lita Grey Chaplin, wife of Charles Spence Chaplin, with her two children, Sidney Earl (left) and Charles Spencer Jr., (right), taken at the home of her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. William Curry at Beverly Hills, California, where she fled after her separation from the movie comedian. Mrs. Chaplin’s lawyers are preparing a divorce suit against the actor; and Charles Chaplin will in turn bring suit for divorce against his wife.(Original Caption) To Visit Illustrious Dad. Children of Charles Chaplin, world famed comic, are seen here with their mother, Lita Grey Chaplin, aboard the liner ILe De France, as they sail from New York, October 26th, for a visit with their father in Europe. Charles, Jr., is on left, with Sydney.(Original Caption) Lita Grey Leaves Charlie Chaplin’s Home! Photo shows Lita Grey, with children, her mother and grandfather at latters home. Great is the wagging of tongues in Hollywood over the fact that Miss Lita grey, wife of the famous comedian –Charlie Chaplin, has left the beautiful Beverly Hills home to go to her mothers, — taking with her the two children. This new photo shows Mrs. Chaplin holding Sidney Earle, Mr. W. E. Curry, her grandfather, Mrs. Spicer, Charlie’s mother-in-law, holding Master Charles Spencer Chaplin.
It was an unhappy marriage, and Chaplin spent long hours at the studio to avoid seeing his wife.
In November 1926, Grey took the children and left the family home. A bitter divorce followed, in which Grey’s application – accusing Chaplin of infidelity, abuse, and of harbouring “perverted sexual desires” – was leaked to the press. Chaplin was reported to be in a state of nervous breakdown, as the story became headline news and groups formed across America calling for his films to be banned.
Smartly garbed in a black coat trimmed with white ermine, and wearing a black and silver toque, Mrs. Lita Chaplin took the stand in Superior Court in Los Angeles, Calif. the other day, and testified that her total household expenses for April amounted to approximately $3,300, and said this amount was necessary to keep her and their two children in the fashion in which they were accustomed to live. Judge Walter Guerin on the bench.
Eager to end the case without further scandal, Chaplin’s lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000 – the largest awarded by American courts at that time. His fan base was strong enough to survive the incident, and it was soon forgotten, but Chaplin was deeply affected by it.
Before the divorce suit was filed, Chaplin had begun work on a new film, The Circus. He built a story around the idea of walking a tightrope while besieged by monkeys, and turned the Tramp into the accidental star of a circus.
The Circus (1928) Poster
Filming was suspended for 10 months while he dealt with the divorce scandal, and it was generally a trouble-ridden production. Finally completed in October 1927, The Circus was released in January 1928 to a positive reception. At the 1st Academy Awards, Chaplin was given a special trophy “For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus“.
Merna Kennedy and Charles Chaplin in The Circus (1928)
Charles Chaplin in The Circus (1928)
Despite its success, he permanently associated the film with the stress of its production; Chaplin omitted The Circus from his autobiography, and struggled to work on it when he recorded the score in his later years.
Henry Bergman and Charles Chaplin in The Circus (1928)
City Lights
“I was determined to continue making silent films … I was a pantomimist and in that medium I was unique and, without false modesty, a master.”
—Chaplin explaining his defiance against sound in the 1930s
By the time The Circus was released, Hollywood had witnessed the introduction of sound films.
Chaplin was cynical about this new medium and the technical shortcomings it presented, believing that “talkies” lacked the artistry of silent films. He was also hesitant to change the formula that had brought him such success, and feared that giving the Tramp a voice would limit his international appeal.
He, therefore, rejected the new Hollywood craze and began work on a new silent film. Chaplin was nonetheless anxious about this decision and remained so throughout the film’s production.
City Lights (1931) Poster – Regarded as one of Chaplin’s finest works
When filming began at the end of 1928, Chaplin had been working on the story for almost a year. City Lights followed the Tramp’s love for a blind flower girl (played by Virginia Cherrill) and his efforts to raise money for her sight-saving operation.
Charles Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in City Lights (1931)
It was a challenging production that lasted 21 months, with Chaplin later confessing that he “had worked himself into a neurotic state of wanting perfection”. One advantage Chaplin found in sound technology was the opportunity to record a musical score for the film, which he composed himself.
Chaplin finished editing City Lights in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism. A preview before an unsuspecting public audience was not a success, but a showing for the press produced positive reviews.
Charles Chaplin and Harry Myers in City Lights (1931)
One journalist wrote, “Nobody in the world but Charlie Chaplin could have done it. He is the only person that has that peculiar something called ‘audience appeal’ in sufficient quality to defy the popular penchant for movies that talk.” Given its general release in January 1931, City Lights proved to be a popular and financial success – eventually grossing over $3 million.
Charles Chaplin in City Lights (1931)
The British Film Institute cites it as Chaplin’s finest accomplishment, and the critic James Agee hails the closing scene as “the greatest piece of acting and the highest moment in movies”. City Lights became Chaplin’s personal favourite of his films and remained so throughout his life.
Charles Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in City Lights (1931)
Charles Chaplin and Winston Churchill on the set of City Lights (1931)
Travels, Paulette Goddard, and Modern Times
City Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue.
He remained convinced that sound would not work in his films, but was also “obsessed by a depressing fear of being old-fashioned.” In this state of uncertainty, early in 1931, the comedian decided to take a holiday and ended up travelling for 16 months.
He spent months travelling Western Europe, including extended stays in France and Switzerland, and spontaneously decided to visit Japan. The day after he arrived in Japan, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by ultra-nationalists in the May 15 Incident. The group’s original plan had been to provoke a war with the United States by assassinating Chaplin at a welcome reception organised by the prime minister, but the plan had been foiled due to delayed public announcement of the event’s date.
Charles Chaplin in Japan 1931
15th May Incident
In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that on his return to Los Angeles, “I was confused and without plan, restless and conscious of an extreme loneliness”. He briefly considered retiring and moving to China.
Chaplin’s loneliness was relieved when he met 21-year-old actress Paulette Goddard in July 1932, and the pair began a relationship. He was not ready to commit to a film, however, and focused on writing a serial about his travels (published in Woman’s Home Companion).
Cover of Woman’s Home Companion magazine, September 1933. Cover shows a picture of Charlie Chaplin accompanied by a splendid Indian bearer carrying a bag of golf clubs, to illustrate the article entirled A Comedian Sees The World. (Photo by Sarah Fabian-Baddiel/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Woman’s Home Companion (1933)
The trip had been a stimulating experience for Chaplin, including meetings with several prominent thinkers, and he became increasingly interested in world affairs. The state of labour in America troubled him, and he feared that capitalism and machinery in the workplace would increase unemployment levels. It was these concerns that stimulated Chaplin to develop his new film.
Paulette Goddard
Modern Times was announced by Chaplin as “a satire on certain phases of our industrial life.”
Featuring the Tramp and Goddard as they endure the Great Depression, it took ten and a half months to film. Chaplin intended to use spoken dialogue but changed his mind during rehearsals.
Like its predecessor, Modern Times employed sound effects but almost no speaking. Chaplin’s performance of a gibberish song did, however, give the Tramp a voice for the only time on film. After recording the music, Chaplin released Modern Times in February 1936.
Modern Times (1936) Poster
Modern Times (1936) Poster
It was his first feature in 15 years to adopt political references and social realism, a factor that attracted considerable press coverage despite Chaplin’s attempts to downplay the issue. The film earned less at the box-office than his previous features and received mixed reviews, as some viewers disliked the politicising.
Today, Modern Times is seen by the British Film Institute as one of Chaplin’s “great features,” while David Robinson says it shows the filmmaker at “his unrivalled peak as a creator of visual comedy.”
Modern Times (1936) Directed by Charles Chaplin Shown: Charles Chaplin (as A factory worker)
Charles Chaplin with Paulette Goddard in Modern Times (1936)
Following the release of Modern Times, Chaplin left with Goddard for a trip to the Far East. The couple had refused to comment on the nature of their relationship, and it was not known whether they were married or not.
Chaplin/Goddard relationship was veiled in secrecy throughout their time together
Some time later, Chaplin revealed that they married in Canton during this trip. By 1938, the couple had drifted apart, as both focused heavily on their work, although Goddard was again his leading lady in his next feature film, The Great Dictator.
She eventually divorced Chaplin in Mexico in 1942, citing incompatibility and separation for more than a year.
Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard
Chaplin and Goddard divorce
1939–1952: Controversies and fading popularity
The 1940s saw Chaplin face a series of controversies, both in his work and in his personal life, which changed his fortunes and severely affected his popularity in the United States. The first of these was his growing boldness in expressing his political beliefs. Deeply disturbed by the surge of militaristic nationalism in 1930s world politics, Chaplin found that he could not keep these issues out of his work.
The Great Dictator (1940) poster
Parallels between himself and Adolf Hitler had been widely noted: the pair were born four days apart, both had risen from poverty to world prominence, and Hitler wore the same toothbrush moustache as Chaplin. It was this physical resemblance that supplied the plot for Chaplin’s next film, The Great Dictator, which directly satirised Hitler and attacked fascism.
Chaplin spent two years developing the script, and began filming in September 1939 – six days after Britain declared war on Germany. He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice, but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message.
Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)
Paulette Goddard and Charles Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)
Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin’s financial independence allowed him to take the risk. “I was determined to go ahead,” he later wrote, “for Hitler must be laughed at.” Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with “A Jewish Barber”, a reference to the Nazi party’s belief that he was Jewish.
In a dual performance, he also played the dictator “Adenoid Hynkel”, who parodied Hitler.
Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in The Great Dictator (1940)
The Great Dictator spent a year in production and was released in October 1940.. The film generated a vast amount of publicity, with a critic for The New York Times calling it “the most eagerly awaited picture of the year”, and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era.
The ending was unpopular, however, and generated controversy. Chaplin concluded the film with a five-minute speech in which he abandoned his barber character, looked directly into the camera, and pleaded against war and fascism.
Charles J. Maland has identified this overt preaching as triggering a decline in Chaplin’s popularity, and writes, “Henceforth, no movie fan would ever be able to separate the dimension of politics from [his] star image”.The Great Dictator received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.
Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in The Great Dictator (1940)
Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard on the set of The Great Dictator (1940)
Legal troubles and Oona O’Neill
In the mid-1940s, Chaplin was involved in a series of trials that occupied most of his time and significantly affected his public image.
The troubles stemmed from his affair with an aspirant actress named Joan Barry, with whom he was involved intermittently between June 1941 and the autumn of 1942. Barry, who displayed obsessive behaviour and was twice arrested after they separated, reappeared the following year and announced that she was pregnant with Chaplin’s child. As Chaplin denied the claim, Barry filed a paternity suit against him.
Charles Chaplin and Joan Barry in Court
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, who had long been suspicious of Chaplin’s political leanings, used the opportunity to generate negative publicity about him. As part of a smear campaign to damage Chaplin’s image, the FBI named him in four indictments related to the Barry case. Most serious of these was an alleged violation of the Mann Act, which prohibits the transportation of women across state boundaries for sexual purposes..
The historian Otto Friedrich has called this an “absurd prosecution” of an “ancient statute”, yet if Chaplin was found guilty, he faced 23 years in jail. Three charges lacked sufficient evidence to proceed to court, but the Mann Act trial began in March 1944. Chaplin was acquitted two weeks later. The case was frequently headline news, with Newsweek calling it the “biggest public relations scandal since the Fatty Arbuckle murder trial in 1921.”
Charles Chaplin in Court
Joan Barry with Carol Ann
Barry’s child, Carol Ann, was born in October 1944, and the paternity suit went to court in February 1945. After two arduous trials, in which the prosecuting lawyer accused him of “moral turpitude“, Chaplin was declared to be the father.
Evidence from blood tests which indicated otherwise were not admissible, and the judge ordered Chaplin to pay child support until Carol Ann turned 21. Media coverage of the paternity suit was influenced by the FBI, as information was fed to the prominent gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, and Chaplin was portrayed in an overwhelmingly critical light.
Media coverage of Barry vs Chaplin Court Case
The controversy surrounding Chaplin increased when, two weeks after the paternity suit was filed, it was announced that he had married his newest protégée, 18-year-old Oona O’Neill – daughter of the American playwright Eugene O’Neill.
Chaplin, then 54, had been introduced to her by a film agent seven months earlier. In his autobiography, Chaplin described meeting O’Neill as “the happiest event of my life”, and claimed to have found “perfect love”. Chaplin’s son, Charles Jr., reported that Oona “worshipped” his father.
(Original Caption) New York, NY: Oona O’Neill (Mrs. Charles Chaplin) when she was 16 years old and a student in New York, waiting for a bus at Madison Avenue. Photograph.
Oona O’Neill
The couple remained married until Chaplin’s death, and had eight children over 18 years: Geraldine Leigh (b. July 1944), Michael John (b. March 1946), Josephine Hannah (b. March 1949), Victoria (b. May 1951), Eugene Anthony (b. August 1953), Jane Cecil (b. May 1957), Annette Emily (b. December 1959), and Christopher James (b. July 1962).
Charles Chaplin, Oona O’Neill and their children
Charles Chaplin and Oona O’Neill
Monsieur Verdoux and communist accusations
Monsieur Verdoux (1947) Poster
Chaplin claimed that the Barry trials had “crippled [his] creativeness”, and it was some time before he began working again. In April 1946, he finally began filming a project that had been in development since 1942.
Monsieur Verdoux was a black comedy, the story of a French bank clerk, Verdoux (Chaplin), who loses his job and begins marrying and murdering wealthy widows to support his family. Chaplin’s inspiration for the project came from Orson Welles, who wanted him to star in a film about the French serial killerHenri Désiré Landru. Chaplin decided that the concept would “make a wonderful comedy”, and paid Welles $5,000 for the idea.
Charles Chaplin in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Chaplin again vocalised his political views in Monsieur Verdoux, criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction.
Because of this, the film met with controversy when it was released in April 1947; Chaplin was booed at the premiere, and there were calls for a boycott. Monsieur Verdoux was the first Chaplin release that failed both critically and commercially in the United States. It was more successful abroad, and Chaplin’s screenplay was nominated at the Academy Awards. He was proud of the film, writing in his autobiography, “Monsieur Verdoux is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made.”
Charles Chaplin and Martha Raye in Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
The negative reaction to Monsieur Verdoux was largely the result of changes in Chaplin’s public image. Along with damage of the Joan Barry scandal, he was publicly accused of being a communist.
His political activity had heightened during World War II, when he campaigned for the opening of a Second Front to help the Soviet Union and supported various Soviet–American friendship groups.
He was also friendly with several suspected communists, and attended functions given by Soviet diplomats in Los Angeles. In the political climate of 1940s America, such activities meant Chaplin was considered, as Larcher writes, “dangerously progressive and amoral.” The FBI wanted him out of the country, and launched an official investigation in early 1947.
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and from 1969 onwards known as the House Committee on Internal Security, was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives.
Chaplin denied being a communist, instead calling himself a “peacemonger”, but felt the government’s effort to suppress the ideology was an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties.
Unwilling to be quiet about the issue, he openly protested against the trials of Communist Party members and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee . Chaplin received a subpoena to appear before HUAC but was not called to testify. As his activities were widely reported in the press, and Cold War fears grew, questions were raised over his failure to take American citizenship .
John E Rankin at HUAC hearing
Calls were made for him to be deported; in one extreme and widely published example, Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish HUAC, told Congress in June 1947: “[Chaplin’s] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] … his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once.”
Limelight and banning from the United States
Limelight (1952) Poster
Limelight (1952) was a serious and autobiographical film for Chaplin: his character, Calvero, is an ex music hallstar (described in this image as a “Tramp Comedian”) forced to deal with his loss of popularity.
Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin in Limelight (1952)
Although Chaplin remained politically active in the years following the failure of Monsieur Verdoux, his next film, about a forgotten vaudeville comedian and a young ballerina in Edwardian London, was devoid of political themes. Limelight was heavily autobiographical, alluding not only to Chaplin’s childhood and the lives of his parents, but also to his loss of popularity in the United States. The cast included various members of his family, including his five oldest children and his half-brother, Wheeler Dryden.
Claire Bloom and Charles Chaplin in Limelight (1952)
Filming began in November 1951, by which time Chaplin had spent three years working on the story. He aimed for a more serious tone than any of his previous films, regularly using the word “melancholy” when explaining his plans to his co-star Claire Bloom.
Limelight featured a cameo appearance from Buster Keaton, whom Chaplin cast as his stage partner in a pantomime scene. This marked the only time the comedians worked together.
Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton in Limelight (1952)
Chaplin decided to hold the world premiere of Limelight in London, since it was the setting of the film. As he left Los Angeles, he expressed a premonition that he would not be returning. At New York, he boarded the RMS Queen Elizabeth with his family on 18 September 1952.
The next day, attorney generalJames P. McGranery revoked Chaplin’s re-entry permit and stated that he would have to submit to an interview concerning his political views and moral behaviour in order to re-enter the US. Although McGranery told the press that he had “a pretty good case against Chaplin”, Maland has concluded, on the basis of the FBI files that were released in the 1980s, that the US government had no real evidence to prevent Chaplin’s re-entry.
Reuters news on Chaplin and the immigration hearing order
It is likely that he would have gained entry if he had applied for it. However, when Chaplin received a cablegram informing him of the news, he privately decided to cut his ties with the United States:
Whether I re-entered that unhappy country or not was of little consequence to me. I would like to have told them that the sooner I was rid of that hate-beleaguered atmosphere the better, that I was fed up of America’s insults and moral pomposity…
Because all of his property remained in America, Chaplin refrained from saying anything negative about the incident to the press.
The scandal attracted vast attention, but Chaplin and his film were warmly received in Europe. In America, the hostility towards him continued, and, although it received some positive reviews, Limelight was subjected to a wide-scale boycott.
Reflecting on this, Maland writes that Chaplin’s fall, from an “unprecedented” level of popularity, “may be the most dramatic in the history of stardom in America”.
1953–1977: European years
Move to Switzerland and A King in New York
“I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America’s yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.”
— Chaplin’s press release regarding his decision not to seek re-entry to the US
Chaplin did not attempt to return to the United States after his re-entry permit was revoked, and instead sent his wife to settle his affairs.
The couple decided to settle in Switzerland and, in January 1953, the family moved into their permanent home: Manoir de Ban, a 14-hectare (35-acre) estate overlooking Lake Geneva in Corsier-sur-Vevey.
Chaplin put his Beverly Hills house and studio up for sale in March, and surrendered his re-entry permit in April. The next year, his wife renounced her US citizenship and became a British citizen. Chaplin severed the last of his professional ties with the United States in 1955, when he sold the remainder of his stock in United Artists, which had been in financial difficulty since the early 1940s.
Jun. 05, 1954 – Charlie Chaplin Receives The ”World Peace Council” Prize
He began developing his first European film, A King in New York, in 1954. Casting himself as an exiled king who seeks asylum in the United States, Chaplin included several of his recent experiences in the screenplay.
A King in New York (1957) Poster
His son, Michael, was cast as a boy whose parents are targeted by the FBI, while Chaplin’s character faces accusations of communism. The political satire parodied HUAC and attacked elements of 1950s culture – including consumerism, plastic surgery, and wide-screen cinema. In a review, the playwright John Osborne called it Chaplin’s “most bitter” and “most openly personal” film.
Chaplin founded a new production company, Attica, and used Shepperton Studios for the shooting. Filming in England proved a difficult experience, as he was used to his own Hollywood studio and familiar crew, and no longer had limitless production time. According to Robinson, this had an effect on the quality of the film. A King in New York was released in September 1957, and received mixed reviews.
A King in New York (1957) Dutch Poster
Chaplin banned American journalists from its Paris première and decided not to release the film in the United States. This severely limited its revenue, although it achieved moderate commercial success in Europe. A King in New York was not shown in America until 1973.
A King In New York (1957)
Final works and renewed appreciation
In the last two decades of his career, Chaplin concentrated on re-editing and scoring his old films for re-release, along with securing their ownership and distribution rights.
In an interview he granted in 1959, the year of his 70th birthday, Chaplin stated that there was still “room for the Little Man in the atomic age”. The first of these re-releases was The Chaplin Revue (1959), which included new versions of A Dog’s Life, Shoulder Arms, and The Pilgrim.
Original Cinema Quad Poster; Movie Poster; Film Poster
Chaplin Revue (1959) Poster
In America, the political atmosphere began to change and attention was once again directed to Chaplin’s films instead of his views. In July 1962, The New York Times published an editorial stating that “we do not believe the Republic would be in danger if yesterday’s unforgotten little tramp were allowed to amble down the gangplank of a steamer or plane in an American port”.
The same month, Chaplin was invested with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the universities of Oxford and Durham. In November 1963, the Plaza Theater in New York started a year-long series of Chaplin’s films, including Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight, which gained excellent reviews from American critics.
Jun. 06, 1962 – Charlie Chaplin Receives Honorary Degree – at Oxford
September 1964 saw the release of Chaplin’s memoirs, My Autobiography, which he had been working on since 1957. The 500-page book, which focused on his early years and personal life, became a worldwide best-seller, despite criticism over the lack of information on his film career.
My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin – 1st Edition (1964)
Shortly after the publication of his memoirs, Chaplin began work on A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), a romantic comedy based on a script he had written for Paulette Goddard in the 1930s.
A Countess From Hong Kong (1967) Poster
Set on an ocean liner, it starred Marlon Brando as an American ambassador and Sophia Loren as a stowaway found in his cabin. The film differed from Chaplin’s earlier productions in several aspects. It was his first to use Technicolor and the widescreen format, while he concentrated on directing and appeared on-screen only in a cameo role as a seasick steward. He also signed a deal with Universal Pictures and appointed his assistant, Jerome Epstein, as the producer.
Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Charles Chaplin and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Charles Chaplin, Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in A Countess From Hong Kong (1967)
Chaplin was paid $600,000 director’s fee as well as a percentage of the gross receipts. A Countess from Hong Kong premiered in January 1967, to unfavourable reviews, and was a box-office failure. Chaplin was deeply hurt by the negative reaction to the film, which turned out to be his last.
Chaplin suffered a series of minor strokes in the late 1960s, which marked the beginning of a slow decline in his health. Despite the setbacks, he was soon writing a new film script, The Freak, a story of a winged girl found in South America, which he intended as a starring vehicle for his daughter, Victoria.
The Freak, Charles Chaplin’s script, unfinished project
Venice Film Festival Honors Charles Chaplin in 1972
Chaplin (right) receiving his Honorary Academy Award from Jack Lemmon in 1972. It was the first time he had been to the United States in 20 years.
In 1972, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences offered Chaplin an Honorary Award, which Robinson sees as a sign that America “wanted to make amends”. Chaplin was initially hesitant about accepting but decided to return to the US for the first time in 20 years.
The visit attracted a large amount of press coverage and, at the Academy Awards gala, he was given a twelve-minute standing ovation, the longest in the Academy’s history. Visibly emotional, Chaplin accepted his award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century”.
Although Chaplin still had plans for future film projects, by the mid-1970s he was very frail. He experienced several further strokes, which made it difficult for him to communicate, and he had to use a wheelchair.
His final projects were compiling a pictorial autobiography, My Life in Pictures (1974) and scoring A Woman of Paris for re-release in 1976. He also appeared in a documentary about his life, The Gentleman Tramp (1975), directed by Richard Patterson.] In the 1975 New Year Honours, Chaplin was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II, though he was too weak to kneel and received the honour in his wheelchair.
The Queen meets Charlie Chaplin at the opening of the British academy of film and television arts. 11th March 1976.
Princess Anne jokes with Sir Charles Chaplin after presenting him with an award, London, 1976
Death
Chaplin’s grave in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland
By October 1977, Chaplin’s health had declined to the point that he needed constant care. In the early morning of 25 December 1977, Chaplin died at home after suffering a stroke in his sleep.
