I have been a fan for about 30 years now, and while I have not constantly been buying things, I have gathered a nice assortment, and stories to go with them. Below are not all the things I have, but the ones that mean the most.
“Chaplin: His Life and Art” by David Robinson
The first thing, and still one of my top things, is a hardback copy of David Robinson’s “Chaplin, His Life and Art”. It’s sitting just a couple feet from where I’m writing now. And it was the first Chaplin item I bought. I wrote more about how I got it on Day 16.
“Charlie Chaplin: King of Comedy“ by Gerith Von Ulm
This book’s biggest distinction in my collection is it being the oldest of all my Chaplin books. Published in 1940, it’s a biography with Chaplin’s longtime Japanese valet and secretary, Toraichi Kono, as it’s main source I found it in a tiny bookstore. Well it was more like a stall. Part of a flea market that was inside an air-conditioned building. It was so tiny that only two or three people could fit!
Photographs from the set of Limelight
Back in 1995 I bought two photographs from a photographer who was on the set of Limelight. Bernie Schoenfield was a professional photographer who was hired by a magazine to shoot pictures during the making of the film.
I have not seen these photographs anywhere else since, not even on the internet, so they are very special to me 🥰
I had started to write more about meeting him for this post, but it was too long, and deserves it’s own post anyway. So that will be for later!
Movie Posters
I have a big poster for The Kid that I bought from a street vendor in Paris, France, many years ago. We were walking along a street, saw a vendor selling various books and some posters. While I was looking at The Kid poster, a young girl (10-12) and her mom were walking past and the girl said excitedly “Oh, Charlie Chaplin!”
Below is my Instagram post of two other posters. I had both of these up last year. Then a month or so later, The Adventurer fell down. But, as I said in my IG post, I love these so much!!
My sister’s mother in law gave it to me. She was given it by students of hers. She told me she doesn’t know why since she didn’t collect dolls or was a Chaplin fan. So when she found out I was a fan, she said I would enjoy it much more than she did. It originally came with a metal cane, but I have lost that over the years.
“Le manoir de mon pere” by Eugene Chaplin
This book I got awhile ago and it’s only in French, no English translation. Even though I couldn’t read French, I got it anyway because there’s lots of pictures of. I am currently learning French, and one of the reasons why is so I can read this book. A couple weeks ago I took it out and could immediately read the title without having to figure it out (Yeah, it’s not hard to figure out, but I understood *why*). I was proud of myself. And one day I plan on being able to read the whole book 🙂
Speaking of foreign language (or, rather, non-English). I also have “Mein Freund Charlie” by Jerry Epstein which is the German edition of Remembering Charlie (another great book with lots of pictures)
Customized Jacket with Chaplin’s face
Way back in the summer of 1996, I was in a circus (and, boy, is that a whole other story! And yes, Chaplin is linked with that too). One of our stops was in Harrisburg, PA, in a field next to a mall. My boyfriend and I went to inside to look around and saw a shop where you could get costumed designed one-of-a-kind shirts, jackets, etc made. He had a jacket with his three types of clowns he performed as (yes, really, he was a professional clown!). And me? I had Chaplin’s face put on the back of a black jacket. It looked, and still looks, awesome!
Chaplin CD soundtrack with ticket stub
I wrote about this back on Day 8, but I’ll share it her as well
“A picture I took a couple years ago: My very worn out CD of the Chaplin soundtrack, and in the middle, my ticket stub from the United Artists theater where I watched it on it’s nation-wide opening day.”
And that’s it!
After almost 3 years, I finally finished my 30 Day Charlie Chaplin Challenge! Huzzah! This was a lot of fun to write about. Most challenging was on Attenborough’s Chaplin movie because there was so much I had stuck in my brain since seeing it in theaters in 1993 and I finally got a big chunk of it somewhat organized and written out.
Future Challenges
I have a few other 30 Day Challenges lined up like:
Smothers Brothers (been wanting to do this for a loooong tiiimmee!)
Favorite Albums (challenged by my sister Megan)
Favorite Movies (challenged by my friend Sean) – Will there be a Chaplin movie on this list? Is that a rhetorical question?
I have two. My answers will not be surprising to long time Chaplin fans.
The Gentleman Tramp and Unknown Chaplin. Gentleman Tramp is a biography, and Unknown Chaplin is a “behind the scenes” doc.
I baffled my family growing up with the number of times I have watched these. And I have baffled my kids equally as much.
“Mom, you’re watching that again?“
Like his films, these docs are fun and comforting. And I appreciate the tons work that went into them.
By the way, these are listed in order of release date, not a ranking.
The Gentleman Tramp
First, The Gentleman Tramp, written and directed by Richard Patterson, narrated by Walter Matthau, released in 1975. One of the things that makes this interesting is that it was made while Chaplin was still alive.
