[caption id="attachment_10122" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Charlie Chaplin making his film debut as a ladies man who should be in cuffs.[/caption]
A hundred years ago it was a good time to go to the movies.
Yesterday marked the one hundredth anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's first appearance in a film -- a one-reel silent film called Making A Living, released on February 2, 1914.
When the 24-year-old, London-born, Chaplin signed on with American film producer Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company in 1913, movies were a burgeoning phenomenon. Chaplin was already an established vaudeville star with the Fred Karno panto troupe in both England and the United States.
In that first movie, Making A Living -- a "farce comedy," Chaplin's famous tramp was nowhere to to be seen. The 13 minute film had him playing a mustachioed, swindling Lothario with a monocle and a top hat, who runs afoul of the Keystone Kops.
[caption id="attachment_10123" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The Tramp, making his first appearance, acts as if he owns the place; he soon will.[/caption]
The film was received indifferently. It was for his second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice, released just five days later on February 7, 1914, that Chaplin quickly contrived the costume and character of the Tramp, after Sennett asked him to liven up the picture with some "comedy make-up."
Chaplin made an incredible 35 short films in 1914 -- his star rose with each one. By the summer of that year he was his own director. By the following year Chaplin was a phenomenal box office sensation -- his tramp a cultural icon. He was earning an unheard of $1,250 a week after signing with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company.
It was a case of the right person in the right place, at the right time; Charlie Chaplin was just what the movies needed and audiences wanted.
The United States, with its diverse minorities and swelling immigrant population; its dreams and its hustle, had found a common denominator in the form of a Londoner, himself raised in poverty, who knew all about hustling, who himself was a new immigrant intent on chasing the American dream and "making it."
And boy was he funny!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LoLw4TJKdU
Charlie Chaplin making his film debut as a ladies man who should be in cuffs.[/caption]A hundred years ago it was a good time to go to the movies.
Yesterday marked the one hundredth anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's first appearance in a film -- a one-reel silent film called Making A Living, released on February 2, 1914.
When the 24-year-old, London-born, Chaplin signed on with American film producer Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company in 1913, movies were a burgeoning phenomenon. Chaplin was already an established vaudeville star with the Fred Karno panto troupe in both England and the United States.
In that first movie, Making A Living -- a "farce comedy," Chaplin's famous tramp was nowhere to to be seen. The 13 minute film had him playing a mustachioed, swindling Lothario with a monocle and a top hat, who runs afoul of the Keystone Kops.
A star -- the first real movie star -- is born
[caption id="attachment_10123" align="alignnone" width="497"]
The Tramp, making his first appearance, acts as if he owns the place; he soon will.[/caption]The film was received indifferently. It was for his second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice, released just five days later on February 7, 1914, that Chaplin quickly contrived the costume and character of the Tramp, after Sennett asked him to liven up the picture with some "comedy make-up."
Chaplin made an incredible 35 short films in 1914 -- his star rose with each one. By the summer of that year he was his own director. By the following year Chaplin was a phenomenal box office sensation -- his tramp a cultural icon. He was earning an unheard of $1,250 a week after signing with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company.
It was a case of the right person in the right place, at the right time; Charlie Chaplin was just what the movies needed and audiences wanted.
The United States, with its diverse minorities and swelling immigrant population; its dreams and its hustle, had found a common denominator in the form of a Londoner, himself raised in poverty, who knew all about hustling, who himself was a new immigrant intent on chasing the American dream and "making it."
And boy was he funny!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LoLw4TJKdU
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