He was 88 years old.
The funeral, on 27 December, was a small and private Anglican ceremony, according to his wishes. Chaplin was interred in the Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery. Among the film industry’s tributes, director René Clair wrote, “He was a monument of the cinema, of all countries and all times … the most beautiful gift the cinema made to us.”
Actor Bob Hope declared, “We were lucky to have lived in his time.”
Charles Chaplin’s funeral 27th December 1977
On 1 March 1978, Chaplin’s coffin was dug up and stolen from its grave by two unemployed immigrants, Roman Wardas, from Poland, and Gantcho Ganev, from Bulgaria. The body was held for ransom in an attempt to extort money from Oona Chaplin.
Newspaper coverage 3rd March 1978 – Daily News
The pair were caught in a large police operation in May, and Chaplin’s coffin was found buried in a field in the nearby village of Noville. It was re-interred in the Corsier cemetery surrounded by reinforced concrete.
Filmmaking
Influences
Chaplin believed his first influence to be his mother, who entertained him as a child by sitting at the window and mimicking passers-by: “it was through watching her that I learned not only how to express emotions with my hands and face, but also how to observe and study people.”
Charles Chaplin and his mother Hannah
Chaplin’s early years in music hall allowed him to see stage comedians at work; he also attended the Christmas pantomimes at Drury Lane, where he studied the art of clowning through performers like Dan Leno.
Dan Leno
Chaplin’s years with the Fred Karno company had a formative effect on him as an actor and filmmaker. Simon Louvish writes that the company was his “training ground”, and it was here that Chaplin learned to vary the pace of his comedy.
The concept of mixing pathos with slapstick was learnt from Karno, who also used elements of absurdity that became familiar in Chaplin’s gags.
Fred Karno (Born Fredrick John Westcott)
From the film industry, Chaplin drew upon the work of the French comedian Max Linder, whose films he greatly admired. In developing the Tramp costume and persona, he was likely inspired by the American vaudeville scene, where tramp characters were common.
Max Linder
Method
Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion.
Little was known about his working process throughout his lifetime, but research from film historians – particularly the findings of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill that were presented in the three-part documentary Unknown Chaplin (1983) – has since revealed his unique working method.
Until he began making spoken dialogue films with The Great Dictator, Chaplin never shot from a completed script. Many of his early films began with only a vague premise – for example “Charlie enters a health spa” or “Charlie works in a pawn shop.”
He then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and “business” using them, almost always working the ideas out on film. As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story.
Charles Chaplin on the set of How to Make Movies
Charles Chaplin behind the camera
Charles chaplin on the set of City Lights
From A Woman of Paris onward Chaplin began the filming process with a prepared plot, but Robinson writes that every film up to Modern Times “went through many metamorphoses and permutations before the story took its final form.”
Producing films in this manner meant Chaplin took longer to complete his pictures than almost any other filmmaker at the time. If he was out of ideas, he often took a break from the shoot, which could last for days, while keeping the studio ready for when inspiration returned. Delaying the process further was Chaplin’s rigorous perfectionism.
Limelight – Shooting Diary
According to his friend Ivor Montagu, “nothing but perfection would be right” for the filmmaker. Because he personally funded his films, Chaplin was at liberty to strive for this goal and shoot as many takes as he wished. The number was often excessive, for instance 53 takes for every finished take in The Kid.] For The Immigrant, a 20 minute-short, Chaplin shot 40,000 feet of film – enough for a feature-length.
“No other filmmaker ever so completely dominated every aspect of the work, did every job. If he could have done so, Chaplin would have played every role and (as his son Sydney humorously but perceptively observed) sewn every costume.”
Describing his working method as “sheer perseverance to the point of madness”,Chaplin would be completely consumed by the production of a picture. Robinson writes that even in Chaplin’s later years, his work continued “to take precedence over everything and everyone else.” The combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism – which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense – often proved taxing for Chaplin who, in frustration, would lash out at his actors and crew.
Monsieur Verdoux – Chaplin’s Script
Monsieur Verdoux – Chaplin’s Notes
Chaplin exercised complete control over his pictures, to the extent that he would act out the other roles for his cast, expecting them to imitate him exactly. He personally edited all of his films, trawling through the large amounts of footage to create the exact picture he wanted.
Andrew Sarris articles on Charles Chaplin
As a result of his complete independence, he was identified by the film historian Andrew Sarris as one of the first auteur filmmakers.
Charles Chaplin, Lady Levinsdale and Harry Crocker on the set of The Circus
Charles Chaplin and Charles Reisner on the set of The Kid
Style and themes
While Chaplin’s comedic style is broadly defined as slapstick, it is considered restrained and intelligent, with the film historian Philip Kemp describing his work as a mix of “deft, balletic physical comedy and thoughtful, situation-based gags”.
Chaplin diverged from conventional slapstick by slowing the pace and exhausting each scene of its comic potential, with more focus on developing the viewer’s relationship to the characters. Unlike conventional slapstick comedies,
Robinson states that the comic moments in Chaplin’s films centre on the Tramp’s attitude to the things happening to him: the humour does not come from the Tramp bumping into a tree, but from his lifting his hat to the tree in apology.
Dan Kamin writes that Chaplin’s “quirky mannerisms” and “serious demeanour in the midst of slapstick action” are other key aspects of his comedy, while the surreal transformation of objects and the employment of in-camera trickery are also common features.
Charles Chaplin and Edna Purviance in The Immigrant (1917)
Chaplin’s silent films typically follow the Tramp’s efforts to survive in a hostile world. The character lives in poverty and is frequently treated badly, but remains kind and upbeat; defying his social position, he strives to be seen as a gentleman.
As Chaplin said in 1925, “The whole point of the Little Fellow is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he’s still a man of dignity.” The Tramp defies authority figures and “gives as good as he gets”, leading Robinson and Louvish to see him as a representative for the underprivileged – an “everyman turned heroic saviour”.
Hansmeyer notes that several of Chaplin’s films end with “the homeless and lonely Tramp [walking] optimistically … into the sunset … to continue his journey”.
Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard in Modern Times (1936)
“It is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule … ridicule, I suppose, is an attitude of defiance; we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature – or go insane.”
—Chaplin explaining why his comedies often make fun of tragic circumstances
The infusion of pathos is a well-known aspect of Chaplin’s work, and Larcher notes his reputation for “[inducing] laughter and tears”. Sentimentality in his films comes from a variety of sources, with Louvish pinpointing “personal failure, society’s strictures, economic disaster, and the elements.”
Chaplin sometimes drew on tragic events when creating his films, as in the case of The Gold Rush (1925), which was inspired by the fate of the Donner Party. Constance B. Kuriyama has identified serious underlying themes in the early comedies, such as greed (The Gold Rush) and loss (The Kid). Chaplin also touched on controversial issues: immigration (The Immigrant, 1917); illegitimacy (The Kid, 1921); and drug use (Easy Street, 1917). He often explored these topics ironically, making comedy out of suffering.
Charles Chaplin in Easy Street (1917)
Social commentary was a feature of Chaplin’s films from early in his career, as he portrayed the underdog in a sympathetic light and highlighted the difficulties of the poor man. Later, as he developed a keen interest in economics and felt obliged to publicise his views,
Chaplin began incorporating overtly political messages into his films. Modern Times (1936) depicted factory workers in dismal conditions, The Great Dictator (1940) parodied Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini and ended in a speech against nationalism, Monsieur Verdoux(1947) criticised war and capitalism, and A King in New York (1957) attacked McCarthyism.
Charles Chaplin and Jack Oakie in The Great Dictator (1940)
Several of Chaplin’s films incorporate autobiographical elements, and the psychologist Sigmund Freud believed that Chaplin “always plays only himself as he was in his dismal youth”. The Kid is thought to reflect Chaplin’s childhood trauma of being sent into an orphanage, the main characters in Limelight (1952) contain elements from the lives of his parents, and A King in New York references Chaplin’s experiences of being shunned by the United States.
Many of his sets, especially in street scenes, bear a strong similarity to Kennington, where he grew up. Stephen M. Weissman has argued that Chaplin’s problematic relationship with his mentally ill mother was often reflected in his female characters and the Tramp’s desire to save them.
Charles Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill in City Lights (1931)
Regarding the structure of Chaplin’s films, the scholar Gerald Mast sees them as consisting of sketches tied together by the same theme and setting, rather than having a tightly unified storyline.
Visually, his films are simple and economic,with scenes portrayed as if set on a stage. His approach to filming was described by the art director Eugène Lourié: “Chaplin did not think in ‘artistic’ images when he was shooting. He believed that action is the main thing. The camera is there to photograph the actors”. In his autobiography, Chaplin wrote, “Simplicity is best … pompous effects slow up action, are boring and unpleasant … The camera should not intrude.”
This approach has prompted criticism, since the 1940s, for being “old fashioned”, while the film scholar Donald McCaffrey sees it as an indication that Chaplin never completely understood film as a medium. Kamin, however, comments that Chaplin’s comedic talent would not be enough to remain funny on screen if he did not have an “ability to conceive and direct scenes specifically for the film medium”.
Charles Chaplin and Jackie Coogan on the set of The Kid (1921)
Composing
Charlie with Gus Arnheim (at the piano) and Abe Lyman
Chaplin developed a passion for music as a child and taught himself to play the piano, violin, and cello. He considered the musical accompaniment of a film to be important, and from A Woman of Paris onwards he took an increasing interest in this area.
With the advent of sound technology, Chaplin began using a synchronised orchestral soundtrack – composed by himself – for City Lights(1931). He thereafter composed the scores for all of his films, and from the late 1950s to his death, he scored all of his silent features and some of his short films.
Chaplin and Meredith Wilson rehearsing with musicians for The Great Dictator (1940)
As Chaplin was not a trained musician, he could not read sheet music and needed the help of professional composers, such as David Raksin, Raymond Rasch and Eric James, when creating his scores.
Musical directors were employed to oversee the recording process, such as Alfred Newman for City Lights. Although some critics have claimed that credit for his film music should be given to the composers who worked with him, Raksin – who worked with Chaplin on Modern Times – stressed Chaplin’s creative position and active participation in the composing process.
Happier times on the MODERN TIMES soundstage: Charles Dunworth, inventor of the system of visual cues for synchronization; conductor Alfred Newman; Chaplin; arranger and co-orchestrator David Raksin; recording engineer Paul Neal; and co-orchestrator Edward Powell. Photo by Max Autrey, c. November 1935.
This process, which could take months, would start with Chaplin describing to the composer(s) exactly what he wanted and singing or playing tunes he had improvised on the piano. These tunes were then developed further in a close collaboration among the composer(s) and Chaplin. According to film historian Jeffrey Vance, “although he relied upon associates to arrange varied and complex instrumentation, the musical imperative is his, and not a note in a Chaplin musical score was placed there without his assent.”
Chaplin’s compositions produced three popular songs. “Smile“, composed originally for Modern Times (1936) and later set to lyrics by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, was a hit for Nat King Cole in 1954.
Chaplin composed the music, while John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the lyrics and title in 1954
For Limelight, Chaplin composed “Terry’s Theme”, which was popularised by Jimmy Young as “Eternally” (1952). Finally, “This Is My Song“, performed by Petula Clark for A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), reached number one on the UK and other European charts. Chaplin also received his only competitive Oscar for his composition work, as the Limelight theme won an Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1973 following the film’s re-release.
Exhibitor’s Campaign Book for Limelight (1952)
Legacy
Chaplin as the Tramp in 1915, cinema’s “most universal icon”
In 1998, the film critic Andrew Sarris called Chaplin “arguably the single most important artist produced by the cinema, certainly its most extraordinary performer and probably still its most universal icon”.
He is described by the British Film Institute as “a towering figure in world culture”, and was included in Time magazine’s list of the “100 Most Important People of the 20th Century” for the “laughter [he brought] to millions” and because he “more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art”.
The image of the Tramp has become a part of cultural history; according to Simon Louvish, the character is recognisable to people who have never seen a Chaplin film, and in places where his films are never shown. The critic Leonard Maltin has written of the “unique” and “indelible” nature of the Tramp, and argued that no other comedian matched his “worldwide impact”.
Praising the character, Richard Schickel suggests that Chaplin’s films with the Tramp contain the most “eloquent, richly comedic expressions of the human spirit” in movie history. Memorabilia connected to the character still fetches large sums in auctions: in 2006 a bowler hat and a bamboo cane that were part of the Tramp’s costume were bought for $140,000 in a Los Angeles auction.
Chaplin memorabilia
As a filmmaker, Chaplin is considered a pioneer and one of the most influential figures of the early twentieth century.
He is often credited as one of the medium’s first artists. Film director and critic Mark Cousins has written that Chaplin “changed not only the imagery of cinema, but also its sociology and grammar” and claims that Chaplin was as important to the development of comedy as a genre as D.W. Griffith was to drama.
He was the first to popularise feature-length comedy and to slow down the pace of action, adding pathos and subtlety to it. Although his work is mostly classified as slapstick, Chaplin’s drama A Woman of Paris (1923) was a major influence on Ernst Lubitsch‘s film The Marriage Circle (1924) and thus played a part in the development of “sophisticated comedy”.
Charles Chaplin signing a poster for Woman of Paris (1923
According to David Robinson, Chaplin’s innovations were “rapidly assimilated to become part of the common practice of film craft.” Filmmakers who cited Chaplin as an influence include Federico Fellini (who called Chaplin “a sort of Adam, from whom we are all descended”),
Jacques Tati (“Without him I would never have made a film”), René Clair (“He inspired practically every filmmaker”), Michael Powell, Billy Wilder,Vittorio De Sica, and Richard Attenborough. Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky praised Chaplin as “the only person to have gone down into cinematic history without any shadow of a doubt. The films he left behind can never grow old.”
Chaplin also strongly influenced the work of later comedians. Marcel Marceau said he was inspired to become a mime artist after watching Chaplin, while the actor Raj Kapoor based his screen persona on the Tramp. Mark Cousins has also detected Chaplin’s comedic style in the French character Monsieur Hulot and the Italian character Totò.
Felix the Cat and Charles Chaplin in Felix in Hollywood (1923)
In other fields, Chaplin helped inspire the cartoon characters Felix the Cat and Mickey Mouse, and was an influence on the Dada art movement. As one of the founding members of United Artists, Chaplin also had a role in the development of the film industry. Gerald Mast has written that although UA never became a major company like MGM or Paramount Pictures, the idea that directors could produce their own films was “years ahead of its time”.
Charles Chaplin, Mickey Mouse and Douglas Fairbanks – Cinema Poster
In the 21st century, several of Chaplin’s films are still regarded as classics and among the greatest ever made. The 2012 Sight & Sound poll, which compiles “top ten” ballots from film critics and directors to determine each group’s most acclaimed films, saw City Lights rank among the critics’ top 50, Modern Times inside the top 100, and The Great Dictator and The Gold Rush placed in the top 250.
The top 100 films as voted on by directors included Modern Times at number 22, City Lights at number 30, and The Gold Rush at number 91. Every one of Chaplin’s features received a vote. In 2007, the American Film Institute named City Lights the 11th greatest American film of all time, while The Gold Rush and Modern Times again ranked in the top 100. Books about Chaplin continue to be published regularly, and he is a popular subject for media scholars and film archivists. Many of Chaplin’s film have had a DVD and Blu-Ray release.
Charles Chaplin Collection – Blu Ray Box Set
Commemoration and tributes
Chaplin’s final home, Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland, has been converted into a museum named “Chaplin’s World“. It opened on 17 April 2016 after 15 years of development, and is described by Reuters as “an interactive museum showcasing the life and works of Charlie Chaplin”.
Chaplin’s World, Museum, Manoir de Ban in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland
On the 128th anniversary of his birth, a record-setting 662 people dressed as the Tramp in an event organised by the museum. Previously, the Museum of the Moving Image in London held a permanent display on Chaplin, and hosted a dedicated exhibition to his life and career in 1988. The London Film Museum hosted an exhibition called Charlie Chaplin – The Great Londoner, from 2010 until 2013.
In London, a statue of Chaplin as the Tramp, sculpted by John Doubleday and unveiled in 1981, is located in Leicester Square. The city also includes a road named after him in central London, “Charlie Chaplin Walk”, which is the location of the BFI IMAX.
There are nine blue plaques memorialising Chaplin in London, Hampshire, and Yorkshire. The Swiss town of Vevey named a park in his honour in 1980 and erected a statue there in 1982. In 2011, two large murals depicting Chaplin on two 14-storey buildings were also unveiled in Vevey. Chaplin has also been honoured by the Irish town of Waterville, where he spent several summers with his family in the 1960s. A statue was erected in 1998; since 2011, the town has been host to the annual Charlie Chaplin Comedy Film Festival, which was founded to celebrate Chaplin’s legacy and to showcase new comic talent.
Charles Chaplin Walk – BFI Imax Waterloo,, London
Chaplin statue in Waterville, Ireland
In other tributes, a minor planet, 3623 Chaplin – discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1981 – is named after Chaplin. Throughout the 1980s, the Tramp image was used by IBM to advertise their personal computers. Chaplin’s 100th birthday anniversary in 1989 was marked with several events around the world, and on 15 April 2011, a day before his 122nd birthday, Google celebrated him with a special Google Doodle video on its global and other country-wide homepages. Many countries, spanning six continents, have honoured Chaplin with a postal stamp.
Charles Chaplin on stamps from around the world
Chaplin’s legacy is managed on behalf of his children by the Chaplin office, located in Paris. The office represents Association Chaplin, founded by some of his children “to protect the name, image and moral rights” to his body of work, Roy Export SAS, which owns the copyright to most of his films made after 1918, and Bubbles Incorporated S.A., which owns the copyrights to his image and name.
Charlie Chaplin : Chaplin Project / Cineteca di Bologna
Their central archive is held at the archives of Montreux, Switzerland and scanned versions of its contents, including 83,630 images, 118 scripts, 976 manuscripts, 7,756 letters, and thousands of other documents, are available for research purposes at the Chaplin Research Centre at the Cineteca di Bologna.
The photographic archive, which includes approximately 10,000 photographs from Chaplin’s life and career, is kept at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland. The British Film Institute has also established the Charles Chaplin Research Foundation, and the first international Charles Chaplin Conference was held in London in July 2005.
Young Charlie Chaplin (1989) Dir: Baz Taylor Poster
Chaplin’s life has also been the subject of several stage productions. Two musicals, Little Tramp and Chaplin, were produced in the early 1990s. In 2006, Thomas Meehan and Christopher Curtis created another musical, Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin, which was first performed at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego in 2010. It was adapted for Broadway two years later, re-titled Chaplin – A Musical. Chaplin was portrayed by Robert McClure in both productions. In 2013, two plays about Chaplin premiered in Finland: Chaplin at the Svenska Teatern, and Kulkuri (The Tramp) at the Tampere Workers’ Theatre.
A day in Chaplin’s life in 1909 is dramatised in the chapter entitled “Modern Times” in Alan Moore‘s Jerusalem (2016), a novel set in the author’s home town of Northampton, England.
Chaplin’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is located at 6755 Hollywood Boulevard. Although the project started in 1958, Chaplin only received his star in 1970 because of his political views.
He was also awarded honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxford and the University of Durham in 1962. In 1965, he and Ingmar Bergman were joint winners of the Erasmus Prize and, in 1971, he was appointed a Commander of the National Order of the Legion of Honour by the French government.
Charles Chaplin receiving his honorary Doctor of Letters degrees by the University of Oxford
From the film industry, Chaplin received a special Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1972, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lincoln Center Film Society the same year. The latter has since been presented annually to filmmakers as The Chaplin Award. Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1972, having been previously excluded because of his political beliefs.
Chaplin received three Academy Awards: an Honorary Award for “versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing, and producing The Circus” in 1929, a second Honorary Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century” in 1972, and a Best Score award in 1973 for Limelight (shared with Ray Rasch and Larry Russell).
Six of Chaplin’s films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
The British Film Institute has compiled an excellent filmography with plenty of information on Chaplin’s films, including detailed descriptions of the very early shorts.
I used a large number of books, periodicals, magazines and on line libraries in order to research the life and the works of Charles Chaplin.
It has taken longer than a year to gather the photographs for this article.
I sincerely hope that reading this illustrated biography and researching the sources will drive you to further viewing and analysis of Chaplin’s work.
There is much to learn from his unsurpassed cinematic genius.
Balio, Tino (1979). “Charles Chaplin, Entrepreneur: A United Artist”. Journal of the University Film Association. University of Illinois Press. 31 (1): 11–21.
Dale, Alan S. (2000). Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN0-8166-3658-3.
Epstein, Jerry (1988). Remembering Charlie. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN0-7475-0266-8.
Friedrich, Otto (1986). City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940’s. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-20949-7.
Frost, Jennifer (2007). “‘Good Riddance to Bad Company’: Hedda Hopper, Hollywood Gossip, and the Campaign against Charlie Chaplin, 1940–1952”. Australasian Journal of American Studies. Australia and New Zealand American Studies Association. 26 (2): 74–88.
Gehring, Wes D. (2014). Chaplin’s War Trilogy: An Evolving Lens in Three Dark Comedies, 1918–1947. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-7465-3.
Gunning, Tom (1990). “Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image by Charles J. Maland”. Film Quarterly. University of California Press. 43 (3): 41–43. doi:10.2307/1212638. JSTOR1212638.
Hansmeyer, Christian (1999). Charlie Chaplin’s Techniques for the Creation of Comic Effect in his Films. Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth. ISBN978-3-638-78719-2.
Jackson, Kathy Merlock (2003). “Mickey and the Tramp: Walt Disney’s Debt to Charlie Chaplin”. The Journal of American Culture. 26 (1): 439–444. doi:10.1111/1542-734X.00104.
Kamin, Dan (2011) [2008]. The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN978-0-8108-7780-1.
Kuriyama, Constance B. (1992). “Chaplin’s Impure Comedy: The Art of Survival”. Film Quarterly. University of California Press. 45 (3): 26–38. doi:10.2307/1213221. JSTOR1213221.
Larcher, Jérôme (2011). Masters of Cinema: Charlie Chaplin. London: Cahiers du Cinéma. ISBN978-2-86642-606-4.
Maland, Charles J. (1989). Chaplin and American Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN0-691-02860-5.
Maland, Charles J. (2007). City Lights. London: British Film Institute. ISBN978-1-84457-175-8.
Marriot, A. J. (2005). Chaplin: Stage by Stage. Hitchin, Herts: Marriot Publishing. ISBN978-0-9521308-1-9.
Mast, Gerald (1985) [1981]. A Short History of the Movies: Third Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-281462-1.
McCaffrey, Donald W., ed. (1971). Focus on Chaplin. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN0-13-128207-7.
Neibaur, James L. (2000). “Chaplin at Essanay: Artist in Transition”. Film Quarterly. University of California Press. 54 (1): 23–25. doi:10.2307/1213798. JSTOR1213798.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, ed. (1997). Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-874242-5.
Raksin, David; Berg, Charles M. (1979). “Music Composed by Charles Chaplin: Auteur or Collaborateur?”. Journal of the University Film Association. University of Illinois Press. 31 (1): 47–50.
Sarris, Andrew (1998). You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet: The American Talking Film – History and Memory, 1927–1949. New York City, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-503883-5.
Sbardellati, John (2012). J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies: The FBI and the Origins of Hollywood’s Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN978-0-8014-5008-2.
Schickel, Richard, ed. (2006). The Essential Chaplin – Perspectives on the Life and Art of the Great Comedian. Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee. ISBN1-56663-682-5.
Silverberg, Miriam (2006). Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-26008-5.
Sheaffer, Louis (1973). O’Neill: Son and Artist. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company. ISBN0-316-78336-6.
