Charlie Chaplin the screens greatest genius
Posted: January 22nd, 2008, 3:25 pm
Charlie Chaplin was a great comic, a great actor, a great director, a great producer, a great musical composer and a great movie mogul!
Chaplin began his career at Keystone studios in 1914 and though greatly successful, his films there don't appear to have stood the test of time. however, this changed at Essanny with The Tramp, his first classic film. it was there he started working with leading lady Edna Purviance. they made 34 films together and as a romantic screen partnership were as good as Bogart/Bacall or Wayne/O'Hara.
it was at the Mutual studios he became a true legend with classics like The Cure, The Adventurer, The Immigrant and Easy Street.
my own favourite Chaplin film was made at First National. it was called The Kid and was his first feature film. my favourite all time scene is also in it, where the powers that be come to take Jackie Coogan away from the tramp, (something that happened to Charlie as a child with his own mother) only to be rescued by Charlie, who performed heroicly. that scene was also complemented by one of the best pieces of film music i've ever heard, though i believe Charlie wrote many decades after the film was made.
In 1921 Charlie along with Doug fairbanks, D.W Griffith and Mary Pickford formed United Artists, making him a powerful movie mogul as well as actor. IMO Charlie was the most successful of the four as he outlasted them making his last film in the late 60s, though to be fair Mary retired young to concentrate on producing after she made the 1933 Secrets
The Gold Rush too was another Chaplin classic with Georgia Hale. i feel Chaplin's narrated version of the 1940s wasn't as good as he originally made it. for example i thought the end should not have been edited from the second version as it was a magical romantic scene between him and Georgia. City Lights had a great ending when the tramp is recognized by the once blind girl, whom he paid to have her sight restored.
Modern Times, a silent made when talkies were well established, was also great. the theme tune had lyrics added to it yrs late and was a hit for Nat King Cole. SMILE!
In MT Charlie is paired with 3rd wife Paulette Goddard, who joins him for The Great Dictator, his first full talkie. here he plays Hitler to great comic effect. the speech at the end is a warning against the dangers of Nazism and othe dictatorships
Limelight in 1952 is Charlie's last great film, about an aging music hall comic, who finds love with a much younger ballett dancer Claire Bloom. sadly the film ends with the death of the old man, leaving Bloom to marry the other younger man she loves, played by Charlie's son Sydney Jnr.
in the 1980s i marveled that most of Charlie's leading ladies were either very old or dead, but the exception was Claire Bloom, who was as beautiful as ever doing the likes of Shadowlands for UK tv. even now in her mid 70s she could pass for someone 20-yrs younger
Chaplin began his career at Keystone studios in 1914 and though greatly successful, his films there don't appear to have stood the test of time. however, this changed at Essanny with The Tramp, his first classic film. it was there he started working with leading lady Edna Purviance. they made 34 films together and as a romantic screen partnership were as good as Bogart/Bacall or Wayne/O'Hara.
it was at the Mutual studios he became a true legend with classics like The Cure, The Adventurer, The Immigrant and Easy Street.
my own favourite Chaplin film was made at First National. it was called The Kid and was his first feature film. my favourite all time scene is also in it, where the powers that be come to take Jackie Coogan away from the tramp, (something that happened to Charlie as a child with his own mother) only to be rescued by Charlie, who performed heroicly. that scene was also complemented by one of the best pieces of film music i've ever heard, though i believe Charlie wrote many decades after the film was made.
In 1921 Charlie along with Doug fairbanks, D.W Griffith and Mary Pickford formed United Artists, making him a powerful movie mogul as well as actor. IMO Charlie was the most successful of the four as he outlasted them making his last film in the late 60s, though to be fair Mary retired young to concentrate on producing after she made the 1933 Secrets
The Gold Rush too was another Chaplin classic with Georgia Hale. i feel Chaplin's narrated version of the 1940s wasn't as good as he originally made it. for example i thought the end should not have been edited from the second version as it was a magical romantic scene between him and Georgia. City Lights had a great ending when the tramp is recognized by the once blind girl, whom he paid to have her sight restored.
Modern Times, a silent made when talkies were well established, was also great. the theme tune had lyrics added to it yrs late and was a hit for Nat King Cole. SMILE!
In MT Charlie is paired with 3rd wife Paulette Goddard, who joins him for The Great Dictator, his first full talkie. here he plays Hitler to great comic effect. the speech at the end is a warning against the dangers of Nazism and othe dictatorships
Limelight in 1952 is Charlie's last great film, about an aging music hall comic, who finds love with a much younger ballett dancer Claire Bloom. sadly the film ends with the death of the old man, leaving Bloom to marry the other younger man she loves, played by Charlie's son Sydney Jnr.
in the 1980s i marveled that most of Charlie's leading ladies were either very old or dead, but the exception was Claire Bloom, who was as beautiful as ever doing the likes of Shadowlands for UK tv. even now in her mid 70s she could pass for someone 20-yrs younger