Simmons, Sherwin (2001). “Chaplin Smiles on the Wall: Berlin Dada and Wish-Images of Popular Culture”. New German Critique. Duke University Press (84): 3–34. doi:10.2307/827796. JSTOR827796.
Sklar, Robert (2001). Film: An International History of the Medium (Second edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN978-0-13-034049-8.
Slowik, Michael (2014). After the Silents: Hollywood Film Music in the Early Era, 1926-1934. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. ISBN978-0231165839.
Williams, Gregory Paul (2006). The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History. Los Angeles, CA: B L Press. ISBN978-0-9776299-0-9
Notes
Wikipedia references and footnotes
Jump up^An MI5 investigation in 1952 was unable to find any record of Chaplin’s birth.[3]Chaplin biographer David Robinson notes that it is not surprising that his parents failed to register the birth: “It was easy enough, particularly for music hall artists, constantly moving (if they were lucky) from one town to another, to put off and eventually forget this kind of formality; at that time the penalties were not strict or efficiently enforced.”[2] In 2011 a letter sent to Chaplin in the 1970s came to light which claimed that he had been born in a Gypsy caravan at Black Patch Park in Smethwick, Staffordshire. Chaplin’s son Michael has suggested that the information must have been significant to his father in order for him to retain the letter.[4]Regarding the date of his birth, Chaplin believed it to be 16 April, but an announcement in the 11 May 1889 edition of The Magnet stated it as the 15th.[5]
Jump up^Sydney was born when Hannah Chaplin was 19. The identity of his biological father is not known for sure, but Hannah claimed it was a Mr. Hawkes.[7]
Jump up^Hannah became ill in May 1896, and was admitted to hospital. Southwark Council ruled that it was necessary to send the children to a workhouse “owing to the absence of their father and the destitution and illness of their mother”.[15]
Jump up^According to Chaplin, Hannah had been booed off stage, and the manager chose him – as he was standing in the wings – to go on as her replacement. He remembered confidently entertaining the crowd, and receiving laughter and applause.[27]
Jump up^The Eight Lancashire Lads were still touring until 1908; the exact time Chaplin left the group is unverified, but based on research, A. J. Marriot believes it was in December 1900.[30]
Jump up^William Gillette co-wrote the Sherlock Holmes play with Arthur Conan Doyle, and had been starring in it since its New York opening in 1899. He had come to London in 1905 to appear in a new play, Clarice. Its reception was poor, and Gillette decided to add an “after-piece” called The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes. This short play was what Chaplin originally came to London to appear in. After three nights, Gillette chose to close Clarice and replace it with Sherlock Holmes. Chaplin had so pleased Gillette with his performance in The Painful Predicament that he was kept on as Billy for the full play.[38]
Jump up^Chaplin attempted to be a “Jewish comedian”, but the act was poorly received and he performed it only once.[45]
Jump up^Robinson notes that “this was not strictly true: the character was to take a year or more to evolve its full dimensions and even then – which was its particular strength – it would evolve during the whole rest of his career”.[65]
Jump up^After leaving Essanay, Chaplin found himself engaged in a legal battle with the company that lasted until 1922. It began when Essanay extended his last film for them, Burlesque on Carmen, from a two-reeler to a feature film (by adding out-takes and new scenes with Leo White) without his consent. Chaplin applied for an injunction to prevent its distribution, but the case was dismissed in court. In a counter-claim, Essanay alleged that Chaplin had broken his contract by not producing the agreed number of films and sued him for $500,000 in damages. In addition, the company compiled another film, Triple Trouble (1918), from various unused Chaplin scenes and new material shot by White.[91]
Jump up^The British embassy made a statement saying: “[Chaplin] is of as much use to Great Britain now making big money and subscribing to war loans as he would be in the trenches.”[108]
Jump up^In her memoirs, Lita Grey later claimed that many of her complaints were “cleverly, shockingly enlarged upon or distorted” by her lawyers.[165]
Jump up^Chaplin left the United States on 31 January 1931, and returned on 10 June 1932.[193]
Jump up^Chaplin later said that if he had known the extent of the Nazi Party’s actions he would not have made the film; “Had I known the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator; I could not have made fun of the homicidal insanity of the Nazis.”[218]
Jump up^Speculation about Chaplin’s racial origin existed from the earliest days of his fame, and it was often reported that he was a Jew. Research has uncovered no evidence of this, and when a reporter asked in 1915 if it was true, Chaplin responded, “I have not that good fortune.” The Nazi Party believed that he was Jewish and banned The Gold Rush on this basis. Chaplin responded by playing a Jew in The Great Dictatorand announced, “I did this film for the Jews of the world.”[223]
Jump up^Nevertheless, both Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt liked the film, which they saw at private screenings before its release. Roosevelt subsequently invited Chaplin to read the film’s final speech over the radio during his January 1941 inauguration, with the speech becoming a “hit” of the celebration.[231] Chaplin was often invited to other patriotic functions to read the speech to audiences during the years of the war.[231]
Jump up^In December 1942, Barry broke into Chaplin’s home with a handgun and threatened suicide while holding him at gunpoint. This lasted until the next morning, when Chaplin was able to get the gun from her. Barry broke into Chaplin’s home a second time later that month, and he had her arrested. She was then prosecuted for vagrancy in January 1943 – Barry had been unable to pay her hotel bills, and was found wandering the streets of Beverly Hills after taking an overdose of barbiturates.[235]
Jump up^According to the prosecutor, Chaplin had violated the act when he paid for Barry’s trip to New York in October 1942, when he was also visiting the city. Both Chaplin and Barry agreed that they had met there briefly, and according to Barry, they had sexual intercourse.[237] Chaplin claimed that the last time he was intimate with Barry was May 1942.[238]
Jump up^Carol Ann’s blood group was B, Barry’s was A, and Chaplin’s was O. In California at this time, blood tests were not accepted as evidence in legal trials.[243]
Jump up^Chaplin and O’Neill met on 30 October 1942 and married on 16 June 1943 in Carpinteria, California.[246] Eugene O’Neill disowned his daughter as a result.[247]
Jump up^Chaplin had already attracted the attention of the FBI long before the 1940s, the first mention of him in their files being from 1922. J. Edgar Hoover first requested that a Security Index Card be filed for Chaplin in September 1946, but the Los Angeles office was slow to react and only began active investigation the next spring.[268] The FBI also requested and received help from MI5, particularly on investigating the false claims that Chaplin had not been born in England but in France or Eastern Europe, and that his real name was Israel Thornstein. The MI5 found no evidence of Chaplin being involved in the Communist Party.[269]
Jump up^In November 1947, Chaplin asked Pablo Picasso to hold a demonstration outside the US embassy in Paris to protest the deportation proceedings of Hanns Eisler, and in December, he took part in a petition asking for the deportation process to be dropped. In 1948, Chaplin supported the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Henry Wallace; and in 1949 he supported two peace conferences and signed a petition protesting the Peekskill incident.[276]
Jump up^Limelight was conceived as a novel, which Chaplin wrote but never intended for publication.[280]
Jump up^Before leaving America, Chaplin had ensured that Oona had access to his assets.[293]
Jump up^Robinson speculates that Switzerland was probably chosen because it “was likely to be the most advantageous from a financial point of view.”[296]
Jump up^The honour had already been proposed in 1931 and 1956, but was vetoed after a Foreign Office report raised concerns over Chaplin’s political views and private life. They feared the act would damage the reputation of the British honours system and relations with the United States,[335]
Jump up^Despite asking for an Anglican funeral, Chaplin appeared to be agnostic. In his autobiography he wrote, “I am not religious in the dogmatic sense … I neither believe nor disbelieve in anything … My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that … in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good.”[340]
Jump up^Stan Laurel, Chaplin’s co-performer at the company, remembered that Karno’s sketches regularly inserted “a bit of sentiment right in the middle of a funny music hall turn.”[348]
Jump up^Although the film had originally been released in 1952, it did not play for one week in Los Angeles because of its boycott, and thus did not meet the criterion for nomination until it was re-released in 1972.[417]
Jump up^On his birthday, 16 April, City Lights was screened at a gala at the Dominion Theatre in London, the site of its British premiere in 1931.[458] In Hollywood, a screening of a restored version of How to Make Movies was held at his former studio, and in Japan, he was honoured with a musical tribute. Retrospectives of his work were presented that year at The National Film Theatre in London,[459] the Munich Stadtmuseum[459] and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which also dedicated a gallery exhibition, Chaplin: A Centennial Celebration, to him.[460]
^ Jump up to:abcdVance, Jeffrey (4 August 2003). “Chaplin the Composer: An Excerpt from Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema”. Variety Special Advertising Supplement, pp. 20–21.
This week we’ll find a selection of brand new features, two animated films and two classics on digitally restored prints in 4K.
A Paris Education (Jean-Paul Civeyrac, 2018) is a French drama, that follows the lives of Parisian students, as they study film, discuss politics, quote poetry and engage in intimate relationships. Described by the critics as a contemporary feature with elements of the late ’60s, with politics, passion and debauchery at its forefront. It features some of the best new acting talent to come out of France in recent years. It will appeal to all true cinephiles, as its protagonists argue about film directors and classic films, and make friendships based on their picture house experiences.
365 days ( 365 Dni, Barbara Bialowas, 2020) is a Polish erotic thriller, based on the best-selling novel of the same name from author Blanka Lipinksa. It generated a high level of controversy for its portrayal of women also dividing the critics and audiences alike. It is on a limited release in the UK.
Emma (Autumn De Wilde, 2020) is a comedy/drama directed by Autumn De Wilde and written by Eleanor Catton. It is based on the 1815 novel of the same name by Jane Austen. The film stars Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn and Bill Nighy. Critics have described it an as amiable, genial and interestingly unassuming new adaptation of Austen’s Regency classic. Anya Taylor-Joy has been praised for her unsettling performance, with eerily unblinking gaze radiating the aura of calculating and predatory. Emma offers a stunningly crafted and uproarious adaptation of Austen’s novel, with gorgeous costumes and delightfully charming performances, and will be a true weekend delight for all period drama fans.
First Love (Takashi Miike, 2019) is a Japanese–British crime thriller feature directed by Takashi Miike. It was premiered in Directors Fortnight during the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Its story revolves around Leo, a young boxer, who meets Monica, a call girl and addict who has become involved in a drug-smuggling scheme. Over one night in Tokyo, the two are pursued by a corrupt cop, a yakuza and a female assassin sent by the Chinese Triads. IFRR described it as a blood-spattered, nostalgic love letter to the 1990s. First Love is most reminiscent of Miike’s Black Society trilogy, but with a contemporary twist. With the usual absurd ingredients – rolling heads, black humour and always-screaming Yakuza – add a dash of romance and you are ready for this explosive ride. This is the 103rd feature film by this Japanese genre master.
Jihad Jane (Ciaran Cassidy, 2020) is a documentary that explores the lives of Colleen LaRose and Jamie Paul Ramirez, convicted terrorists, who were involved in a plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist. It is made with sensitivity by Irish film-maker Ciarán Cassidy, offering us an in-depth study of the two women and LaRose’s childhood that was scarred by horrific abuse. It is on a limited UK release.
When Lambs Become Lions (Jon Kasbe, 2018) is is a documentary that examines the Kenyan ivory-hunting racket through the eyes of poacher and protector alike. Director Jon Kasbe followed the subjects of this film over a three-year period, gaining an extraordinary level of access and trust on both sides of the ideological and ethical spectrum as he became part of their everyday lives. The result is a rare and visually arresting look through the perspectives and motives of the people at the epicenter of the conservation divide. It has been widely praised by the critics and it won several festival rewards that included Mountainfilm and Tribeca.
The Call of the Wild (Chris Sanders, 2020) is an adventure film based on the Jack London 1903 novel of the same name and Twentieth Century Pictures’ previous 1935 film adaptation. The film is directed by Chris Sanders, in his live-action directorial debut, written by Michael Green, and stars Harrison Ford, Dan Stevens, Omar Sy, Karen Gillan, Bradley Whitford and Colin Woodell. With its stunning scenery, many action sequences and Ford in the lead it will attract every Jack London fan.
Spycies (Guillaume Ivernell, Zhyi Zhang, 2019) this animated film is a Chinese-French co-production, and similar to Zootropolis its setting is in an animal republic whose citizens have curbed their dietary requirements to live in harmony with one another. Critics described it as an intriguing combination of James Bond spy gadgets, manic characters coupled with some superhero-ish action sequences that will be entertaining all viewers.
Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler, 2020) is a 2020 adventure comedy film based on the video game franchise published by Sega. The film is directed by Jeff Fowler, in his feature directorial debut, from a screenplay by Pat Casey and Josh Miller. It stars Ben Schwartz as the voice of the title character and Jim Carrey as Doctor Robotnik, as well as James Marsden and Tika Sumpter. In the film, Sonic teams-up with a local town sheriff named Tom to escape the government and defeat the evil Dr.Robotnik, who wants to steal Sonic’s powers for his robotics. It received positive reviews indicating that the character’s ongoing cat-and-mouse game is entertaining and that the passionate fans of Sega will find plenty of enjoyable references to Sonic’s colourful history.
Two classic films are re-released this week and presented on new digital restoration 4K prints:
Ghost (Jerry Zucker, 1999) is a 1990 American melodramatic romantic fantasy film directed by Jerry Zucker, written by Bruce Joel Rubin, and starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwin, and Rick Aviles. The plot centres on a young woman in jeopardy (Moore), the ghost of her murdered lover (Swayze), and a reluctant psychic (Goldberg) who assists him in saving her. Ghost is one of the most popular melodramas of all times. Critics described it as a top feature that offers viewers a poignant romance while blending elements of comedy, horror, and mystery, all adding up to one of the greatest hits of that era.
The Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher, 1987) is a horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffery Boam. Janice Fischer and James Jeremias wrote the film’s story. The film’s ensemble cast includes Corey Haim, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes. The film is about two brothers who move to California to a beach town and end up fighting a gang of young vampires. The title is a reference to the Lost Boys in J.M.Barrie’s stories about Peter Pan and Neverland, who, like the vampires, never grow up. Critics described it as a film that brilliantly portrays vampirism as a metaphor for the kind of mythic male bonding that resists growing up, commitment, especially marriage.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Jessie Buckley, John Cena, Harry Collett, Marion Cotillard, Frances de la Tour, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Tom Holland, Carmel Laniado, Rami Malek, Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Robinson
This week is full of exciting features in our local cinemas…
Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019) is a South Korean dark comedy thriller focused on class conflict and social inequality. This deeply political feature follows the members of a poor family who scheme to become employed by a wealthy family. Their intention is to infiltrate this household and then posing as highly qualified individuals. Through his distinctive directorial style with a highly recognisable auteur signature, Joon-ho delivers one of the best satires of recent years. Parasite impressed critics at various festivals last year, and at the 92nd Academy Awards, it made history. Parasite won four awards at the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. It became the first South Korean film to receive Academy Award recognition, as well as the first non-English language film to win Best Picture. Unmissable, in short.
Mr Jones (Agnieszka Holland, 2019) The latest offering from one of the best living film directors, is a biographical thriller that follows the story of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones and his Soviet Union travels in 1933. His investigative works uncover the horrors of Holodomor, man-made famine in Ukraine, in which millions of citizens needlessly died. For anyone who loved her masterpieces, Europa Europa, In Darkness and Burning Bush this feature is going to be a real treat.
The Doors: Break On Through – A Celebration of Ray Manzarek (Justin Kreutzmann, 2018)is a documentary that celebrates the life and works of Ray Manzarek, the legendary co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors. It was filmed at the Fonda Theatre LA, and in a mixture of documentary and live show footage, we hear from the surviving band members and collaborators. Anyone familiar with their raw, uncompromising and highly political sounds will find the backstage anecdotes and reflections deeply illuminating. The film will be screened on 12th February, the day when Manzarek would have celebrated his 81st birthday.
Underwater (William Eubank, 2020) is a dark science fiction horror, that follows the trail of James Cameron’s Abyss, with its group of scientists at the bottom of the ocean. After an earthquake destroys their laboratory, the team led by Stewart unearth a group of deadly creatures that destroy everything in their path. Similar to the protagonists of Cuaron’s Gravity, they face a long battle for survival in which they are tested to the limits of their abilities. With Kristen Stewart in the lead and Bojan Bazelli behind the camera, Underwater provides us with plenty of thrilling moments, action and suspense from the deep.
Daniel Isn’t Real (Adam Egypt Mortimer, 2019)is a psychological horror, that received praise from critics after its festival appearances last year. It also features Patrick Schwarzenegger, Arnie’s son, in the lead role. Described as a stylishly crafted thriller, that has a daring take on the intersection of mental illness and creative inspiration. This intriguing concept in this film is said to be at its best when keeping the viewer fully off-balance.
Dolittle(Stephen Gaghan, 2020) also referred to as The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle is a fantasy adventure film. Based on a screenplay by Gaghan, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand, from a story by Thomas Shepherd. This is a reboot of the original Richard Fleisher’s Dr Doolitle. It is based on the titular character created by Hugh Lofting and inspired by The Voyages of Dr Doolittle, the second Doctor Dolittle book. Robert Downey Jr. is in the lead, alongside Antonio Banderas and Michael Sheen in live-action roles. The voice cast is stellar and includes Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Craig Robinson, Ralph Feinnes, Selena Gomez, and Marion Cotillard. It promises to deliver plenty of animal action with true Hugh Lofting spirit in the wild.
(from left) Lord Thomas Badgley (Jim Broadbent), Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen), Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett), Dr. John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.), dog Jip (back to camera, Tom Holland) and Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) in “Dolittle,” directed by Stephen Gaghan.
Birds of Prey (and the fantabulous EmancipationOf One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan, 2020)is another superhero film based on the DC Comics Team Birds of Prey. This is the eighth film in the DC Extended Universe and a follow up to David Eyer’s Suicide Squad (2016). It was directed by Cathy Yan and written by Christina Hodson, and stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elisabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong and Ewan McGregor. The film follows Harley Quinn as she joins forces with Helena Bertinelli, Dinah Lance, and Renee Montoya to save Cassandra Cain from Gotham City crime lord Black Mask. Birds of Prey is the first DCEU film and the second DC Films production to be rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It has received praise from critics for its visual style, Yan’s direction, and the performances of Robbie and McGregor.
Birds of Prey Margot Robbie CR: Claudette Barius/Warner Bros.
Plus One (Jeff Chan, Andrew Rhymer, 2019) is a romantic comedy, written, directed, and produced by Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer in their directorial debuts. It stars Maya Erskine, Jack Quaid, Beck Bennett, Rosalind Chao, Perrey Reeves and Ed Begley Jr. It won the Narrative Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. It has been well received by the critics, describing it as a feature that reinvigorates the rom-com with an entertaining outing. It is also elevated by well-matched leads and a story that embraces and transcends genre clichés.
There are two major restoration re-releases this week, and both are highly recommended to the fans of classic and archive cinema:
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) is a drama, adapted from Tennessee Williams’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning 1947 play of the same name, and an all-time classic. It is presented this week in a brand new restoration print, offered and distributed by the British Film Institute. It tells the story of a southern belle, Blanche DuBois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans apartment building. Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Sauk and Elia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production, also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her charismatic star power. Upon release the film drew widespread praise from critics, describing it as a feature where the inner torments are seldom projected with such sensitivity and clarity on the big screen. Roger Ebert called it a great ensemble of the movies. This is a wonderful opportunity to see it again on the big screen, in a beautiful, painstakingly restored digital print.
Fando Y Lis (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1968) is a surrealist feature-length debut by Alejandro Jodorowsky. The film follows Fando (Sergio Klainer) and his disabled girlfriend Lis (Diana Mariscal) through a barren, post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of the mythical city of Tar. On their journey they see many odd and profoundly disturbing characters and events. The narrative of the film leaves a lot to the audience’s interpretation, as the avant-garde and surreal nature in which the events of the film are presented. Jodorowsky wanted through his directorial debut to mimic the workings of the subconscious. The film premièred at the 1968 Acapulco film festival, and a full-scale riot broke out on its first night. It was later banned in Mexico. Roman Polanski (who was there with his wife Sharon Tate to promote his film Rosemary’s Baby) defended the film, stating that he defends any auteur’s right of expressing himself with complete liberty and that censorship in art and culture was just not acceptable. The film (cut by thirteen minutes) was later released in New York to generally negative reviews, with many critics comparing it unfavourably to Fellini Satyricon, which had recently opened. The film has received a 4K digital restoration and is re-released in UK cinemas by Abkco Films for a limited time commencing this week. This is a rare opportunity to see this cult classic on the big screen for the first time in over 50 years.
Let’s have a look at all that is offered in our local cinemas this week!
The Lighthouse (Dir: Robert Eggers, 2019) is described as a groundbreaking feature, with strong auteur filmmaking signature. A shining example of how to make visually exciting films on a low budget, with minimum physical resources and top actors. It stars Willem Dafoe in a monumental performance, described by many as his best to date.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (Dir: Terry Gilliam, 2018), controversial feature and in the making for almost 29 years. Plagued by production difficulties and legal suites, premiered at Cannes 2018, with its stellar cast and crew in attendance. With Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgard, Olga Kurylenko, Joanna Ribeiro, and Gilliam’s well-known visual eccentricity.
The Rhythm Section (Dir: Reed Morano, 2020) tough revenge thriller, based on Mark Burnell’s novel, and with Blake Lively in the lead. Her character compared to the female protagonists of Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow and La Femme Nikita. Features a relatable assassin. Delayed by ten months due to Lively injury on the set, and filmed in Dublin.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood (Dir: Marielle Heller, 2019) biographical drama based on Tom Junod’s Esquire article “Can You Say …. Hero?” with Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys and Chris Cooper. Depicting Lloyd Vogel, journalist for Esquire who is profiling beloved television icon Fred Rogers. Heartwarming direction, with secular sentiment and stunning performances. Chosen by Time Magazine as one of the ten best films of the year.
Richard Jewell (Dir: Clint Eastwood, 2020) real-life drama, based on Marie Brenner’s article “American Nightmare: The Ballad of Richard Jewell”. Nail-biting story of the Olympic Park bombing and its aftermath. With Paul Walter Houser, Sam Rockwell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde and Kathy Bates. Despite the controversy surrrounding its portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs, with good reviews and Academy Award nomination for the best-supporting actress.
Queen and Slim (Dir: Melina Matsoukas, 2019) stylish, provocative and powerful is its US press description. Matsoukas’ debut feature. A story of two African-Americans who go on the run after killing a police officer during a traffic stop gone wrong. British stars Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith highly impressive for the critics at various film festivals. Expect one of the most original and visually dynamic indie features of this year.
Show Me The Picture: The Story Of Jim Marshall (Dir: Alfred George Bailey, 2019), a documentary on the life and the works of music photographer Jim Marshall. Marshall’s imageswere said to be instantly recognisable, unlike his name. His photographs captured the heights of the Rock and Roll music era, from the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, to the civil rights movements and the most iconic moments of the 60’s. It features Peter Frampton, Anton Corbjin and Michael Douglas. Described as absorbing as his monochrome images.
Undocument (Dir: Kyla Simone Bruce, Amin Bakhshian 2017), UK/Iranian/Jordanian co-production, a witness to four journeys of love and loss, immigration and identity across three continents. Focused on some of the most important issues of our age, and co-directed by a promising young British director. Finally in distribution after a three-year-long wait.
Also on release this week:
For the fans of Polish cinema there are two urban crime thrillers, Psy: 3 W Imie Zasad (Dir: Wladyslaw Pasykovski, 2020) and Jak Zostalem Gangsterem (Maciej Kawulski, 2020).
For the fans of World Cinema there are a few treats with Sudanese Talking About Trees (Dir: Suhaib Gasmelbari, 2019), Philippine Quezon’s Game (Dir: Matthew E Rosen, 2018) and Swiss Le Grand Voyage (Dir: Liliana Dias, 2015).
Plenty to keep us busy with suspense, adventure and entertainment until next Friday!
Let us know how you experienced them, Film Dialogue always looks forward to hearing from you!
Due to World War I, Violet’s father moved his family to Boston, Massachusetts. By the time she was ten, the family had relocated to Hollywood, California. Her older sister, an actress who went by the name of Jean Fenwick, landed a job as a contract player with FBO Studios.
Jean Fenwick
Violet attended Le Conte Junior High School and Hollywood High School. In 1928 Violet was approached by silent screen actress Nance O’Neil who offered her speech and movement lessons, and with her sister Jean’s help, Violet soon entered the movies. She secured a contract with Pathé where she was featured in many short subjects under the name Marilyn Morgan.
Marian Marsh as Marilyn Morgan
Marian Marsh as Marilyn Morgan
She was seen in a small roles in Howard Hughes‘s classic Hell’s Angels (1930) and Eddie Cantor‘s lavish Technicolor musical Whoopee! (1930). Not long afterwards, she was signed by Warner Bros. and her name was changed to Marian Marsh.
Marian Marsh and Howard Hughes
Marian Marsh in Whoopee (1930)
Hollywood success
In 1931, after appearing in a number of short films, Marsh landed one of her most important roles in Svengali opposite John Barrymore. Marsh was chosen by Barrymore, himself, for the role of “Trilby”. Barrymore, who had selected her partly because she resembled his wife, coached her performance throughout the picture’s filming. Svengali was based on the 1894 novel Trilby written by George du Maurier. A popular play, likewise entitled Trilby, followed in 1895.
Marian Marsh and John Barrymore in Svengali (1931)
Marian Marsh and John Barrymore in Svengali (1931)
In the film version, Marsh plays the artist’s model Trilby, who is transformed into a great opera star by the sinister hypnotist, Svengali. The word “Svengali'” has entered the English language, defining a person who, with sometimes evil intent, tries to persuade another to do what he desires.
Marsh was awarded the title of WAMPAS Baby Stars in August 1931 even before her second movie with Warner Brothers was released. With her ability to project warmth, sincerity and inner strength on the screen along with critical praise and the audience’s approval of Svengali, she continued to star in a string of successful films for Warner Bros. including Five Star Final (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, The Mad Genius (1931) with Barrymore, The Road to Singapore (1931) with William Powell, The Sport Parade (1932) with Joel McCrea Beauty and the Boss (1932) with Warren William, and Under 18 (again with William).
In 1932, in the midst of a grueling work schedule, Marsh left Warner Bros. and took several film offers in Europe which lasted until 1934. She enjoyed working in England and Germany, as well as vacationing several times in Paris. Back in the United States, she appeared as the heroine, Elnora, in a popular adaptation of the perennial favorite A Girl of the Limberlost (1934).
When her contract expired in 1936, Marsh once again freelanced; appearing steadily in movies for RKO Radio Pictures where she made Saturday’s Heroes with Van Heflin, and for Paramount Pictures where she played a young woman caught up in a mystery in The Great Gambini (1937). She appeared with comic Joe E. Brown in When’s Your Birthday? (1937), and Richard Arlen in Missing Daughters (1939). In the 1940s, Marsh played the wife in Gentleman from Dixie (1941) and, in her last screen appearance, Marsh portrayed the daughter in House of Errors (1942) which starred veteran silent film actor, Harry Langdon.
Marsh married a stockbroker named Albert Scott on March 29, 1938 and had two children with him. They divorced in 1959. In 1960, Marsh married Cliff Henderson, an aviation pioneer and entrepreneur whom she had met in the early 1930s. They moved to Palm Desert, California, a town Henderson founded in the 1940s.
In the 1960s Marsh founded Desert Beautiful, a non-profit, all volunteer conservation organization to promote environmental and beautification programs.
Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress.
Merkel was born in Kentucky and acted on stage in New York in the 1920s. She went to Hollywood in 1930 and became a popular film actress. Two of her best-known performances are in the films 42nd Street and Destry Rides Again. She won a Tony award in 1956, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 1961.
Una Merkel in 42nd Street promo
Una Merkel with Marlene Dietrich in Destry Rides Again
Una Merkel was born in Covington, Kentucky, to Arno Merkel and Bessie Phares but in her early childhood, she lived in many of the Southern United States due to her father’s job as a traveling salesman.
At the age of 15, her parents and she moved to Philadelphia. They stayed there a year or so before settling in New York City, where she began attending the Alviene School of Dramatic Art.
Una Merkel aged 4
Because of her strong resemblance to actress Lillian Gish, Merkel was offered a part as Gish’s youngest sister in a silent film called World Shadows.
Unfortunately, the public never saw the film because funding for it dried up, and it was never completed. Merkel went on to appear in a few silent films during the silent era, several of them for the Lee Bradford Corporation. She also appeared in the two-reel Love’s Old Sweet Song (1923), which was made by Lee DeForest in his Phonofilmsound-on-film process and starred Louis Wolheim and Helen Weir.
Not making much of a mark in films, Merkel turned her attention to the theater and found work in several important plays on Broadway. Her biggest triumph was in Coquette (1927), which starred her idol, Helen Hayes.
Invited to Hollywood by famous director D. W. Griffith to play Ann Rutledge in his Abraham Lincoln (1930), Merkel was a big success in the “talkies”. During the 1930s, she became a popular second lead in a number of films, usually playing the wisecracking best friend of the heroine, supporting actresses such as Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, and Eleanor Powell.
Una Merkel with Walter Huston in Abraham Lincoln
With her Kewpie-doll looks, strong Southern accent, and wry line delivery, Merkel enlivened scores of films in the 1930s. She even had the distinction of playing Sam Spade‘s secretary in the original 1931 version of The Maltese Falcon. Merkel was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player from 1932 to 1938, appearing in as many as 12 films in a year, often on loan-out to other studios. She was also often cast as leading lady to a number of actors in their starring pictures, including Jack Benny, Harold Lloyd, Franchot Tone, and Charles Butterworth.
Una Merkel with Ricardo Cortez in The Maltese Falcon
In 42nd Street (1933), Merkel played a streetwise show girl who was Ginger Rogers‘ character’s buddy. In the famous “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” number, Merkel and Rogers sang the verse: “Matrimony is baloney. She’ll be wanting alimony in a year or so./Still they go and shuffle, shuffle off to Buffalo.” Merkel appeared in both the 1934 and the 1952 film versions of The Merry Widow, playing different roles in each.
One of her most famous roles was in the Western comedy Destry Rides Again (1939) in which her character, Lily Belle, gets into a famous “cat-fight” with Frenchie (Marlene Dietrich) over the possession of her husband’s trousers, won by Frenchie in a crooked card game. She played the elder daughter to the W. C. Fields character, Egbert Sousé, in the 1940 film The Bank Dick. Her film career went into decline during the 1940s, although she continued working in smaller productions. In 1950, she was leading lady to William Bendix in the baseball comedy Kill the Umpire, which was a surprise hit.
42nd Street Promo
Una Merkel and Ernst Lubitsch on the set of The Merry Widow
On March 5, 1945, Merkel was nearly killed when her mother Bessie, with whom she was sharing an apartment in New York City, committed suicide by gassing herself. Merkel was overcome by the five gas jets her mother had turned on in their kitchen and was found unconscious in her bedroom.
On March 4, 1952, nearly seven years to the day that Merkel’s mother committed suicide, Merkel overdosed on sleeping pills. She was found unconscious by a nurse who was caring for her at the time and remained in a coma for a day.
Merkel was married once and had no children. She married North American Aviation executive Ronald L. Burla in 1932. They separated in April 1944. Merkel filed for divorce on December 19, 1946 in Miami, and it was granted in March 1947.
Death
On January 2, 1986, Merkel died in Los Angeles at the age of 82. She is buried near her parents, Arno and Bessie Merkel, in Highland Cemetery in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Una Merkel has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (6230 Hollywood Boulevard). In 1991, a historical marker was dedicated to her in her hometown of Covington, KY.
Jump up^Tenkotte, Paul A.; Claypool, James C., eds. (2015). The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. p. 615. ISBN0-813-15996-2.
Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966)[1] was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer.[2]
He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname “The Great Stone Face”.[3][4]
Critic Roger Ebert wrote of Keaton’s “extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, [when] he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor–director in the history of the movies”.[4]
His career declined afterward with a dispiriting loss of his artistic independence when he was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he descended into alcoholism, ruining his family life. He recovered in the 1940s, remarried, and revived his career to a degree as an honored comic performer for the rest of his life, earning an Academy Honorary Award.
Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Many of Keaton’s films from the 1920s, such as Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), and The Cameraman (1928), remain highly regarded,[5] with the second of these three widely viewed as his masterpiece.[6][7][8]
He was named “Joseph” to continue a tradition on his father’s side (he was sixth in a line bearing the name Joseph Keaton)[1] and “Frank” for his maternal grandfather, who disapproved of his parents’ union.
According to a frequently repeated story, which may be apocryphal,[13] Keaton acquired the nickname “Buster” at about 18 months of age. Keaton told interviewer Fletcher Markle that Houdini was present one day when the young Keaton took a tumble down a long flight of stairs without injury.
After the infant sat up and shook off his experience, Houdini remarked, “That was a real buster!” According to Keaton, in those days, the word “buster” was used to refer to a spill or a fall that had the potential to produce injury. After this, Keaton’s father began to use the nickname to refer to the youngster. Keaton retold the anecdote over the years, including a 1964 interview with the CBC‘s Telescope.[14]
Buster Keaton Aged 5 ready for a performance with his parents on stage – in The Three Keatons
At the age of three, Keaton began performing with his parents in The Three Keatons. He first appeared on stage in 1899 in Wilmington, Delaware.
The act was mainly a comedy sketch. Myra played the saxophone to one side, while Joe and Buster performed on center stage. The young Keaton would goad his father by disobeying him, and the elder Keaton would respond by throwing him against the scenery, into the orchestra pit, or even into the audience.
The Three Keatons – Joe, Myra and Buster Keaton
A suitcase handle was sewn into Keaton’s clothing to aid with the constant tossing.
The act evolved as Keaton learned to take trick falls safely; he was rarely injured or bruised on stage. This knockabout style of comedy led to accusations of child abuse, and occasionally, arrest.
However, Buster Keaton was always able to show the authorities that he had no bruises or broken bones. He was eventually billed as “The Little Boy Who Can’t Be Damaged”, with the overall act being advertised as “The Roughest Act That Was Ever in the History of the Stage”.[15]
The Three Keatons – Joe, Myra and Buster Keaton
Decades later, Keaton said that he was never hurt by his father and that the falls and physical comedy were a matter of proper technical execution. In 1914, Keaton told the Detroit News: “The secret is in landing limp and breaking the fall with a foot or a hand. It’s a knack. I started so young that landing right is second nature with me. Several times I’d have been killed if I hadn’t been able to land like a cat. Imitators of our act don’t last long, because they can’t stand the treatment.[15]
Buster Keaton in one of his early roles with The Three Keatons
Keaton claimed he was having so much fun that he would sometimes begin laughing as his father threw him across the stage. Noticing that this drew fewer laughs from the audience, he adopted his famous deadpan expression whenever he was working.[16]
The act ran up against laws banning child performers in vaudeville. According to one biographer, Keaton was made to go to school while performing in New York, but only attended for part of one day.
Keaton Family Portrait – Joe, Myra, Louise, Harry and Buster
Despite tangles with the law and a disastrous tour of music halls in the United Kingdom, Keaton was a rising star in the theater. Keaton stated that he learned to read and write late, and was taught by his mother.
By the time he was 21, his father’s alcoholism threatened the reputation of the family act,[15] so Keaton and his mother, Myra, left for New York, where Buster Keaton’s career swiftly moved from vaudeville to film.[17]
Keaton Family Portrait – Joe, Myra, Harry and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton with his brother Harry
Keaton Children – Harry, Louise and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton portrait in his early performance outfit
Buster Keaton – early stage roles with The Three Keatons
Keaton served in the United States Army in France with the 40th Infantry Division during World War I. His unit remained intact and was not broken up to provide replacements, as happened to some other late-arriving divisions. During his time in uniform, he suffered an ear infection that permanently impaired his hearing.[18][19]
Buster Keaton in the Middle with the 40th Division Sunshine Players – WW1
Silent film
Buster Keaton at 21, making his first film “The Butcher Boy” (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1917)
Joe Keaton disapproved of films, and Buster also had reservations about the medium. During his first meeting with Arbuckle, he asked to borrow one of the cameras to get a feel for how it worked. He took the camera back to his hotel room and dismantled and reassembled it. With this rough understanding of the mechanics of the moving pictures, he returned the next day, camera in hand, asking for work.
He was hired as a co-star and gag man, making his first appearance in The Butcher Boy. Keaton later claimed that he was soon Arbuckle’s second director and his entire gag department. He appeared in a total of 14 Arbuckle shorts, running into 1920. They were popular, and contrary to Keaton’s later reputation as “The Great Stone Face”, he often smiled and even laughed in them.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, Al St. John and Alice Lake in The Cook (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1918)
Keaton and Arbuckle became close friends, and Keaton was one of few people, along with Charlie Chaplin, to defend Arbuckle’s character during accusations that he was responsible for the death of actress Virginia Rappe. (Arbuckle was eventually acquitted, with an apology from the jury for the ordeal he had undergone.)[20]
In 1920, The Saphead was released, in which Keaton had his first starring role in a full-length feature. It was based on a successful play, The New Henrietta, which had already been filmed once, under the title The Lamb, with Douglas Fairbanks playing the lead. Fairbanks recommended Keaton to take the role for the remake five years later, since the film was to have a comic slant.
Poster for The Saphead, Buster Keaton’s first starring role in a full feature film (Herbert Blache, Winchell Smith, 1920)
After Keaton’s successful work with Arbuckle, Schenck gave him his own production unit, Buster Keaton Comedies. He made a series of two-reel comedies, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922). Keaton then moved to full-length features.
Poster for One Week (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1920)
Buster Keaton and cast on the set of One Week (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1920)
Poster for The Playhouse (Edward C Cline, Buster Keaton 1921)
Buster Keaton in The Playhouse (Edward C Cline, Buster Keaton 1921)
Lobby card for Cops (Edward S Cline, Buster Keaton, 1922)
Buster Keaton in Cops (Edward S Cline, Buster Keaton, 1922)
Swedish film poster for The Electric House (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1922)
Buster Keaton in The Electric House (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1922)
Keaton’s writers included Clyde Bruckman, Joseph Mitchell, and Jean Havez, but the most ingenious gags were generally conceived by Keaton himself.
Comedy director Leo McCarey, recalling the freewheeling days of making slapstick comedies, said, “All of us tried to steal each other’s gagmen. But we had no luck with Keaton, because he thought up his best gags himself and we couldn’t steal him!“[21] The more adventurous ideas called for dangerous stunts, performed by Keaton at great physical risk.
Buster Keaton discussing gags with Clyde Bruckman on the set
Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin meet with executives of the Balboa Film Studio
During the railroad water-tank scene in Sherlock Jr., Keaton broke his neck when a torrent of water fell on him from a water tower, but he did not realize it until years afterward. A scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. required Keaton to run into the shot and stand still on a particular spot.
Then, the facade of a two-story building toppled forward on top of Keaton. Keaton’s character emerged unscathed, due to a single open window. The stunt required precision, because the prop house weighed two tons, and the window only offered a few inches of clearance around Keaton’s body. The sequence furnished one of the most memorable images of his career.[22]
Buster Keaton on the set of Steamboat Bill Jr. (Charles Reisner, Buster Keaton, 1928)
Aside from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), Keaton’s most enduring feature-length films include Our Hospitality (1923), The Navigator (1924), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Cameraman (1928), and The General (1926).
Poster for Our Hospitality (John G Blystone, Buster Keaton, 1923)
Buster Keaton with Natalie Talmage in Our Hospitality (John G Blystone, Buster Keaton, 1923)
French poster for The Navigator (Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton, 1924)
Buster Keaton and Kathryn McGuire in The Navigator (Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton, 1924)
Poster for Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)
Poster for Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925)
Buster Keaton and Ruth Dwyer Seven Chances (Buster Keaton, 1925)
Poster for The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton, 1928)
Buster Keaton in The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton, 1928)
The General, set during the American Civil War, combined physical comedy with Keaton’s love of trains, including an epic locomotive chase. Employing picturesque locations, the film’s storyline reenacted an actual wartime incident. Though it would come to be regarded as Keaton’s greatest achievement, the film received mixed reviews at the time. It was too dramatic for some filmgoers expecting a lightweight comedy, and reviewers questioned Keaton’s judgment in making a comedic film about the Civil War, even while noting it had a “few laughs.”[23]
Poster for The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, 1926)
It was an expensive misfire, and Keaton was never entrusted with total control over his films again.
His distributor, United Artists, insisted on a production manager who monitored expenses and interfered with certain story elements. Keaton endured this treatment for two more feature films, and then exchanged his independent setup for employment at Hollywood’s biggest studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Keaton’s loss of independence as a filmmaker coincided with the coming of sound films (although he was interested in making the transition) and mounting personal problems, and his career in the early sound era was hurt as a result.[24]
Buster Keaton in The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton, 1926)
Sound era and television
Keaton signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1928, a business decision that he would later call the worst of his life. He realized too late that the studio system MGM represented would severely limit his creative input.
For instance, the studio refused his request to make his early project, Spite Marriage, as a sound film and after the studio converted, he was obliged to adhere to dialogue-laden scripts. However, MGM did allow Keaton some creative participation on his last originally developed/written silent film The Cameraman, 1928, which was his first project under contract with them, but hired Edward Sedgwick as the official director.
Buster Keaton, Jimmy Durante and Polly Moran in The Passionate Plumber (Edward Sedgwick, 1932)
Keaton was forced to use a stunt double during some of the more dangerous scenes, something he had never done in his heyday, as MGM wanted badly to protect its investment. “Stuntmen don’t get laughs,” Keaton had said.
Some of his most financially successful films for the studio were during this period. MGM tried teaming the laconic Keaton with the rambunctious Jimmy Durante in a series of films, The Passionate Plumber, Speak Easily, and What! No Beer?[25] The latter would be Keaton’s last starring feature in his home country. The films proved popular. (Thirty years later, both Keaton and Durante had cameo roles in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, albeit not in the same scenes.)
Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in Speak Easily (Edward Sedgwick, 1932)
In the first Keaton pictures with sound, he and his fellow actors would shoot each scene three times: one in English, one in Spanish, and one in either French or German. The actors would phonetically memorize the foreign-language scripts a few lines at a time and shoot immediately after. This is discussed in the TCM documentary Buster Keaton: So Funny it Hurt, with Keaton complaining about having to shoot lousy films not just once, but three times.
Keaton was so demoralized during the production of 1933’s What! No Beer? that MGM fired him after the filming was complete, despite the film being a resounding hit. In 1934, Keaton accepted an offer to make an independent film in Paris, Le Roi des Champs-Élysées. During this period, he made another film, in England, The Invader (released in the United States as An Old Spanish Custom in 1936).[25]
Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in What-No Beer? (Edward Sedgwick, 1933)
Buster Keaton in Le Roi Des Champs-Elysees (Max Nosseck, 1934)
Buster Keaton and Lupita Tovar in The Invader or An Old Spanish Custom (Edwin Greenfield, 1936)
Educational Pictures
Upon Keaton’s return to Hollywood, he made a screen comeback in a series of 16 two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures. Most of these are simple visual comedies, with many of the gags supplied by Keaton himself, often recycling ideas from his family vaudeville act and his earlier films.[26] The high point in the Educational series is Grand Slam Opera, featuring Buster in his own screenplay as an amateur-hour contestant. When the series lapsed in 1937, Keaton returned to MGM as a gag writer, including the Marx Brothers films At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940), and providing material for Red Skelton.[27] He also helped and advised Lucille Ball in her comedic work in films and television.[28]
In 1939, Columbia Pictures hired Keaton to star in ten two-reel comedies, running for two years. The director was usually Jules White, whose emphasis on slapstickand farce made most of these films resemble White’s Three Stooges comedies.
Keaton’s personal favorite was the series’ debut entry, Pest from the West, a shorter, tighter remake of Keaton’s little-viewed 1935 feature The Invader; it was directed not by White but by Del Lord, a veteran director for Mack Sennett.
Buster Keaton in Pest From the West (Del Lord, 1939)
Moviegoers and exhibitors welcomed Keaton’s Columbia comedies, proving that the comedian had not lost his appeal. However, taken as a whole, Keaton’s Columbia shorts rank as the worst comedies he made, an assessment he concurred with in his autobiography.[29] The final entry was She’s Oil Mine, and Keaton swore he would never again “make another crummy two-reeler.”[29]
Buster Keaton in She’s Oil Mine (Jules White, 1941)
1940s and feature films
Keaton’s personal life had stabilized with his 1940 marriage, and now he was taking life a little easier, abandoning Columbia for the less strenuous field of feature films.
Throughout the 1940s, Keaton played character roles in both “A” and “B” features. He made his last starring feature El Moderno Barba Azul (1946) in Mexico; the film was a low budget production, and it may not have been seen in the United States until its release on VHS in the 1980s, under the title Boom in the Moon.
Buster Keaton in Boom in the Moon (Jaime Salvador, 1946)
Critics rediscovered Keaton in 1949 and producers occasionally hired him for bigger “prestige” pictures. He had cameos in such films as In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Around the World in 80 Days (1956). In In The Good Old Summertime, Keaton personally directed the stars Judy Garland and Van Johnson in their first scene together where they bump into each other on the street.
Buster Keaton and Judy Garland in In the Good Old Summertime (Robert Z Leonard, 1949)
Buster Keaton and Gloria Swanson on the set of Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Buster Keaton in Around the World in 80 Days (Michael Anderson and John Farrow, 1956)
Keaton invented comedy bits where Johnson keeps trying to apologize to a seething Garland, but winds up messing up her hairdo and tearing her dress.
Keaton also had a cameo as Jimmy, appearing near the end of the film It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). Jimmy assists Spencer Tracy‘s character, Captain C. G. Culpepper, by readying Culpepper’s ultimately-unused boat for his abortive escape. (The restored version of that film, released in 2013, contains a restored scene where Jimmy and Culpeper talk on the telephone.
Buster Keaton in It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (Stanley Kramer, 1963)
Lost after the comedy epic’s “roadshow” exhibition, the audio of that scene was discovered, and combined with still pictures to recreate the scene.) Keaton was given more screen time in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). The appearance, since it was released after his death, was his posthumous swansong.
Buster Keaton, Zero Mostel and Jack Gilford in A Funny Things Happened on the Way to the Forum (Richard Lester, 1966)
Keaton also appeared in a comedy routine about two inept stage musicians in Charlie Chaplin‘s Limelight (1952), recalling the vaudeville of The Playhouse. With the exception of Seeing Stars, a minor publicity film produced in 1922, Limelight was the only time in which the two would ever appear together on film.
In 1949, comedian Ed Wynn invited Keaton to appear on his CBS Television comedy-variety show, The Ed Wynn Show, which was televised live on the West Coast. Kinescopes were made for distribution of the programs to other parts of the country since there was no transcontinental coaxial cable until September 1951.
Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin in Limelight (Charles Chaplin, 1952)
1950s–1960s and television
In 1950, Keaton had a successful television series, The Buster Keaton Show, which was broadcast live on a local Los Angeles station.
Life with Buster Keaton (1951), an attempt to recreate the first series on film and so allowing the program to be broadcast nationwide, was less well received. He also appeared in the early television series Faye Emerson’s Wonderful Town.
Buster Keaton with a television camera at the Hesse State Radio studios in Frankfurt in February, 1962
A theatrical feature film, The Misadventures of Buster Keaton, was fashioned from the series. Keaton said he cancelled the filmed series himself because he was unable to create enough fresh material to produce a new show each week. Keaton also appeared on Ed Wynn’s variety show. At the age of 55, he successfully recreated one of the stunts of his youth, in which he propped one foot onto a table, then swung the second foot up next to it, and held the awkward position in midair for a moment before crashing to the stage floor. I’ve Got a Secret host Garry Moore recalled, “I asked (Keaton) how he did all those falls, and he said, ‘I’ll show you’. He opened his jacket and he was all bruised. So that’s how he did it—it hurt—but you had to care enough not to care.”
The Misadventures of Buster Keaton (Arthur Hilton, 1950)
Buster Keaton in The Awakening / Douglas Fairbanks Jr Presents (1954)
Keaton as a time traveller in a 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, “Once Upon a Time”
Also in 1954, Keaton and his wife Eleanor met film programmer Raymond Rohauer, with whom the couple would develop a business partnership to re-release Keaton’s films. Around the same time, after buying the comedian’s house, the actor James Mason found numerous cans of Keaton’s films.
Among the re-discovered films was Keaton’s long-lost classic The Boat.[30] The Coronet Theatre art house in Los Angeles, with which Rohauer was involved, was showing The General, which “Buster hadn’t seen … in years and he wanted me to see it,” Eleanor Keaton said in 1987. “Raymond recognized Buster and their friendship started.”
Buster Keaton and Raymond Rohauer in 1950’s
[31] Rohauer in that same article recalls, “I was in the projection room. l got a ring that Buster Keaton was in the lobby. I go down and there he is with Eleanor. The next day I met with him at his home. I didn’t realize we were going to join forces. But I realized he had this I-don’t-care attitude about his stuff.
Poster for The Buster Keaton Story (Sidney Sheldon, 1957)
In December 1958, Keaton was a guest star as Charlie, a hospital janitor who provides gifts to sick children, in the episode “A Very Merry Christmas” of The Donna Reed Show on ABC. He returned to the program in 1965 in the episode “Now You See It, Now You Don’t”. The 1958 episode has been included in the DVD release of Donna Reed‘s television programs.[33] One of the show’s cast-members, Paul Peterson, recalled that Keaton “put together an incredible physical skit. His skills were amazing. I never saw anything like it before or since.”[34]
Buster Keaton on Donna Reed Show (1958)
In August 1960, Keaton played mute King Sextimus the Silent in the national touring company of the Broadway musical Once Upon A Mattress. Eleanor Keaton was cast in the chorus. After a few days, Keaton warmed to the rest of the cast with his “utterly delicious sense of humor”, according to Fritzi Burr, who played opposite him as his wife Queen Aggravain. When the tour landed in Los Angeles, Keaton invited the cast and crew to a spaghetti party at his Woodland Hills home, and entertained them by singing vaudeville songs.[35]
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Michael Curtiz, 1960)
In 1961, he starred in The Twilight Zone episode “Once Upon a Time“, which included both silent and sound sequences. Keaton played time-traveller Mulligan, who travelled from 1890 to 1960, then back, by means of a special helmet.
In January 1962, he worked with comedian Ernie Kovacs on a television pilot tentatively titled “Medicine Man,” shooting scenes for it on January 12, 1962—the day before Kovacs died in a car crash. “Medicine Man” was completed but not aired.[37] It can, however, be viewed, under its alternative title A Pony For Chris on an Ernie Kovacs DVD set.
Buster Keaton in The Twilight Zone (1961)
Keaton also found steady work as an actor in TV commercials, including a series of silent ads for Simon Pure Beer made in 1962 by Jim Mohr in Buffalo, New York in which he revisited some of the gags from his silent film days.[38]
In November, 1965, he appeared on the CBS television special A Salute To Stan Laurel which was a tribute to the late comedian (and friend of Keaton) who had died earlier that year.
A Salute to Stan Laurel – Harvey Korman, Lucille Ball and Buster Keaton (1965)
The program was produced as a benefit for the Motion Picture Relief Fund and featured a range of celebrities, including Dick Van Dyke, Danny Kaye, Phil Silvers, Gregory Peck, Cesar Romero, and Lucille Ball. In one segment, Ball and Keaton do a silent sketch on a park bench with the two clowns wrestling over an oversized newspaper, until a policeman (played by Harvey Korman) breaks up the fun. The skit called “A Day in the Park” was filmed and broadcast in color. It marked the only time Ball and Keaton worked together in front of a camera.[39]
I always loved Buster Keaton. I thought, what a wonderful person to look on and react to these young kids and to view them as the audience might, to shake his head at their crazy antics. … He loved it. He would bring me bits and routines. He’d say, ‘How about this?’ and it would just be this wonderful, inventive stuff. A lot of the audience seemed to be seeing Buster for the first time. Once the kids in the cast became aware of who he was, they all respected him and were crazy about him. And the other comics who came in—Paul Lynde, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett—they hit it off with him great.[40]
Buster Keaton in Pajama Party (Don Weis, 1964)
In 1965, Keaton starred in the short film The Railrodder for the National Film Board of Canada. Wearing his traditional pork pie hat, he travelled from one end of Canada to the other on a motorized handcar, performing gags similar to those in films he made 50 years before. The film is also notable for being Keaton’s last silent screen performance. The Railrodder was made in tandem with a behind-the-scenes documentary about Keaton’s life and times, called Buster Keaton Rides Again, also made for the National Film Board, which is twice the length of the short film.[41]
Buster Keaton in The Railroader (Gerald Potterton, Buster Keaton, 1965)
He amazed the cast and crew by doing many of his own stunts, although Thames Television said his increasingly ill health did force the use of a stunt double for some scenes. His final appearance on film was a 1965 safety film produced in Toronto, Canada, by the Construction Safety Associations of Ontario in collaboration with Perini, Ltd. (now Tutor Perini Corporation), The Scribe. Keaton plays a lowly janitor at a newspaper. He intercepts a request from the editor to visit a construction site adjacent to the newspaper headquarters to investigate possible safety violations. Keaton died shortly after completing the film.[42]
Buster Keaton and Richard Lester on the set of A Funny Thing Has Happened on the Way to the Forum (Richard Lester, 1966)
Style and themes
Use of parody
Keaton started experimenting with parody during his vaudeville years, where most frequently his performances involved impressions and burlesques of other performers’ acts. Most of these parodies targeted acts with which Keaton had shared the bill.[43] When Keaton transposed his experience in vaudeville to film, in many works he parodied melodramas.[43] Other favourite targets were cinematic plots, structures and devices.[44]
Buster Keaton in The Frozen North (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1922)
One of his most biting parodies is The Frozen North (1922), a satirical take on William S. Hart‘s Western melodramas, like Hell’s Hinges (1916) and The Narrow Trail (1917). Keaton parodied the tired formula of the melodramatic transformation from bad guy to good guy, through which went Hart’s character, known as “the good badman”.[45]
He wears a small version of Hart’s campaign hat from the Spanish–American War and a six-shooter on each thigh, and during the scene in which he shoots the neighbor and her husband, he reacts with thick glycerin tears, a trademark of Hart’s.[46] Audiences of the 1920s recognized the parody and thought the film hysterically funny. However, Hart himself was not amused by Keaton’s antics, particularly the crying scene, and did not speak to Buster for two years after he had seen the film.[47] The film’s opening intertitles give it its mock-serious tone, and are taken from “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” by Robert W. Service.[47]
Lobby card for The Playhouse (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1921)
In The Playhouse (1921), he parodied his contemporary Thomas H. Ince, Hart’s producer, who indulged in over-crediting himself in his film productions. The short also featured the impression of a performing monkey which was likely derived from a co-biller’s act (called Peter the Great).[43]Three Ages (1923), his first feature-length film, is a parody of D. W. Griffith‘s Intolerance (1916), from which it replicates the three inter-cut shorts structure.[43]Three Ages also featured parodies of Bible stories, like those of Samson and Daniel.[45] Keaton directed the film, along with Edward F. Cline.
Buster Keaton and Margaret Leahy in the Roman Age segment of Three Ages (Edward F Cline, Buster Keaton, 1923)
Body language
The traditional Buster stance requires that he remain upstanding, full of backbone, looking ahead… [in The General] he clambers onto the roof of his locomotive and leans gently forward to scan the terrain, with the breeze in his hair and adventure zipping toward him around the next bend.
It is the anglethat you remember: the figure perfectly straight but tilted forward, like the Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood of a Rolls-Royce… [in The Three Ages], he drives a low-grade automobile over a bump in the road, and the car just crumbles beneath him. Rerun it on video, and you can see Buster riding the collapse like a surfer, hanging onto the steering wheel, coming beautifully to rest as the wave of wreckage breaks.”[51]
Film critic David Thomson later described Keaton’s style of comedy: “Buster plainly is a man inclined towards a belief in nothing but mathematics and absurdity … like a number that has always been searching for the right equation. Look at his face—as beautiful but as inhuman as a butterfly—and you see that utter failure to identify sentiment.”[49]
Gilberto Perez commented on “Keaton’s genius as an actor to keep a face so nearly deadpan and yet render it, by subtle inflections, so vividly expressive of inner life. His large, deep eyes are the most eloquent feature; with merely a stare, he can convey a wide range of emotions, from longing to mistrust, from puzzlement to sorrow.”[50] Critic Anthony Lane also noted Keaton’s body language:
Buster Keaton’s comedy endures not just because he had a face that belongs on Mount Rushmore, at once hauntingly immovable and classically American, but because that face was attached to one of the most gifted actors and directors who ever graced the screen. Evolved from the knockabout upbringing of the vaudeville stage, Keaton’s comedy is a whirlwind of hilarious, technically precise, adroitly executed, and surprising gags, very often set against a backdrop of visually stunning set pieces and locations—all this masked behind his unflinching, stoic veneer.”[52]
She co-starred with Keaton in Our Hospitality. The couple had two sons, Joseph, aka Buster Keaton Jr. (June 2, 1922 – February 14, 2007),[54] and Robert Talmadge Keaton (February 3, 1924 – July 19, 2009),[55] later both surnamed Talmadge.[56] After the birth of Robert, the relationship began to suffer.[13]
Buster Keaton and Norma Talmage wedding day
Buster Keaton and Norma Talmage wedding day
Buster Keaton, Norma Talmage and their children
Influenced by her family, Talmadge decided not to have more children, and this led to the couple staying in separate bedrooms. Her financial extravagance (she would spend up to a third of his salary on clothes) was another factor in the breakdown of the marriage. Keaton dated actress Dorothy Sebastian beginning in the 1920s and Kathleen Key[57] in the early 1930s.
After attempts at reconciliation, Talmadge divorced Keaton in 1932, taking his entire fortune and refusing to allow any contact between Keaton and his sons, whose last name she had changed to Talmadge. Keaton was reunited with them about a decade later when his older son turned 18. With the failure of his marriage and the loss of his independence as a filmmaker, Keaton lapsed into a period of alcoholism.[13]
Entrance to Buster Keaton Estate
In 1926, Keaton spent $300,000 to build a 10,000-square-foot (930 m2) home in Beverly Hills designed by architect Gene Verge, Sr., which was later owned by James Mason and Cary Grant.[58] Keaton’s “Italian Villa” can be seen in Keaton’s film Parlor, Bedroom and Bath. Keaton later said, “I took a lot of pratfalls to build that dump.”
The house suffered approximately $10,000 worth of damage from a fire in the nursery and dining room in 1931. Keaton was not at home at the time, and his wife and children escaped unharmed, staying at the home of Tom Mix until the following morning.[59]
Keaton was at one point briefly institutionalized; according to the TCM documentary So Funny it Hurt, Keaton escaped a straitjacket with tricks learned from Harry Houdini.
In 1933, he married his nurse, Mae Scriven, during an alcoholic binge about which he afterwards claimed to remember nothing (Keaton himself later called that period an “alcoholic blackout”). Scriven herself would later claim that she didn’t know Keaton’s real first name until after the marriage.
Buster Keaton and Mae Scriven
The singular event that triggered Scriven filing for divorce in 1935 was her finding Keaton with Leah Clampitt Sewell (libertine wife of millionaire Barton Sewell) on July 4 the same year in a hotel in Santa Barbara.[60] When they divorced in 1936, it was again at great financial cost to Keaton.[61]
On May 29, 1940, Keaton married Eleanor Norris (July 29, 1918 – October 19, 1998), who was 23 years his junior. She has been credited by Jeffrey Vance with saving Keaton’s life by stopping his heavy drinking and helping to salvage his career.[62]
Eleanor Norris and Buster Keaton applying for their marriage license May 1940
The marriage lasted until his death. Between 1947 and 1954, they appeared regularly in the Cirque Medrano in Paris as a double act. She came to know his routines so well that she often participated in them on TV revivals.
Eleanor Norris and Buster Keaton
Death
Keaton died of lung cancer on February 1, 1966, aged 70, in Woodland Hills, California.[63] Despite being diagnosed with cancer in January 1966, he was never told that he was terminally ill or that he had cancer; Keaton thought that he was recovering from a severe case of bronchitis.
Confined to a hospital during his final days, Keaton was restless and paced the room endlessly, desiring to return home. In a British television documentary about his career, his widow Eleanor told producers of Thames Television that Keaton was up out of bed and moving around, and even played cards with friends who came to visit the day before he died.[64]
Buster Keaton receives honorary Academy Award Apr 4, 1960
Jacques Tati is described as “taking a page from Buster Keaton’s playbook.”[66]
A 1957 film biography, The Buster Keaton Story, starring Donald O’Connor as Keaton was released.[27] The screenplay, by Sidney Sheldon, who also directed the film, was loosely based on Keaton’s life but contained many factual errors and merged his three wives into one character.[67] A 1987 documentary, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, directed by Kevin Brownlowand David Gill, won two Emmy Awards.[68]
Poster for The Buster Keaton Story (Sidney Sheldon, 1957)
The International Buster Keaton Society was founded on October 4, 1992 – Buster’s birthday. Dedicated to bringing greater public attention to Keaton’s life and work, the membership includes many individuals from the television and film industry: actors, producers, authors, artists, graphic novelists, musicians, and designers, as well as those who simply admire the magic of Buster Keaton. The Society’s nickname, the “Damfinos,” draws its name from a boat in Buster’s 1921 comedy, “The Boat.”
In 1994, caricaturist Al Hirschfeld penned a series of silent film stars for the United States Post Office, including Rudolph Valentino and Keaton.[69] Hirschfeld said that modern film stars were more difficult to depict, that silent film comedians such as Laurel and Hardy and Keaton “looked like their caricatures”.[70]
Buster Keaton by Al Hirschfeld
Keaton’s physical comedy is cited by Jackie Chan in his autobiography documentary Jackie Chan: My Story as being the primary source of inspiration for his own brand of self-deprecating physical comedy.
Comedian Richard Lewis stated that Keaton was his prime inspiration, and spoke of having a close friendship with Keaton’s widow Eleanor. Lewis was particularly moved by the fact that Eleanor said his eyes looked like Keaton’s.[71]
At the time of Eleanor Keaton’s death, she was working closely with film historian Jeffrey Vance to donate her papers and photographs to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[72][73] The book Buster Keaton Remembered, by Eleanor Keaton and Vance, published after her death, was favorably reviewed.[74][75][76]
The book Buster Keaton Remembered, by Eleanor Keaton and Vance
In 2012, Kino Lorber released The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection, a 14-disc Blu-ray box set of Keaton’s work, including 11 of his feature films.[77]
Kino Lorber released The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection 2012
Pork pie hats
Keaton designed and modified his own pork pie hats during his career. In 1964, he told an interviewer that in making “this particular pork pie”, he “started with a good Stetson and cut it down”, stiffening the brim with sugar water.[78]
The hats were often destroyed during Keaton’s wild film antics; some were given away as gifts and some were snatched by souvenir hunters. Keaton said he was lucky if he used only six hats in making a film. Keaton estimated that he and his wife Eleanor made thousands of the hats during his career. Keaton observed that during his silent period, such a hat cost him around two dollars; at the time of his interview, he said, they cost almost $13.[78]
Jump up^“Buster Keaton”. Archive.sensesofcinema.com. February 1, 1966. Archived from the original on February 2, 2010. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
Jump up^“Part II:The Flickers”. International Buster Keaton Society. October 13, 1924. Archived from the original on March 3, 2015. Retrieved February 17, 2010.
Brighton, Catherine, Keep Your Eye on the Kid: The Early Years of Buster Keaton (2008) Roaring Brook Press (An illustrated children’s book about Keaton’s career)
Smith, Imogen Sara, Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy (2008) Gambit Publishing ISBN978-0-9675917-4-2
Harold Clayton Lloyd Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American actor, comedian, director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer who is best known for his silentcomedy films.[1]
Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and “talkies“, between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his bespectacled “Glasses” character,[2][3] a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s-era United States.
His films frequently contained “thrill sequences” of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street (in reality a trick shot) in Safety Last! (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema.[4]
Lloyd did many dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand[5] (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go unnoticed).
Although Lloyd’s individual films were not as commercially successful as Chaplin’s on average, he was far more prolific (releasing 12 feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin’s $10.5 million).[citation needed]
Harold Clayton Lloyd was born on April 20, 1893 in Burchard, Nebraska, the son of James Darsie Lloyd and Sarah Elisabeth Fraser. His paternal great-grandparents were Welsh.[6]
In 1910, after his father had several business ventures fail, Lloyd’s parents divorced and his father moved with his son to San Diego, California. Lloyd had acted in theater since a child, but in California he began acting in one-reel film comedies around 1912.
Young Harold Lloyd
Career
Silent shorts and features
Lloyd worked with Thomas Edison‘s motion picture company, and his first role was a small part as a Yaqui Indian in the production of The Old Monk’s Tale.
Harold Lloyd in The Old Monk’s Tale (J.Searle Dawley, 1913)
At the age of 20, Lloyd moved to Los Angeles, and took up roles in several Keystone comedies. He was also hired by Universal Studios as an extra and soon became friends with aspiring filmmaker Hal Roach.[7]
Lloyd began collaborating with Roach who had formed his own studio in 1913. Roach and Lloyd created “Lonesome Luke”, similar to and playing off the success of Charlie Chaplin films.[8]
Hal Roach
Harold Lloyd as Lonesome Luke
Harold Lloyd as Lonesome Luke
Harold Lloyd as Lonesome Luke
Lloyd hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress in 1914; the two of them were involved romantically and were known as “The Boy” and “The Girl”. In 1919, she left Lloyd to pursue her dramatic aspirations. Later that year, Lloyd replaced Daniels with Mildred Davis, whom he would later marry. Lloyd was tipped off by Hal Roach to watch Davis in a movie. Reportedly, the more Lloyd watched Davis the more he liked her. Lloyd’s first reaction in seeing her was that “she looked like a big French doll”.[9]
Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels
Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels in Look Pleasant, Please (Alfred J Goulding, 1918)
The Rolin Film Company – 1915
Bebe Daniels (1rst row, middle), Harold Lloyd (2nd Row, middle – in Lonesome Luke costume), Snub Pollard to his left, Hal Roach (3rd row, middle)
Harold Lloyd and Bebe Daniels
By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had begun to develop his character beyond an imitation of his contemporaries. Harold Lloyd would move away from tragicomic personas, and portray an everyman with unwavering confidence and optimism.
The persona Lloyd referred to as his “Glass” character[10] (often named “Harold” in the silent films) was a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth, and was easy for audiences of the time to identify with.
The “Glass” character is said to have been created after Roach suggested that Harold was too handsome to do comedy without some sort of disguise. To create his new character Lloyd donned a pair of lensless horn-rimmed eyeglasses but wore normal clothing;[3] previously, he had worn a fake mustache and ill-fitting clothes as the Chaplinesque “Lonesome Luke”.
Harold Lloyd – The Glass Character
“When I adopted the glasses,” he recalled in a 1962 interview with Harry Reasoner, “it more or less put me in a different category because I became a human being. He was a kid that you would meet next door, across the street, but at the same time I could still do all the crazy things that we did before, but you believed them. They were natural and the romance could be believable.”
Unlike most silent comedy personae, “Harold” was never typecast to a social class, but he was always striving for success and recognition. Within the first few years of the character’s debut, he had portrayed social ranks ranging from a starving vagrant in From Hand to Mouth to a wealthy socialite in Captain Kidd’s Kids.
Harold Lloyd and Peggy Cartwright in From Hand to Mouth (Alfred J Goulding, Hal Roach, 1919)
Poster for Captain Kidd’s Kids (Hal Roach, 1919)
Lloyd’s career was not all laughs, however. In August 1919, while filming Haunted Spooks (Alfred J Goulding, Hal Roach, 1919) posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he was seriously injured holding a prop bomb thought merely to be a smoke pot.
It exploded and mangled his hand, causing him to lose a thumb and forefinger. The blast was severe enough that the cameraman and prop director nearby were also seriously injured.
Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis in Haunted Spooks (Alfred J Goulding, Hal Roach, 1919)
Lloyd was in the act of lighting a cigarette from the fuse of the bomb when it exploded, also badly burning his face and chest and injuring his eye. Despite the proximity of the blast to his face, he retained his sight. As he recalled in 1930, “I thought I would surely be so disabled that I would never be able to work again. I didn’t suppose that I would have one five-hundredth of what I have now. Still I thought, ‘Life is worth while. Just to be alive.’ I still think so.”[11]
Beginning in 1921, Roach and Lloyd moved from shorts to feature-length comedies. These included the acclaimed Grandma’s Boy, which (along with Chaplin’s The Kid) pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular Safety Last!(1923), which cemented Lloyd’s stardom (and is the oldest film on the American Film Institute‘s List of 100 Most Thrilling Movies), and Why Worry? (1923).
Poster for Grandma’s Boy (Fred C Newmayer, 1922)
Harold Lloyd and Dick Sutherland in Grandma’s Boy (Fred C Newmayer, 1922)
Poster for Safety Last (Fred C Newmeyer, 1923)
Harold Lloyd in Safety Last (Fred C Newmeyer, 1923)
Harold Lloyd in Why Worry? (Fred C Newmeyer, 1923)
Harold Lloyd in Why Worry? (Fred C Newmeyer, 1923)
Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films.
These included his most accomplished mature features Girl Shy, The Freshman (his highest-grossing silent feature), The Kid Brother, and Speedy, his final silent film. Welcome Danger (1929) was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with dialogue.
All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest paid film performer of the 1920s.[12] They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his collaborators. From this success, he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood.
Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston (Fred C Newmeyer, 1924)
Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston (Fred C Newmeyer, 1924)
Poster for The Freshman (Fred C Newmeyer, 1925)
Harold Lloyd in The Freshman (Fred C Newmeyer, 1925)
Poster for The Kid Brother (Ted Wilde, Harold Lloyd, 1927)
Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston in The Kid Brother (Ted Wilde, Harold Lloyd, 1927)
Lobby card for Speedy (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Harold Lloyd and Ann Christy in Speedy (Ted Wilde, 1928)
Poster for Welcome Danger (Clyde Bruckman, Malcolm St.Clair, 1929)
Harold Lloyd and Barbara Kent on the set of Welcome Danger (Clyde Bruckman, Malcolm St.Clair, 1929)
Released a few weeks before the start of the Great Depression, Welcome Danger was a huge financial success, with audiences eager to hear Lloyd’s voice on film. Lloyd’s rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938.
Promotional poster for Welcome Danger (Clyde Bruckman, Malcolm St.Clair, 1929)
The films released during this period were: Feet First, with a similar scenario to Safety Last which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; Movie Crazy with Constance Cummings; The Cat’s-Paw, which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; and The Milky Way, which was Lloyd’s only attempt at the fashionable genre of the screwball comedy film.
Lobby card for Feet First (Clyde Bruckman, Harold Lloyd, 1930)
Poster for Movie Crazy (Clyde Bruckman, Harold Lloyd, 1932)
Lobby card for The Cat’s Paw (Sam Taylor, Harold Lloyd, 1934)
Lobby card for The Milky Way (Leo McCarey, Ray McCarey, 1936)
To this point the films had been produced by Lloyd’s company. However, his go-getting screen character was out of touch with Great Depression movie audiences of the 1930s. As the length of time between his film releases increased, his popularity declined, as did the fortunes of his production company. His final film of the decade, Professor Beware, was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as actor and partial financier.
Lobby card for Professor Beware (Elliott Nugent, 1938)
Lloyd produced a few comedies for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1940s but otherwise retired from the screen until 1947. He returned for an additional starring appearance in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, an ill-fated homage to Lloyd’s career, directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes.
Lobby card for The Sin of Harold Diddlebock AKA Mad Wednesday (Preston Sturges, 1947)
This film had the inspired idea of following Harold’s Jazz Age, optimistic character from The Freshman into the Great Depression years. Diddlebock opened with footage from The Freshman (for which Lloyd was paid a royalty of $50,000, matching his actor’s fee) and Lloyd was sufficiently youthful-looking to match the older scenes quite well.
Lloyd and Sturges had different conceptions of the material and fought frequently during the shoot; Lloyd was particularly concerned that while Sturges had spent three to four months on the script of the first third of the film, “the last two thirds of it he wrote in a week or less”.
The finished film was released briefly in 1947, then shelved by producer Hughes. Hughes issued a recut version of the film in 1951 through RKO under the title Mad Wednesday. Such was Lloyd’s disdain that he sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation and RKO for damages to his reputation “as an outstanding motion picture star and personality”, eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement.
German poster for The Sin of Harold Diddlebock AKA Mad Wednesday (Preston Sturges, 1947)
Radio and retirement
In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of The Old Gold Comedy Theater, an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with Palm Beach Story with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young.
Rehearsing the script for “The Palm Beach Story” are Robert Young, Harold Lloyd and Claudette Colbert – The Old Gold Comedy Theatre
But the show’s half-hour format—which meant the material might have been truncated too severely—and Lloyd’s sounding somewhat ill at ease on the air for much of the season (though he spent weeks training himself to speak on radio prior to the show’s premiere, and seemed more relaxed toward the end of the series run) may have worked against it.
The Old Gold Comedy Theater ended in June 1945 with an adaptation of Tom, Dick and Harry, featuring June Allyson and Reginald Gardiner and was not renewed for the following season. Many years later, acetate discs of 29 of the shows were discovered in Lloyd’s home, and they now circulate among old-time radio collectors.
Harold Lloyd and Dick Powell – The Old Gold Comedy Theatre
Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. Inspired by having overcome his own serious injuries and burns, he was very active as a Freemason and Shriner with the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children.
He was a Past Potentate of Al-Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles, and was eventually selected as Imperial Potentate of the Shriners of North America for the year 1949–50.[14] At the installation ceremony for this position on July 25, 1949, 90,000 people were present at Soldier Field, including then sitting U.S. President Harry S Truman, also a 33° Scottish Rite Mason.[15] In recognition of his services to the nation and Freemasonry, Bro. Lloyd was invested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honour in 1955 and coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, 33°, in 1965.
Harold Lloyd in 1946, when he was appointed to the Shriners’ publicity committee
He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, first on Ed Sullivan‘s variety show Toast of the Town June 5, 1949, and again on July 6, 1958. He appeared as the Mystery Guest on What’s My Line? on April 26, 1953, and twice on This Is Your Life: on March 10, 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again on December 14, 1955, on his own episode. During both appearances, Lloyd’s hand injury can clearly be seen.[16]
Harold Lloyd on This is Your Life in 1950’s
Lloyd studied colors and microscopy, and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home (These are included as extra material in the Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection DVD Box Set).
Harold Lloyd’s 3 D Photography Album
He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men’s magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit, which were published after her death. In 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, Harold Lloyd’s Hollywood Nudes in 3D! (ISBN1-57912-394-5).
Harold Lloyd’s 3 D Photography Album
Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work.
Marilyn Monroe photographed by Harold Lloyd
Marilyn Monroe photographed by Harold Lloyd during a photo session with Philippe Halsman, 1952
Marilyn Monroe photographed by Harold Lloyd
Renewed interest
Lloyd kept copyright control of most of his films and re-released them infrequently after his retirement.
Lloyd did not grant cinematic release because most theaters could not accommodate an organist, and Lloyd did not wish his work to be accompanied by a pianist: “I just don’t like pictures played with pianos.
We never intended them to be played with pianos.” Similarly, his features were never shown on television as Lloyd’s price was high: “I want $300,000 per picture for two showings. That’s a high price, but if I don’t get it, I’m not going to show it. They’ve come close to it, but they haven’t come all the way up”.
As a consequence, his reputation and public recognition suffered in comparison with Chaplin and Keaton, whose work has generally been more available. Lloyd’s film character was so intimately associated with the 1920s era that attempts at revivals in 1940s and 1950s were poorly received, when audiences viewed the 1920s (and silent film in particular) as old-fashioned.
The first film was premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, where Lloyd was fêted as a major rediscovery. The renewed interest in Lloyd helped restore his status among film historians.
Throughout his later years he screened his films for audiences at special charity and educational events, to great acclaim, and found a particularly receptive audience among college audiences: “Their whole response was tremendous because they didn’t miss a gag; anything that was even a little subtle, they got it right away.”
Lobby cards for Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy (Harold Lloyd, 1962)
Poster for The Funny Side of Life (Harry Kerwin, 1963)
Following his death, and after extensive negotiations, most of his feature films were leased to Time-Life Films in 1974.
As Tom Dardis confirms: “Time-Life prepared horrendously edited musical-sound-track versions of the silent films, which are intended to be shown on TV at sound speed [24 frames per second], and which represent everything that Harold feared would happen to his best films”.[citation needed]
Time-Life released the films as half-hour television shows, with two clips per show. These were often near-complete versions of the early two-reelers, but also included extended sequences from features such as Safety Last! (terminating at the clock sequence) and Feet First (presented silent, but with Walter Scharf‘s score from Lloyd’s own 1960s re-release).
Belgian poster for Safety Last (Fred C Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1923)
Time-Life released several of the feature films more or less intact, also using some of Scharf’s scores which had been commissioned by Lloyd. The Time-Life clips series included a narrator rather than intertitles. Various narrators were used internationally: the English-language series was narrated by Henry Corden.
The Time-Life series was frequently repeated by the BBC in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, and in 1990 a Thames Television documentary, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius was produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, following two similar series based on Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.[17] Composer Carl Davis wrote a new score for Safety Last! which he performed live during a showing of the film with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to great acclaim in 1993.[18]
Harold Lloyd, The Third Genius (Kevin Brownlow, David Gill, 1990)
Harold Lloyd, The Third Genius (Kevin Brownlow, David Gill, 1990) – VHS Release
The Brownlow and Gill documentary was shown as part of the PBS series American Masters, and created a renewed interest in Lloyd’s work in the United States, but the films were largely unavailable.
In 2002, the Harold Lloyd Trust re-launched Harold Lloyd with the publication of the book Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian by Jeffrey Vance and Suzanne Lloyd[19][20] and a series of feature films and short subjects called “The Harold Lloyd Classic Comedies” produced by Jeffrey Vance and executive produced by Suzanne Lloyd for Harold Lloyd Entertainment.
The new cable television and home video versions of Lloyd’s great silent features and many shorts were remastered with new orchestral scores by Robert Israel. These versions are frequently shown on the Turner Classic Movies(TCM) cable channel.
A DVD collection of these restored or remastered versions of his feature films and important short subjects was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in 2005, along with theatrical screenings in the US, Canada, and Europe. Criterion Collection has subsequently acquired the home video rights to the Lloyd library, and have released Safety Last!,[21] The Freshman,[22] and Speedy.[23]
Safety Last – Criterion Collection Blu Ray Special Edition
The Freshman – Criterion Collection – Dual Format Edition
The Freshman – Criterion Collection – Blu Ray Special Edition
In the June 2006 Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra Silent Film Gala program book for Safety Last!, film historian Jeffrey Vance stated that Robert A. Golden, Lloyd’s assistant director, routinely doubled for Harold Lloyd between 1921 and 1927. According to Vance, Golden doubled Lloyd in the bit with Harold shimmy shaking off the building’s ledge after a mouse crawls up his trousers.[24]
Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis in a publicity photo for High And Dizzy (Hal Roach, 1920)
Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis and Douglas Fairbanks
They had two children together: Gloria Lloyd (1923-2012)[26][27] and Harold Clayton Lloyd Jr. (1931–1971).[28] They also adopted Gloria Freeman (1924—1986) in September 1930, whom they renamed Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd but was known as “Peggy” for most of her life.
Lloyd discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented but by that time her career momentum was lost. Davis died from a heart attack in 1969, two years before Lloyd’s death.
Though her real age was a guarded secret, a family spokesperson at the time indicated she was 66 years old. Lloyd’s son was gay and, according to Annette D’Agostino Lloyd (no relation) in the book Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian, Harold Sr. took this in good spirit. Harold Jr. died from complications of a stroke three months after his father.
Harold Lloyd and Mildred Davis
The Lloyds in 1936. From left to right: Peggy and Harold Jr., Harold, Gloria, and Mildred
In 1925, at the height of his movie career, Lloyd entered into Freemasonry at the Alexander Hamilton Lodge No. 535 of Hollywood, advancing quickly through both the York Rite and Scottish Rite, and then joined Al Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles. He took the degrees of the Royal Arch with his father. In 1926, he became a 32° Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Los Angeles, California. He was vested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH) and eventually with the Inspector General Honorary, 33rd degree.
Harold Lloyd and Freemasons
Harold Lloyd at Al Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles
Lloyd’s Beverly Hills home, “Greenacres“, was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine-hole golf course. A portion of Lloyd’s personal inventory of his silent films (then estimated to be worth $2 million) was destroyed in August 1943 when his film vault caught fire. Seven firemen were overcome while inhaling chlorine gas from the blaze.
Lloyd himself was saved by his wife, who dragged him to safety outdoors after he collapsed at the door of the film vault. The fire spared the main house and outbuildings. After attempting to maintain the home as a museum of film history, as Lloyd had wished, the Lloyd family sold it to a developer in 1975.
Harold Lloyd house fire
Harold Lloyd Estate
The grounds were subsequently subdivided but the main house and the estate’s principal gardens remain and are frequently used for civic fundraising events and as a filming location, appearing in films like Westworld and The Loved One. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Greenacres was built in the 1920s in Beverly Hills, one of Los Angeles’ all-white planned communities.[29] The area had restrictive covenants prohibiting non-whites (this also included Jews[30]) from living there unless they were in the employment of a white resident (typically as a domestic servant).[31]:57
In 1940, Lloyd supported a neighborhood improvement association in Beverly Hills that attempted to enforce the all-white covenant in court after a number of black actors and businessmen had begun buying properties in the area.
However, in his decision, federal judge Thurmond Clarke dismissed the action stating that it was time that “members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed to them under the 14th amendment.”[32] In 1948 the United States Supreme Court declared in Shelley v. Kraemer that all racially restrictive covenants in the United States were unenforceable.[33]
The crypt of Harold Lloyd, in the Great Mausoleum, Forest Lawn Glendale
Honors
In 1927, his was only the fourth concrete ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, preserving his handprints, footprints, and autograph, along with the outline of his famed glasses (which were actually a pair of sunglasses with the lenses removed).[37][38] The ceremony took place directly in front of the Hollywood Masonic Temple, which was the meeting place of the Masonic lodge to which he belonged.[39]
In 1953, Lloyd received an Academy Honorary Award for being a “master comedian and good citizen”. The second citation was a snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Regardless of the political overtones, Lloyd accepted the award in good spirit.
Lloyd starred in a total of 18 feature-length motion pictures, consisting of 11 silent and 7 sound films. Lloyd also re-edited his material into 2 compilation features.
Country boy goes to city to be a success, ends up climbing building as stunt. Most spectacular daredevil thrill comedy. Last film with Davis, whom he married.
Jump up^Slide, Anthony (September 27, 2002). Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses. Univ. Press of Kentucky. p. 221. ISBN978-0813122496.
Jump up^An American Comedy; Lloyd and Stout; 1928; page 129
Jump up^Pawlak, Debra Ann (January 15, 2011). Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy. New York: Pegasus Books. p. 62. ISBN978-1605981376.
^ Jump up to:ab“Died”. Time. March 22, 1971. Retrieved June 8, 2008. Harold Lloyd, 77, comedian whose screen image of horn-rimmed incompetence made him Hollywood’s highest-paid star in the 1920s; of cancer; in Hollywood. He usually played a feckless Mr. Average who triumphed over misfortune. ‘My character represented the white-collar middle class that felt frustrated but was always fighting to overcome its shortcomings,’ he once explained. Lloyd usually did his own stunt work, as in Safety Last (1923), in which he dangled from a clock high above the street; he was protected only by a wooden platform two floors below.
Jump up^“Harold LLoyd”Archived January 22, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. “In 1949, Harold’s face graced the cover of TIME Magazine as the Imperial Potentate of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, their highest-ranking position. He devoted an entire year to visiting 130 temples across the country giving speeches for over 700,000 Shriners. The last twenty years of his life he worked tirelessly for the twenty-two Shriner Hospitals for Children and in the 1960s, he was named President and Chairman of the Board.”
Jump up^Illson, Murray (March 9, 1971). “Horn-Rims His Trademark; Harold Lloyd, Screen Comedian, Dies at 77”. The New York Times. Retrieved June 8, 2008. A pair of inexpensive, horn-rimmed eyeglass frames without lenses, the shy expression of a somewhat bewildered adolescent and a single-track ambition made Harold Clayton Lloyd the highest-paid screen actor in Hollywood’s golden age of the nineteen twenties.
Agee, James (2000) [1958]. “Comedy’s Greatest Era” from Life magazine (9/5/1949), reprinted in Agee on Film. McDowell, Obolensky, Modern Library.
Bengtson, John. (2011). Silent Visions: Discovering Early Hollywood and New York Through the Films of Harold Lloyd. Santa Monica Press. ISBN978-1-59580-057-2.
Brownlow, Kevin (1976) [1968]. “Harold Lloyd” from The Parade’s Gone By. Alfred A. Knopf, University of California Press.
Byron, Stuart; Weis, Elizabeth (1977). The National Society of Film Critics on Movie Comedy. Grossman/Viking.
Cahn, William (1964). Harold Lloyd’s World of Comedy. Duell, Sloane & Pearce.
D’Agostino, Annette M. (1994). Harold Lloyd: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press. ISBN0-313-28986-7.
Dale, Alan (2002). Comedy is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick In American Movies. University of Minnesota Press.
Between November 1921 and April 1922, Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco in September 1921; she died four days later. Arbuckle was accused by Rappe’s acquaintance of raping and accidentally killing Rappe. After the first two trials, which resulted in hung juries, Arbuckle was acquitted in the third trial and received a formal written statement of apology from the jury.
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial – Chicago Herald Examiner Newspaper Coverage
Despite Arbuckle’s acquittal, the scandal has mostly overshadowed his legacy as a pioneering comedian. Following the trials, his films were banned and he was publicly ostracized. Although the ban on his films was lifted within a year, Arbuckle only worked sparingly through the 1920s. He later worked as a film director under the alias William Goodrich. He was finally able to return to acting, making short two-reel comedies in 1932 for Warner Bros.
He died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1933 at age 46, reportedly on the same day he signed a contract with Warner Brothers to make a feature film.[2]
Roscoe Conkling Arbuckle was born on March 24, 1887 in Smith Center, Kansas, one of nine children of Mary E. “Mollie” Gordon (d. February 19, 1898) and William Goodrich Arbuckle.[3] He weighed in excess of 13 lb (5.9 kg) at birth and, as both parents had slim builds, his father believed the child was not his. Consequently, he named the baby after a politician (and notorious philanderer) whom he despised, Republican senator Roscoe Conkling of New York. The birth was traumatic for Mollie and resulted in chronic health problems that contributed to her death 12 years later.[4] When Arbuckle was nearly two his family moved to Santa Ana, California.[5]
Young Roscoe Arbuckle
Arbuckle had a “wonderful” singing voice and was extremely agile. At the age of eight, with his mother’s encouragement, he first performed on stage with Frank Bacon’s company during their stopover in Santa Ana.[5]
Arbuckle enjoyed performing and continued on until his mother’s death in 1899 when he was 12.
Young Roscoe Arbuckle in his stage performance outfit
His father, who had always treated him harshly,[6] now refused to support him and Arbuckle got work doing odd jobs in a hotel. Arbuckle was in the habit of singing while he worked and was overheard by a customer who was a professional singer.
The customer invited him to perform in an amateur talent show. The show consisted of the audience judging acts by clapping or jeering with bad acts pulled off the stage by a shepherd’s crook. Arbuckle sang, danced, and did some clowning around, but did not impress the audience. He saw the crook emerge from the wings and to avoid it somersaulted into the orchestra pit in obvious panic. The audience went wild, and he not only won the competition but began a career in vaudeville.[4]
Roscoe Arbuckle – from vaudeville to motion pictures
Career
In 1904, Sid Grauman invited Arbuckle to sing in his new Unique Theater in San Francisco, beginning a long friendship between the two.[7][8] He then joined the Pantages Theatre Group touring the West Coast of the United States and in 1906 played the Orpheum Theater in Portland, Oregon in a vaudeville troupe organized by Leon Errol. Arbuckle became the main act and the group took their show on tour.[9]
The Pantages Theatre Group at the Savoy Theatre, Palace Grand Theatre, Yukon
On August 6, 1908, Arbuckle married Minta Durfee (1889–1975), the daughter of Charles Warren Durfee and Flora Adkins.
Durfee starred in many early comedy films, often with Arbuckle.[10][11] They made a strange couple, as Minta was short and petite while Arbuckle tipped the scales at 300 lbs.[4] Arbuckle then joined the Morosco Burbank Stock vaudeville company and went on a tour of China and Japan returning in early 1909.[12]
Roscoe Arbuckle and Minta Durfee in a promotional photo for an early Mack Sennett film
Roscoe Arbuckle and Minta Durfee in Fatty’s Chance Acquaintance (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1915)
Arbuckle appeared sporadically in Selig one-reelers until 1913, moved briefly to Universal Pictures and became a star in producer-director Mack Sennett‘s Keystone Cops comedies (However, according to the Motion Picture Studio Directory for 1919 and 1921, Arbuckle began his screen career with Keystone in 1913 as an extra for $3 a day (equivalent to approximately $74 in 2017 dollars[1]), working his way up through the acting ranks to become a lead player and director.)
Roscoe Arbuckle in Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops
Although his large size was undoubtedly part of his comedic appeal Arbuckle was self-conscious about his weight and refused to use it to get “cheap” laughs. For example, he would not allow himself to be stuck in a doorway or chair.[citation needed]
Arbuckle was a talented singer. After famed operatic tenor Enrico Caruso heard him sing, he urged the comedian to “…give up this nonsense you do for a living, with training you could become the second greatest singer in the world.”[13]
Roscoe Arbuckle in Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops
Screen comedian
Despite his physical size, Arbuckle was remarkably agile and acrobatic. Director Mack Sennett, when recounting his first meeting with Arbuckle, noted that he “skipped up the stairs as lightly as Fred Astaire“; and, “without warning went into a feather light step, clapped his hands and did a backward somersault as graceful as a girl tumbler”.
His comedies are noted as rollicking and fast-paced, have many chase scenes, and feature sight gags. Arbuckle was fond of the “pie in the face“, a comedy cliché that has come to symbolize silent-film-era comedy itself. The earliest known pie thrown in film was in the June 1913 Keystone one-reeler A Noise from the Deep, starring Arbuckle and frequent screen partner Mabel Normand.
Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand in A Noise from the Deep (Mack Sennett, 1913)
Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand in Fatty’s Wine Party (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1914)
In 1914, Paramount Pictures made the then-unheard-of offer of US$1,000-a-day plus 25% of all profits and complete artistic control to make movies with Arbuckle and Normand. The movies were so lucrative and popular that in 1918 they offered Arbuckle a three-year, $3 million contract (equivalent to about $49,000,000 in 2017 dollars[1]).[14]
Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand in Fatty and Mabel Adrift (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1916)
By 1916, Arbuckle was experiencing serious health problems. An infection that developed on his leg became a carbuncle so severe that doctors considered amputation. Although Arbuckle was able to keep his leg, he became addicted to the pain killer morphine.
Following his recovery, Arbuckle started his own film company, Comique, in partnership with Joseph Schenck. Although Comique produced some of the best short pictures of the silent era, in 1918 Arbuckle transferred his controlling interest in the company to Buster Keaton and accepted Paramount’s $3 million offer to make up to 18 feature films over three years.[4]
Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in Good Night, Nurse! (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1918)
Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in Coney Island (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1917)
Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in The Garage (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1920)
Arbuckle disliked his screen nickname. “Fatty” had also been Arbuckle’s nickname since school; “It was inevitable”, he said. He weighed 185lb (13st 3lb, 84kg) when he was 12. Fans also called Roscoe “The Prince of Whales” and “The Balloonatic”.
However, the name Fatty identifies the character that Arbuckle portrayed on-screen (usually a naive hayseed)—not Arbuckle himself. When Arbuckle portrayed a female, the character was named “Miss Fatty”, as in the film Miss Fatty’s Seaside Lovers.
Arbuckle discouraged anyone from addressing him as “Fatty” off-screen, and when they did so his usual response was, “I’ve got a name, you know.”[15]
Roscoe Arbuckle in Miss Fatty’s Seaside Lovers (Roscoe Arbuckle, 1915)
Scandal
This 1922 Vanity Fair caricature by Ralph Barton[16] shows the famous people who, he imagined, left work each day in Hollywood; use cursor to identify individual figures.
On September 5, 1921, Arbuckle took a break from his hectic film schedule and, despite suffering from second-degree burns to both buttocks from an accident on set, drove to San Francisco with two friends, Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback.
Lowell Sherman
Fred Fishbach (on the left) with Fred Hibbard and Edith Roberts
The three checked into three rooms at the St. Francis Hotel: 1219 for Arbuckle and Fishback to share, 1221 for Sherman, and 1220 designated as a party room.
Several women were invited to the suite. During the carousing, a 26-year-old aspiring actress named Virginia Rappe was found seriously ill in room 1219 and was examined by the hotel doctor, who concluded her symptoms were mostly caused by intoxication, and gave her morphine to calm her. Rappe was not hospitalized until two days after the incident.[2]
Virginia Rappe suffered from chronic cystitis,[17] a condition that liquor irritated dramatically. Her heavy drinking habits and the poor quality of the era’s bootleg alcohol could leave her in severe physical distress.
She developed a reputation for over-imbibing at parties, then drunkenly tearing at her clothes from the resulting physical pain. But by the time of the St. Francis Hotel party, her reproductive health was a greater concern. Despite reports trying to paint her in a bad light, the autopsy revealed she never had any abortion nor was pregnant.
At the hospital, Rappe’s companion at the party, Bambina Maude Delmont, told Rappe’s doctor that Arbuckle had raped her friend.
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial
Police photos of Roscoe Arbuckle
The doctor examined Rappe but found no evidence of rape. Rappe died one day after her hospitalization of peritonitis, caused by a ruptured bladder. Delmont then told police that Arbuckle raped Rappe, and the police concluded that the impact Arbuckle’s overweight body had on Rappe eventually caused her bladder to rupture.[2]
Rappe’s manager Al Semnacker (at a later press conference) accused Arbuckle of using a piece of ice to simulate sex with her, which led to the injuries.[18] By the time the story was reported in newspapers, the object had evolved into being a Coca-Cola or champagne bottle, instead of a piece of ice. In fact, witnesses testified that Arbuckle rubbed the ice on Rappe’s stomach to ease her abdominal pain. Arbuckle denied any wrongdoing. Delmont later made a statement incriminating Arbuckle to the police in an attempt to extort money from Arbuckle’s attorneys.[19]
Newspaper coverage of the Arbuckle trial
Newspaper coverage of the Arbuckle trial
Newspaper coverage of the Arbuckle trial
Arbuckle’s trial was a major media event; William Randolph Hearst‘s nationwide newspaper chain exploited the situation with exaggerated and sensationalized stories.
The story was fueled by yellow journalism, with the newspapers portraying him as a gross lecher who used his weight to overpower innocent girls. Hearst was gratified by the profits he accrued during the Arbuckle scandal, and later said that it had “sold more newspapers than any event since the sinking of the Lusitania.“[20]Morality groups called for Arbuckle to be sentenced to death. The resulting scandal destroyed Arbuckle’s career and his personal life.
Newspaper coverage of the Arbuckle trial and sensationalist reporting
Arbuckle was regarded by those who knew him closely as a good-natured man who was shy with women; he has been described as “the most chaste man in pictures”.[4] However, studio executives, fearing negative publicity by association, ordered Arbuckle’s industry friends and fellow actors (whose careers they controlled) not to publicly speak up for him.
Charlie Chaplin, who was in Britain at the time, told reporters that he could not (and would not) believe Roscoe Arbuckle had anything to do with Virginia Rappe’s death; having known Arbuckle since they both worked at Keystone in 1914, Chaplin “knew Roscoe to be a genial, easy-going type who would not harm a fly.”[21]
Roscoe Arbuckle and Charles Chaplin
Roscoe Arbuckle and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton reportedly did make one public statement in support of Arbuckle’s innocence which earned him a mild reprimand from the studio where he worked.
Film actor William S. Hart, who had never met or worked with Arbuckle, made a number of damaging public statements in which he presumed that Arbuckle was guilty. Arbuckle later wrote a premise for a film parodying Hart as a thief, bully, and wife beater, which Keaton purchased from him.
The following year in 1922, Keaton co-wrote, directed and starred in The Frozen North, the resulting film, and as a result, Hart refused to speak to Keaton for many years.[22][23]
William S Hart
Buster Keaton in The Frozen North (Edward F Cline and Buster Keaton, 1922)
Trials
The prosecutor, San Francisco District Attorney Matthew Brady, an intensely ambitious man who planned to run for governor, made public pronouncements of Arbuckle’s guilt and pressured witnesses to make false statements. Brady at first used Delmont as his star witness during the indictment hearing.[2]
The defense had also obtained a letter from Delmont admitting to a plan to extort payment from Arbuckle. In view of Delmont’s constantly changing story, her testimony would have ended any chance of going to trial.
Ultimately, the judge found no evidence of rape. After hearing testimony from one of the party guests, Zey Prevon, that Rappe told her “Roscoe hurt me” on her deathbed, the judge decided that Arbuckle could be charged with first-degree murder. Brady had originally planned to seek the death penalty. The charge was later reduced to manslaughter.[2]
First trial
On September 17, 1921, Arbuckle was arrested and arraigned on the charges of manslaughter, but arranged bail after nearly three weeks in jail.
The trial began November 14, 1921, in the city courthouse in San Francisco.[2] Arbuckle’s defense lawyer was Gavin McNab, a professional and competent local attorney that Arbuckle hired as his lead defense counsel.
The principal witness was Ms. Zey Prevon, a guest at the party.[24] At the beginning of the trial Arbuckle told his already-estranged wife, Minta Durfee, that he did not harm Rappe; she believed him and appeared regularly in the courtroom to support him. Public feeling was so negative that she was later shot at while entering the courthouse.[20]
Brady’s first witnesses during the trial included Betty Campbell, a model, who attended the September 5 party and testified that she saw Arbuckle with a smile on his face hours after the alleged rape occurred; Grace Hultson, a local hospital nurse who testified it was very likely that Arbuckle raped Rappe and bruised her body in the process; and Dr. Edward Heinrich, a local criminologist who claimed he found Arbuckle’s fingerprints smeared with Rappe’s blood on room 1219’s bathroom door.
Dr. Arthur Beardslee, the hotel doctor who had examined Rappe, testified that an external force seemed to have damaged the bladder. During cross-examination, Betty Campbell, however, revealed that Brady threatened to charge her with perjury if she did not testify against Arbuckle. Dr. Heinrich’s claim to have found fingerprints was cast into doubt after McNab produced the St. Francis hotel maid, who testified that she had cleaned the room before the investigation even took place and did not find any blood on the bathroom door.
Dr. Beardslee admitted that Rappe had never mentioned being assaulted while he was treating her. McNab was furthermore able to get Nurse Hultson to admit that the rupture of Rappe’s bladder could very well have been a result of cancer, and that the bruises on her body could also have been a result of the heavy jewelry she was wearing that evening.[2] During the defense stage of the trial, McNab called various pathology experts who testified that although Rappe’s bladder had ruptured, there was evidence of chronic inflammation and no evidence of any pathological changes preceding the rupture; in other words, there was no external cause for the rupture.[citation needed]
Roscoe Arbuckle and his defence team in the Courtroom
On November 28, Arbuckle testified as the defense’s final witness. Arbuckle was simple, direct, and unflustered in both direct and cross examination. In his testimony, Arbuckle claimed that Rappe (whom he testified that he had known for five or six years) came into the party room (1220) around noon that day, and that some time afterward Mae Taub (daughter-in-law of Billy Sunday) asked him for a ride into town, so he went to his room (1219) to change his clothes and discovered Rappe in the bathroom vomiting in the toilet.
Arbuckle then claimed Rappe told him she felt ill and asked to lie down, and that he carried her into the bedroom and asked a few of the party guests to help treat her. When Arbuckle and a few of the guests re-entered the room, they found Rappe on the floor near the bed tearing at her clothing and going into violent convulsions. To calm Rappe down, they placed her in a bathtub of cool water. Arbuckle and Fischbach then took her to room 1227 and called the hotel manager and doctor. After the doctor declared that Rappe was just drunk, Arbuckle then drove Taub to town.
During the whole trial, the prosecution presented medical descriptions of Rappe’s bladder as evidence that she had an illness. In his testimony, Arbuckle denied he had any knowledge of Rappe’s illness. During cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Leo Friedman aggressively grilled Arbuckle over the fact that he refused to call a doctor when he found Rappe sick, and argued that he refused to do so because he knew of Rappe’s illness and saw a perfect opportunity to rape and kill her.
Arbuckle calmly maintained that he never physically hurt or sexually assaulted Rappe in any way during the September 5 party, and he also claimed that he never made any inappropriate sexual advances against any woman in his life. After over two weeks of testimony with 60 prosecution and defense witnesses, including 18 doctors who testified about Rappe’s illness, the defense rested. On December 4, 1921, the jury returned five days later deadlocked after nearly 44 hours of deliberation with a 10–2 not guilty verdict, and a mistrial was declared.[2]
Arbuckle’s attorneys later concentrated their attention on one woman named Helen Hubbard who had told jurors that she would vote guilty “until hell freezes over”. She refused to look at the exhibits or read the trial transcripts, having made up her mind in the courtroom. Hubbard’s husband was a lawyer who did business with the D.A.’s office,[25] and expressed surprise that she was not challenged when selected for the jury pool.
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial – Newspaper Coverage
While much attention was paid to Hubbard after the trial, some other jury members felt Arbuckle was guilty but not beyond a reasonable doubt, and various jurors joined Hubbard in voting to convict, including – repeatedly at the end – Thomas Kilkenny.
Arbuckle researcher Joan Myers describes the political climate and the media attention to the presence of women on juries (which had only been legal for four years at the time), and how Arbuckle’s defense immediately singled out Hubbard as a villain; Myers also records Hubbard’s account of the jury foreman August Fritze’s attempts to bully her into changing her vote. While Hubbard offered explanations on her vote whenever challenged, Kilkenny remained silent and quickly faded from the media spotlight after the trial ended.[26]
Second trial
The second trial began January 11, 1922, with a new jury, but with the same legal defense and prosecution as well as the same presiding judge.
The same evidence was presented, but this time one of the witnesses, Zey Prevon, testified that Brady had forced her to lie. Another witness who testified during the first trial, a former security guard named Jesse Norgard, who worked at Culver Studios where Arbuckle worked, testified that Arbuckle had once shown up at the studio and offered him a cash bribe in exchange for the key to Rappe’s dressing room. The comedian supposedly said he wanted it to play a joke on the actress. Norgard said he refused to give him the key.
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial – Second Trial Jury
During cross-examination, Norgard’s testimony was called into question when he was revealed to be an ex-convict who was currently charged with sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl, and who was also looking for a sentence reduction from Brady in exchange for his testimony. Further, in contrast to the first trial, Rappe’s history of promiscuity and heavy drinking was detailed. The second trial also discredited some major evidence such as the identification of Arbuckle’s fingerprints on the hotel bedroom door: Heinrich took back his earlier testimony from the first trial and testified that the fingerprint evidence was likely faked. The defense was so convinced of an acquittal that Arbuckle was not called to testify. Arbuckle’s lawyer, McNab, made no closing argument to the jury. However, some jurors interpreted the refusal to let Arbuckle testify as a sign of guilt. After over 40 hours of deliberation, the jury returned February 3, deadlocked with a 10–2 not guilty verdict, resulting in another mistrial.[2]
Third trial
By the time of the third trial, Arbuckle’s films had been banned, and newspapers had been filled for the past seven months with stories of alleged Hollywood orgies, murder, and sexual perversion. Delmont was touring the country giving one-woman shows as “The woman who signed the murder charge against Arbuckle”, and lecturing on the evils of Hollywood.
Roscoe Arbuckle Trial – Third Trial
The third trial began March 13, 1922, and this time the defense took no chances. McNab took an aggressive defense, completely tearing apart the prosecution’s case with long and aggressive examination and cross-examination of each witness. McNab also managed to get in still more evidence about Virginia Rappe’s lurid past and medical history. Another hole in the prosecution’s case was opened because Zey Prevon, a key witness, was out of the country after fleeing police custody and unable to testify.[2]
As in the first trial, Arbuckle testified as the final witness and again maintained his denials in his heartfelt testimony about his version of the events at the hotel party. During closing statements, McNab reviewed how flawed the case was against Arbuckle from the very start and how District Attorney Brady fell for the outlandish charges of Maude Delmont, whom McNab described as “the complaining witness who never witnessed”.
The jury began deliberations April 12, and took only six minutes to return with a unanimous not guilty verdict—five of those minutes were spent writing a formal statement of apology to Arbuckle for putting him through the ordeal; a dramatic move in American justice. The jury statement as read by the jury foreman stated:
Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him. We feel also that it was only our plain duty to give him this exoneration, under the evidence, for there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story on the witness stand, which we all believed. The happening at the hotel was an unfortunate affair for which Arbuckle, so the evidence shows, was in no way responsible. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and woman who have sat listening for thirty-one days to evidence, that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.
Roscoe Arbuckle in Court
After the reading of the apology statement, the jury foreman personally handed the statement to Arbuckle who kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life. Then, one by one, the entire 12-person jury plus the two jury alternates walked up to Arbuckle’s defense table where they shook his hand and/or embraced and personally apologized to him. The entire jury even proudly posed in a photo op with Arbuckle for photographers after the verdict and apology.
Some experts later concluded that Rappe’s bladder might also have ruptured as a result of an abortion she might have had a short time before the September 5 party. Rappe’s organs had been destroyed and it was now impossible to test for pregnancy. Because alcohol was consumed at the party, Arbuckle was forced to plead guilty to one count of violating the Volstead Act, and had to pay a $500 fine. At the time of his acquittal, Arbuckle owed over $700,000 (equivalent to approximately $10,200,000 in 2017 dollars[1]) in legal fees to his attorneys for the three criminal trials, and he was forced to sell his house and all of his cars to pay some of the debt.[2]
The scandal and trials had greatly damaged his popularity among the general public, and in spite of the acquittal and the apology, his reputation was not restored, and the effects of the scandal continued. Will H. Hays, who served as the head of the newly formed Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) Hollywood censor board, cited Arbuckle as an example of the poor morals in Hollywood. On April 18, 1922, six days after Arbuckle’s acquittal, Hays banned Roscoe Arbuckle from ever working in U.S. movies again. He had also requested that all showings and bookings of Arbuckle films be cancelled, and exhibitors complied.
Will Hays – On April 18, 1922, six days after Arbuckle’s acquittal, Hays banned Roscoe Arbuckle from ever working in U.S. movies again
In December of the same year, under public pressure, Hays elected to lift the ban. However, Arbuckle was still unable to secure work as an actor.[2] Most exhibitors still declined to show Arbuckle’s films, several of which now have no copies known to have survived intact.
One of Arbuckle’s feature-length films known to survive is Leap Year, which Paramount declined to release in the United States due to the scandal.[27] It was eventually released in Europe.[28] With Arbuckle’s films now banned, in March 1922, Buster Keaton signed an agreement to give Arbuckle 35 percent of all future profits from his company, Buster Keaton Productions, to ease his financial situation.[23]
Roscoe Arbuckle in Leap Year (James Cruze/Roscoe Arbuckle, 1924)
Similar concurrent scandals
Although it was regarded as Hollywood’s first major scandal,[2] the Arbuckle case was one of five major Paramount-related scandals of the period. In 1920, silent film actress Olive Thomas died after accidentally drinking mercury bichloride, which her husband, matinee idol Jack Pickford, had been using as a topical treatment for syphilis; there were rumors that it had been a suicide.[29]
Olive Thomas
Jack Pickford
In February 1922, the murder of director William Desmond Taylor severely damaged the careers of actresses Mary Miles Minter and former Arbuckle screen partner Mabel Normand. In 1923, actor/director Wallace Reid‘s dependency on morphine resulted in his death.[30] In 1924, actor/writer/director Thomas H. Ince died mysteriously, aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht.[31]
William Desmond Hurst
Mary Miles Minter
Mabel Normand
Wallace Reid
Thomas H Ince
Aftermath
After the trials, Hollywood shunned Arbuckle, and he could no longer find work. A secondary effect, for archive history, was the determined destruction of copies of films starring Arbuckle.[32]
In November 1923, Minta Durfee filed for divorce, charging grounds of desertion.[33] The divorce was granted the following January.[34]
Minta Durfee, Roscoe Arbuckle’s first wife
They had been separated since 1921, though Durfee always claimed he was the nicest man in the world and that they were still friends.[35] After a brief reconciliation, Durfee again filed for divorce, this time while in Paris, in December 1924.[36]
Arbuckle tried returning to filmmaking, but industry resistance to distributing his pictures continued to linger after his acquittal.
He retreated into alcoholism. In the words of his first wife, “Roscoe only seemed to find solace and comfort in a bottle”. Buster Keaton attempted to help Arbuckle by giving him work on his films. Arbuckle wrote the story for a Keaton short called Daydreams (1922).
Daydreams (Edward S Cline/Buster Keaton, 1922)
Arbuckle allegedly co-directed scenes in Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr. (1924), but it is unclear how much of this footage remained in the film’s final cut.
The same year, in Photoplay‘s August issue, James R. Quirk wrote “I would like to see Roscoe Arbuckle make a comeback to the screen.” He also said “The American nation prides itself upon its spirit of fair play. We like the whole world to look upon America as the place where every man gets a square deal. Are you sure Roscoe Arbuckle is getting one today? I’m not.”[39]
William Goodrich pseudonym
Eventually, Arbuckle worked as a director under the alias William Goodrich. According to author David Yallop in The Day the Laughter Stopped (a biography of Arbuckle with special attention to the scandal and its aftermath), Arbuckle’s father’s full name was William Goodrich Arbuckle.
Another tale credited Keaton, an inveterate punster, with suggesting that Arbuckle become a director under the alias “Will B. Good”. The pun being too obvious, Arbuckle adopted the more formal pseudonym “William Goodrich”.[40] Keaton himself told this story during a recorded interview with Kevin Brownlow in the 1960s.[41]
Roscoe Arbuckle as William Goodrich
Between 1924 and 1932, Arbuckle directed a number of comedy shorts under the pseudonym for Educational Pictures, which featured lesser-known comics of the day. Louise Brooks, who played the ingenue in Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (1931), told Kevin Brownlow of her experiences in working with Arbuckle:
He made no attempt to direct this picture. He just sat in his director’s chair like a dead man. He had been very nice and sweetly dead ever since the scandal that ruined his career. But it was such an amazing thing for me to come in to make this broken-down picture, and to find my director was the great Roscoe Arbuckle. Oh, I thought he was magnificent in films. He was a wonderful dancer—a wonderful ballroom dancer, in his heyday. It was like floating in the arms of a huge doughnut—really delightful.[20]
Windy Riley Goes Hollywood (William Goodrich – Roscoe Arbuckle, 1931)
Roscoe Arbuckle and Addie McPhail after their wedding ceremony
Brief comeback and death
In 1932, Arbuckle signed a contract with Warner Bros. to star under his own name in a series of six two-reel comedies, to be filmed at the Vitagraph studios in Brooklyn.
These six short films constitute the only recordings of his voice. Silent-film comedian Al St. John (Arbuckle’s nephew) and actors Lionel Stander and Shemp Howard appeared with Arbuckle. The films were very successful in America,[43] although when Warner Bros. attempted to release the first one (Hey, Pop!) in the United Kingdom, the British Board of Film Censors cited the 10-year-old scandal and refused to grant an exhibition certificate.[44]
Hey, Pop! (Alfred J.Goulding, 1932)
On June 28, 1933, Arbuckle had finished filming the last of the two-reelers (four of which had already been released). The next day he signed a contract with Warners to star in a feature-length film.[45] That night he went out with friends to celebrate his first wedding anniversary and the new Warner contract when he reportedly said: “This is the best day of my life.”
He suffered a heart attack later that night and died in his sleep.[9] He was 46. His widow Addie requested that his body be cremated as that was Arbuckle’s wish.[46]
Roscoe Arbuckle’s death report
Legacy
Many of Arbuckle’s films, including the feature Life of the Party (1920), survive only as worn prints with foreign-language inter-titles. Little or no effort was made to preserve original negatives and prints during Hollywood’s first two decades.
The Life of the Party (Joseph Henabery, 1920)
By the early 21st century, some of Arbuckle’s short subjects (particularly those co-starring Chaplin or Keaton) had been restored, released on DVD, and even screened theatrically. Arbuckle’s early influence on American slapstick comedy is widely recognised.[47]
The James Ivory film The Wild Party (1975) has been repeatedly but incorrectly cited as a film dramatization of the Arbuckle–Rappe scandal.
In fact it is loosely based on the 1926 poem by Joseph Moncure March.[49] In this film, James Coco portrays a heavy-set silent-film comedian named Jolly Grimm whose career is on the skids, but who is desperately planning a comeback.
Raquel Welch portrays his mistress, who ultimately goads him into shooting her. This film was loosely based on the misconceptions surrounding the Arbuckle scandal, yet it bears almost no resemblance to the documented facts of the case.[50]
The Wild Party (James Ivory, 1975)
In Ken Russell‘s 1977 biopic Valentino, Rudolph Nureyev as a pre-movie star Rudolph Valentino dances in a nightclub before a grossly overweight, obnoxious, and hedonistic celebrity called “Mr. Fatty” (played by William Hootkins), a caricature of Arbuckle rooted in the public view of him created in popular press coverage of the Rappe rape trial.
In the scene, Valentino picks up starlet (Jean Acker played by Carol Kane) off a table in which she is sitting in front of Fatty and dances with her, enraging the spoiled star, who becomes apoplectic.[51]
Valentino (Ken Russel, 1977)
The caricature of Arbuckle as a boor continued to be promulgated in the seventies by film writers such as Kenneth Anger in his seminal work Hollywood Babylon.
In an episode of the Mathnet segment of the children’s public-television television series Square One Television (Season 2, Episode 1, “The Case of the Willing Parrot,” presented in five sections over the course of a week of the overall show), fictitious deceased celebrity Roscoe “Fatty” Tissue was written as a parody of Arbuckle.
Before his death in 1997, comedian Chris Farley expressed interest in starring as Arbuckle in a biography film. According to the 2008 biography The Chris Farley Show: A Biography in Three Acts, Farley and screenwriter David Mamet agreed to work together on what would have been Farley’s first dramatic role.[52]
In 2007, director Kevin Connor planned a film, The Life of the Party, based on Arbuckle’s life. It was to star Chris Kattan and Preston Lacy.[53] However the project was shelved.[54] Like Farley, comedians John Belushi and John Candy also considered playing Arbuckle, but each of them died before a biopic was made. Farley’s film was signed with Vince Vaughn as his co-star.[55]
In 2005, jazz trumpet player Dave Douglas released the album “Keystone”, dedicated to the work of Roscoe Arbuckle. It contains a DVD which features the movie Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916/ Keystone – Triangle), starring Roscoe Arbuckle, Mable Normand, Al St. John, and Luke the Dog.
Dave Douglas, Keystone (2005)
In April and May 2006, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a 56-film, month-long retrospective of all of Arbuckle’s known surviving work, running the entire series twice.[56]
Arbuckle is the subject of a 2004 novel titled I, Fatty by author Jerry Stahl. The Day the Laughter Stopped by David Yallop and Frame-Up! The Untold Story of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle by Andy Edmonds are other books on Arbuckle’s life.[57] The 1963 novel, Scandal in Eden by Garet Rogers,[58] is a fictionalized version of the Arbuckle scandal.
The Day the Laughter Stopped (David Yallop, 1976)
Fatty Arbuckle’s was an American-themed restaurant chain in the UK prominent during the 1980s and named after Arbuckle.
Stoneface, a 2012 play by Vanessa Claire Stewart about Buster Keaton, depicts Keaton’s and Arbuckle’s friendship and professional relationship.
Jump up^“Minta Durfee, actress, 85, Dies; Former Wife of Fatty Arbuckle”. The New York Times. September 12, 1975. Retrieved January 30, 2015. (Subscription required (help)). Minta Durfee, the actress who was married to Roscoe (Fatty) Arbuckle and became Charlie Chaplin’s first motionpicture leading lady, died Tuesday in Woodland Hills, a Los Angeles suburb.
Jump up^“Interesting facts about Roscoe Arbuckle”. Arbucklemania. Retrieved January 30, 2015. Alice Lake called him Arbie. To Mabel Normand he was Big Otto, after an elephant in the Selig Studio Zoo near Keystone. Buster Keaton called him Chief. Fred Mace called him Crab. And for some unexplained reason fellow comic Charlie Murray referred to him as My Child the Fat. His three wives always called him Roscoe
Jump up^Fine, Gary Allen (April 1, 2001). Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial. University of Chicago Press. p. 151. ISBN978-0226249414.
Jump up^Sweeney, Kevin W. (2007). Buster Keaton Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 192–193. ISBN1578069637.
Jump up^“Milestones September 8, 1929”. Time. September 30, 1929. Retrieved January 30, 2015. Sued for Divorce. By Mrs. Doris Deane Arbuckle minor cinemactress, Roscoe Conkling (“Fatty”) Arbuckle, onetime cinema funnyman; at Los Angeles; for the second time. Grounds: desertion, cruelty.
Jump up^Chermak, Steven M.; Bailey, Frankie Y., eds. (October 30, 2007). Crimes and Trials of the Century: From the Black Sox scandal to the Attica prison riots, Volume 1. Glenwood. p. 69. ISBN978-0313341106.
Jump up^Long, Robert Emmet (December 11, 2006). James Ivory in Conversation: How Merchant Ivory Makes Its Movies. University of California Press. p. 126. ISBN978-0520249998.
Edmonds, Andy (1991). Frame-Up!: The Untold Story of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. New York: William Morrow & Company. ISBN978-0-688-09129-3.
Merritt, Greg (2013). Room 1219: The Life of Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN978-1-613-74792-6.
Neibaur, James L. (December 2006). Arbuckle and Keaton: Their 14 Film Collaborations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN0-7864-2831-7.
Oderman, Stuart (2005). Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle: A Biography of the Silent Film Comedian, 1887–1933. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. ISBN978-0-899-50872-6.
The New York Times; September 12, 1921; pg. 1. “San Francisco, California; September 11, 1921. “Roscoe (“Fatty”) Arbuckle was arrested late last night on a charge of murder as a result of the death of Virginia Rappe, film actress, after a party in Arbuckle’s rooms at the Hotel St. Francis. Arbuckle is still in jail tonight despite efforts by his lawyers to find some way to obtain his liberty.”
The New York Times; September 13, 1921; pg. 1. “San Francisco, California; September 12, 1921. “The Grand Jury met tonight at 7:30 o’clock to hear the testimony of witnesses rounded up by Matthew Brady (District Attorney) of San Francisco to support his demand for the indictment of Roscoe (“Fatty”) Arbuckle for the murder of Miss Virginia Rappe.”
Charley Chase (born Charles Joseph Parrott, October 20, 1893 – June 20, 1940) was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roachshort filmcomedies. He was the older brother of comedian/director James Parrott.
Hal Roach
James Parrot – Film Director and Charley Chase’s brother
Poster for His New Profession (Charles Chaplin, 1914) with Charles Chaplin and Charley Chase
His New Profession (Charles Chaplin, 1914) with Charles Chaplin and Charley Chase
His New Profession (Charles Chaplin, 1914) with Charles Chaplin and Charley Chase
By 1915 he was playing juvenileleads in the Keystones, and directing some of the films as Charles Parrott. His Keystone credentials were good enough to get him steady work as a comedy director with other companies; he directed many of Chaplin imitator Billy West‘s comedies, which featured a young Oliver Hardy as villain.
Charley Chase, Billy West and Oliver Hardy in The Hobbo (Arvid L Gillstrom, 1917)
Charley Chase, Billy West and Oliver Hardy in Playmates (Charley Chase, 1918)
He worked at L-KO Kompany during its final months of existence. Then in 1920, Chase began working as a film director for Hal Roach Studios.
Among his notable early works for Roach was supervising the first entries in the Our Gang series, as well as directing several films starring Lloyd Hamilton; like many other silent comedians, Chase is reported to have regarded Hamilton’s work as a major influence on that of his own. Chase became director-general of the Hal Roach studio in late 1921, supervising the production of all the Roach series except the Harold Lloyd comedies.
Charley Chase and Our Gang 1920s – Hal Roach Studios
Moonshine (Charley Chase, 1920) Charley Chase with Lloyd Hamilton
Following Lloyd’s departure from the studio in 1923, Chase moved back in front of the camera with his own series of shorts, adopting the screen name Charley Chase.
Chase was a master of the comedy of embarrassment, and he played either hapless young businessmen or befuddled husbands in dozens of situation comedies. His screen persona was that of a pleasant young man with a dapper mustache and ordinary street clothes; this set him apart from the clownishmakeups and crazy costumes used by his contemporaries. His earliest Roach shorts cast him as a hard-luck fellow named “Jimmie Jump” in one-reel (10-minute) comedies.
Charley Chase as Jimmy Jump in April Fool (Ralph Ceder, 1924)
The first Chase series was successful and expanded to two reels (20 minutes); this would become the standard length for Chase comedies, apart from a few three-reel featurettes later.
Chase remained the guiding hand behind the films, assisting anonymously with the directing, writing, and editing.
Mighty Like A Moose (Leo McCarey, 1926) with Charley Chase, and Vivien Oakland
Mighty Like A Moose (Leo McCarey, 1926) with Charley Chase, and Vivien Oakland
Crazy Like A Fox (Leo McCarey, 1926) Charley Chase with Martha Sleeper
Crazy Like A Fox (Leo McCarey, 1926) Charley Chase with William Blaisdell
Fluttering Hearts (James Parrot, 1927) Charley Chase with Oliver Hardy and Martha Sleeper
Fluttering Hearts (James Parrot, 1927) Charley Chase with Martha Sleeper and Eugene Paltette
Limousine Love (Fred Guiol, 1928) Charley Chase with Viola Richard
Limousine Love (Fred Guiol, 1928) Charley Chase
Chase moved with ease into sound films in 1929, and became one of the most popular film comedians of the period.
He continued to be very prolific in the talkie era, often putting his fine singingvoice on display and including his humorous, self-penned songs in his comedy shorts. The two-reeler The Pip from Pittsburg, released in 1931 and co-starring Thelma Todd, is one of the most celebrated Charley Chase comedies of the sound era.
The Pip From Pittsburg (James Parrott, 1931) Charley Chase with Thelma Todd
The Pip From Pittsburg (James Parrott, 1931) Charley Chase with Dorothy Granger and Carlton Griffin
Throughout the decade, the Charley Chase shorts continued to stand alongside Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang as the core output of the Roach studio. Chase was featured in the Laurel and Hardy feature Sons of the Desert; Laurel and Hardy made cameo appearances as hitchhikers in Chase’s On the Wrong Trek.
Sons of the Desert (William A Seiter, 1933) Charley Chase with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
Sons of the Desert (William A Seiter, 1933) Charley Chase with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
On the Wrong Trek was supposed to be the final Charley Chase short subject; by 1936 producer Hal Roach was now concentrating on making ambitious feature films.
On the Wrong Treck (Charley Chase and Harold Law, 1936) Charley Chase with Rosina Lawrence
Chase’s feature was plagued with a host of production problems and legalities, and the film was drastically edited down to two reels and finally released as one last Charley Chase short, Neighborhood House. Chase was then dismissed from the Roach studio.
Kelly the Second (Gus Meins, 1936) Poster
Neighborhood House (Charley Chase and Harold Law 1936) Charley Chase
Later years and death
In 1937, Chase began working at Columbia Pictures, where he spent the rest of his career starring in his own series of two-reel comedies, as well as producing and directing other Columbia comedies, including those of The Three Stooges and Andy Clyde.
Violent is the Word For Curly (Charley Chase, 1938) Charley Chase with Three Stooges
Recent research asserts that the Chase family’s maid introduced the song to Chase and taught it to his daughters. Chase’s own shorts at Columbia favored broader sight gags and more slapstick than his earlier, subtler work, although he does sing in two of the Columbias, The Grand Hooter and The Big Squirt (both 1937).
Many of Chase’s Columbia short subjects were strong enough to be remade in the 1940s with other comedians; Chase’s The Heckler (1940) was remade with Shemp Howardas Mr. Noisy (1946) while The Nightshirt Bandit (1938) was remade with Andy Clyde as Go Chase Yourself (1948) and again in 1956 as Pardon My Nightshirt.
Charley Chase promotional material 1920s
Chase reportedly suffered from depression and alcoholism for most of his professional career, and his tumultuous lifestyle began to take a serious toll on his health. His hair had turned prematurely gray, and he dyed it jet-black for his Columbia comedies.
His younger brother, comedy writer-director James Parrott, had personal problems resulting from a drug treatment, and died in 1939. Chase was devastated. He had refused to give his brother money to support his drug habit, and friends knew he felt responsible for Parrott’s death.
James Parrott with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy
He coped with the loss by throwing himself into his work and by drinking more heavily than ever, despite doctors’ warnings. The stress ultimately caught up with him; just over a year after his brother’s death, Charley Chase died of a heart attack in Hollywood, California on June 20, 1940. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery near his wife Bebe Eltinge in Glendale, California. Brother James Parrott is also interred at Forest Lawn.
Since the 1990s, there has been a revival of interest in the films of Charley Chase, due in large part to the increased availability of his comedies. An extensive website researching his life and work, The World of Charley Chase, was created in 1996, and a biography, Smile When the Raindrops Fall, was published in 1998.
Smile When The Raindrops Fall was the theme song of Whispering Whoopee, a two-reeler from 1930, starring Charley Chase
Chase’s sound comedies for Hal Roach were briefly televised in the late 1990s on the short-lived American cable network the Odyssey Channel. Retrospectives of Chase’s work organized by The Silent Clowns Film Series were held in 1999, 2001, 2006, and 2008 in New York City.
A marathon of selected Charley Chase shorts from the silent era was broadcast in 2005 on the American cable television network Turner Classic Movies. In late 2006, Turner Classic Movies began to air Charley Chase’s sound-era comedies. In January 2011, several of his sound shorts were featured during Turner Classic Movies’ tribute to Hal Roach Studios.
In 2007, Mighty Like a Moose (1926) was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, solidifying its reputation as one of the most celebrated comedies of the silent era and cementing Chase’s status as a pioneer of early film comedy.
Kino International released two Charley Chase DVDvolumes in 2004 and 2005 for their Slapstick Symposium series. The films came from archives and collectors around the world. In July 2009, VCI Entertainment released Becoming Charley Chase, a DVD boxed set of Charley Chase’s early silent films.
Kino Lorber Charley Chase Collection on DVD
Columbia Pictures has prepared digital restorations of its twenty Charley Chase shorts, in the same manner as its Buster Keaton DVD restorations. On January 1, 2013 Sony Home Entertainment released Charley Chase Shorts Volume 1, part of its “Columbia Choice Collection” MOD DVD-R library. The 1-disc release contains eight of Chase’s starring shorts, and one Smith & Dale short which he directed, A Nag in the Bag (1938). On November 5, 2013 Sony Home Entertainment released Charley Chase Shorts Volume 2, another in their MOD DVD-R series, which contained the remaining twelve Chase shorts.
Jump up^Anthony, Brian and Edmonds, Andy (1998). Smile When the Raindrops Fall: The Story of Charley Chase. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 23. ISBN0-8108-3377-8
Jump up^Lahue, Kalton C. and Gill, Samuel (1970). Clown Princes and Court Jesters. A.S. Barnes and Company, 94.
Jump up^Solan, Yair. “Many Big Squawks.” The World of Charley Chase.“Archived copy”. Archived from the original on 2010-01-26. Retrieved 2009-07-12.
Jump up^Okuda, Ted and Watz, Edward (1986). The Columbia Comedy Shorts: Two-Reel Hollywood Film Comedies, 1933–1958. McFarland & Company, Inc., 27. ISBN0-7864-0577-5.
Jump up^Finegan, Richard. “Swingin’ the Alphabet Composer Finally Identified.” The Three Stooges Journal (Winter 2005): 4.
We have some exciting news to share with all of our readers!
Last month we had successfully tested a new platform on Watch2Gether which will enable us to screen a variety of classic films in real time.
In addition to our already popular Cinematheque Live, from 1st of March 2018 we will be screening a selection of classic films. They will be streamed in our Film Dialogue Room on Watch2Gether.
Please note that we no longer stream films on Rabbit, as the company ceased trading in July 2019.
We love watching, discussing and analysing films and for the first time, our screenings will give us an opportunity to discuss everything in real time. You will need to have your audio/video enabled in order to participate.
Our screenings will be scheduled and organised in a Film Season format.
Our current Film Seasons are:
Pre Code Films
Film Noir
Silent Classics
Classic Comedy
Animation Greats
Experimental Films
Film History Documentaries
Some of our screenings will have special guests, introductions and post-screening discussions.
Let us know if there are any other Film Seasons that you may wish to see. Also if there are any particular films that you would like to watch and discuss with us.
We hope you will enjoy our new format for watching and discussing films! See you in our Film Dialogue Room very soon!
To join us for the scheduled screenings please click on the link below:
A headstrong young girl falls completely for a writer of trashy novels, and insinuates herself into his household, all to the chagrin of her erstwhile fiancé.He conspires with the author’s wife to show the girl how foolish she’s been.
Cast: Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, James Hall, Jean Arthur, Edna May Arthur, Charles Sellon, Ethel Wales, Jean Harlow
63 min
The Saturday Night Kid is a 1929 American Pre-Coderomantic comedy film about two sisters and the man they both want. It stars Clara Bow, Jean Arthur, James Hall, and in her first credited role, Jean Harlow. The film was based on the play Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926) by George Abbott and John V. A. Weaver. The movie still survives. The film was preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding by Clara Bow biographer David Stenn.
Plot
Set in May 1929, the film focuses on two sisters – Mayme (Clara Bow) and Janie (Jean Arthur) – as they share an apartment in New York City. In daytime, they work as salesgirls at the Ginsberg’s department store, and at night they vie for the attention of their colleague Bill (James Hall) and fight over Janie’s selfish and reckless behavior, such as stealing Mayme’s clothes and hitchhiking to work with strangers.
Bill prefers Mayme over Janie and constantly shows his affection for her. This upsets Janie, who schemes to break up the couple.
One day at work, Bill is promoted to floorwalker, while Janie is made treasurer of the benefit pageant. Mayme, however, is not granted a promotion, but gets heavily criticized for constantly being late at work by the head of personnel, Miss Streeter (Edna May Oliver).
Cast: Colin Clive, Ian Maclaren, David Manners, Billy Bevan, Anthony Bushell, Robert Adair, Charles K Gerrard, Tom Whiteley
120 min
Journey’s End is a 1930 British-American war film directed by James Whale. Based on the play of the same name by R. C. Sherriff, the film tells the story of several British army officers involved in trench warfare during the First World War. The film, like the play before it, was an enormous critical and commercial success and launched the film careers of Whale and several of its stars.
On the eve of a battle in 1918, a new officer, Second Lieutenant Raleigh (David Manners), joins Captain Stanhope’s (Colin Clive) company in the British trench lines in France. The two men knew each other at school: the younger Raleigh hero-worshipping Stanhope, while Stanhope has come to love Raleigh’s sister.
But the Stanhope whom Raleigh encounters now is a changed man who, after three years at the front, has turned to drink and seems close to a breakdown. Stanhope is terrified that Raleigh will betray Stanhope’s decline to his sister, whom Stanhope still hopes to marry after the war.
An older officer, the avuncular Lieutenant Osborne (Ian Maclaren), desperately tries to keep Stanhope from cracking. Osborne and Raleigh are selected to lead a raiding party on the German trenches where a number of the British forces are killed, including Osborne. Later, when Raleigh too is mortally wounded, Stanhope faces a desperate time as, grief-stricken and without close friends, he prepares to face another furious enemy attack.
When Howard Hughes made the decision to turn Hell’s Angels into a talkie, he hired a then-unknown James Whale, who had just arrived in Hollywood following a successful turn directing the play Journey’s End in London and on Broadway, to direct the talking sequences; it was Whale’s film debut, and arguably prepared him for the later success he would have with the feature version of Journey’s End, Waterloo Bridge, and, most famously, the 1931 version of Frankenstein. Unhappy with the script, Whale brought in Joseph Moncure March to re-write it. Hughes later gave March the Luger pistol used in the film.[1]
With production delayed while Hughes tinkered with the flying scenes in Hell’s Angels, Whale managed to shoot his film adaptation of Journey’s End and have it come out a month before Hell’s Angels was released. The gap between completion of the dialogue scenes and completion of the aerial combat stunts allowed Whale to be paid, sail back to England, and begin work on the subsequent project, making Whale’s actual (albeit uncredited) cinema debut, his “second” film to be released.[citation needed]
Curtis, James. James Whale: A New World of Gods and Monsters. Boston: Faber and Faber,1998. ISBN0-571-19285-8.
Dolan, Edward F. Jr. Hollywood Goes to War. London: Bison Books, 1985. ISBN0-86124-229-7.
Hardwick, Jack and Ed Schnepf. “A Viewer’s Guide to Aviation Movies”. The Making of the Great Aviation Films, General Aviation Series, Volume 2, 1989.
Orriss, Bruce. When Hollywood Ruled the Skies: The Aviation Film Classics of World War II. Hawthorne, California: Aero Associates Inc., 1984. ISBN0-9613088-0-X.
Osborne, Robert. 65 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards London: Abbeville Press, 1994. ISBN1-55859-715-8.
“Production of ‘Hell’s Angels’ Cost the Lives of Three Aviators.” Syracuse Herald, December 28, 1930, p. 59.
A movie producer offers a nightclub singer a role in his latest film, but all he really wants to do is bed her. She knows, but accepts anyway. Meanwhile, a patron at the club gets a note saying that she’ll soon get another note, and that she will be killed ten minutes after that.
Cast: Norman Foster, Carole Lombard, Richard Skeets Gallagher, Eugene Pallette, Lucien Littlefield, Judith Wood, Louise Brooks, Morgan Wallace, Tom Kennedy, Frank Tuttle
Rodney Martin sets up a soap business to rival his father. With the help of an advertising expert and his secretary, Mary, he develops a successful marketing campaign. His father ends up buying the company from him, while Rodney and Mary fall in love.[2]
A copy has been preserved at the Library of Congress.[3]
In 1931, a German-language version called Die Männer um Lucie was released starring Liane Haid and Lien Deyers. This film is considered lost.
Plot
Peggy is a Follies dancer who forsakes her life of carefree attachments in order to meet her goal of marrying a millionaire. Alas, her elderly husband, broker C. Morton Gibson, is a well-meaning bore, and soon Peggy begins seeking entertainment elsewhere.
A year after their marriage, three significant events occur almost simultaneously. Peggy’s former boyfriend, Paul Lockridge, a composer and pianist who is in love with her and seems to have a funny quip for every occasion, returns from Paris.
She reunites with him as he offers her his companionship as a diversion from her stuffy life. Also, Ralph Le Saint, a young devil-may-care sculptor who is still in love with Peggy, plans his suicide in a mood of bitterness, and Gibson’s daughter, Marjorie, returns from schooling abroad. Marjorie is soon paired with Ralph, and the romance that develops between them is paralleled by the adult affair between Peggy and Paul.
Ralph and Marjorie’s escapades result in considerable trouble for Morton, while Paul implores Peggy to go to Paris with him, declaring “You are rich–dirty rich. You are dying. You need laughter to make you clean,” but she refuses. When Marjorie plans to elope with Ralph, Peggy exposes the sculptor as a fortune hunter; and, dejected, he commits suicide. As a result, Peggy confesses her unhappiness to Gibson, then joins Paul and laughter in Paris.
Jump up^Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artists Collection at The Library of Congressp.101 c.1978 by the American Film Institute
The plumber Mendel Marantz, a passionate inventor, hasn’t much luck and a family that doesn’t understand him. He finally strikes it rich with a dishwashing machine he invented.
He finds an investor, Gassenheim, and begins to make his way up in the world. But Mendel’s troubles are not over; his family doesn’t share his dream to become the landlord of the house where they live on New York’s Lower East Side.
They prefer to move uptown to Park Avenue and adapt to how rich people live. Mendel’s ideas for the house are not forgotten. The men he once told how he wished to transform the building take on the work of renovating it, with every detail he planned.
Neighbours and visitors come to see the house and the new, beautiful penthouse. His wife and his children are still in Park Avenue and when Gassenheim stops paying royalties to Mrs. Marantz, she and the children come home, to find that Mendel is close to losing everything.
New York Citystreetwalker Mae (Carole Lombard) is placed on a train by a policeman and told not to come back. However, she gets off, taking the cab of Jimmy Doyle (Pat O’Brien), who doesn’t think much of women. She slips away without paying the fare. Her friend and fellow prostitute, Lil (Mayo Methot), advises her to find honest work.
The next day, Mae goes to the cab company to pay Jimmy. They start arguing, but they are attracted to each other. He gets her a job as a waitress. By coincidence, Gert (Shirley Grey), another former prostitute who knows her, also works at the restaurant.
Jimmy and Mae soon marry, but Mae doesn’t tell her new husband about her past. After a honeymoon at Coney Island, the happy couple are met at Mae’s apartment by a policeman who mistakes Jimmy for Mae’s latest “client”. Jimmy shows him their marriage license to clear up the trouble, then leaves to think things over. He returns the next day, ready to try to make the marriage work.
Jimmy has saved $420 of the $500 he needs to become a partner in Flannagan’s gas station. However, Gert begs Mae to lend her $200 for a doctor. Despite her misgivings, Mae gives it to her. The next day, she learns that Gert has lied to her. When Jimmy tells her that the gas station owner needs money and is willing to settle for what he already has, Mae begins searching desperately for Gert.
Mae finally finds her and slaps her around until she promises to get her the money the next night. However, Gert has given the money to her boyfriend Toots (Jack La Rue), who is also Lil’s pimp. When Gert tries to steal the $200 from his wallet, Toots catches her and accidentally kills her. He hides the body, then watches from hiding as Mae shows up, finds the money and leaves.
The police arrest Mae for the crime because she left her bag behind in Gert’s apartment. However, a distrusting Jimmy had been following Mae and knows a man was with Gert. He learns that it was Toots, but when he confronts him, Lil gives Toots an alibi. Jimmy goes to the district attorney to report what he knows. Lil convinces Toots to go to the district attorney to lodge a complaint against Jimmy. Lil reveals herself to be Mae’s true friend, admitting that Toots lied and exonerating Mae.
Jimmy goes to the gas station to tell Flannagan he no longer wants to buy into the partnership. He sees Mae pumping gas under a Doyle & Flannagan sign. They argue and reconcile.
Cast: Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Merna Kennedy, Thomas E Jackson, Robert Ellis, Otis Harlan, Paul Porcasi, Marion Lord, Fritz Field, Leslie Fenton, Arthur Housman
This was Universal’s first talking picture with Technicolor sequences. The film was released by the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and DVD with Paul Fejo’s Lonesome on August 2012.
Roy Lane and Billie Moore, entertainers at the Paradise Nightclub, are in love and are rehearsing an act together. Late to work one evening, Billie is saved from dismissal by Nick Verdis, the club proprietor, through the intervention of Steve Crandall, a bootlegger, who desires a liaison with the girl.
“Scar” Edwards, robbed of a truckload of contraband liquor by Steve’s gang, arrives at the club for a showdown with Steve and is shot in the back. Steve gives Billie a bracelet to forget that she has seen him helping a “drunk” from the club. Though Roy is arrested by Dan McCorn, he is later released on Billie’s testimony.
Nick is murdered by Steve. Billie witnesses the killing, but keeps quiet about the dirty business until she finds out Steve’s next target is Roy. Billie is determined to tell her story to the police before Roy winds up dead, but Steve isn’t about to let that happen and kidnaps her. Steve, in his car, is fired at from a taxi, and overheard by Pearl, he confesses to killing Edwards. Pearl confronts Steve in Nick’s office and kills him; and McCorn, finding Steve’s body, insists that he committed suicide, exonerating Pearl and leaving Roy and Billie to the success of their act.
Director Fejos designed the camera crane specifically for use on this movie, allowing unusually fluid movement and access to nearly every conceivable angle. It could travel at 600 feet per minute and enlivened the visual style of this film and others that followed.
Preservation status
Both the silent version and the talking version of Broadway are extant, but the surviving talking version is incomplete. The color sequence at the end survives in color and in sound. In 2013, Broadway was restored by The Criterion Collection and released on DVD and Blu-ray.
George S Kauffman
Mary Astor Diary
Peter Lorre, Mary Astor and Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon (1941) 
Poster for Our Hospitality (John G Blystone, Buster Keaton, 1923)
William Desmond Hurst
Film Dialogue 
You must be logged in to post a comment.