I first saw it listed in David Robinson’s book. And then in the early 90s in my baby Chaplin fan days, I saw the VHS while browsing around one of my favorite stores, Media Play, and grabbed it up right away. And continued to watch it numerous times. Then many years later I saw it at Amazon from Patterson himself. The DVD has two versions of the doc: one is the version that was on the VHS, and another longer version with a introduction by Matthau and his son, Charlie as they traveled to Chaplin’s Switzerland home, and a couple alternate takes (for example: during the Joan Barry court case). The DVD also came with a booklet written by Patterson talking about the ups and downs of making the doc (Chaplin had some disagreements with him with how the doc was being put together). I usually watch the version that I first saw.
You can buy it from Amazon here. Or you can watch a couple clips from it that was put up by the official Chaplin YouTube Channel:
There’s no place that I know of where you can buy it streaming, but it is on DailyMotion – watch it here: part 1 and part 2.
All the music is either by Chaplin (most of it falls into this category), or about Chaplin (“When The Moon Shines Bright On Charlie Chaplin” played during discussing why Chaplin did not fight during WWI). It also has more footage from the 1972 Oscars than what exists online.
Narration is provided by Walter Matthau. Which seemed like an odd choice to me at first, but then I realized that his wife, Carol, and Charlie’s wife, Oona, had been best friends since their teens. Also wonderful voice-overs reading excepts from Chaplin’s autobiography (read by Laurence Olivier), his son Charlie Jr (haven’t ID’ed that voice), various news articles and gossip columns (either supporting Charlie or deriding him),
Unknown Chaplin
Unknown Chaplin was the first Chaplin documentary I saw, years before I was a fan. It was somewhere during part 2: “The Great Director” when they were showing how The Gold Rush was made. I remember sitting there amazed by everything. They were explaining how the famous shoe eating scene was done (the shoe was made of licorice). When I finally saw the film when I became a fan, I remember not being grossed out because I knew that it wasn’t a real shoe, just licorice in shape of a shoe. And it did not gross me out like it does everyone else. Then after I became a fan, I read how Chaplin said that he never liked to talk about how he made his films, because it ruined the magic of it. And I thought to myself “What is he talking about? I love seeing how it was done and all the behind the scenes stuff. That;s just silly…” And then I remembered the shoe, and then thought “Okay, maybe he does know what he’s talking about”. Haha.
What got me when I was younger was the witty writing, excellent narration (by James Mason), smart editing, fitting music (the wonderful Carl Davis!), and overall energy of the documentary. That’s what kept me watching the first time, and what keeps me coming back to it.
So what is Unknown Chaplin about?
In the 1970s when Kevin Brownlow and David Gill were putting together their behemoth multi-part documentary “Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film”, they discovered so much unseen Chaplin footage (that Chaplin had originally ordered to be destroyed) showing how he made his films that they decided to make a documentary based around that.
There’s 3 parts:
My Happiest Years – From his days at Mutual, this contains lots of footage of his filmed rehearsals as he worked out story ideas.
The Great Director – Footage from How to Make Movies, making of The Kid, The Gold Rush, City Lights,. Interviews with Dean Reisner, Jackie Coogan, Lita Grey, Robert Parrish, Virginia Cherrill, Georgia Hale..
Hidden Treasures – Main focus is ideas that Charlie would play around with earlier in his career with and how they would show up years later in his films. The other half is deleted scenes from his films. And some other footage from How To Make Movies and visitors to the studio
Below is part 1. I totally love all 3, but part 1 is my favorite, in particular the evolution of “The Immigrant”. And here’s part 3
Favorite lines/scenes from Unknown Chaplin
During the segment on how The Immigrant came about, in the scene with Charlie and Albert Austin, and Charlie purposely throwing Albert off and laughing:
“After all, it’s only slate one”
This is hilarious, because practically from the time Chaplin started directing while at Keystone, he was notorious for doing oodles and oodles of retakes.
And then shortly later
“The film is a simple cafe comedy about a man who’s never been in a cafe. That all it is. So far.”
In the beginning of part 2, “The Great Director”, Dean Reisner’s story of how Charlie and Sydney had to trick him into hitting them in The Pilgrim. Also love the edit of when Dean says “And so finally he and Sydney would play slapping games”. And it cuts to Charlie looking over at Sydney. Lovely edit! Also great story that I forgot to put in my “Favorite story about him told by someone else” post. You can also see this segment in the free preview on Amazon.
The opening of Hidden Treasures, with Doug Fairbanks 1929 home movie where Charlie is running around with a ancient Grecian tunic. And then fools around with a globe and then puts a WWI German helmet on it. Cut to 20 years later in The Great Dictator to the famous globe dance scene. That still jaw drops me! You can see the full home movie here (black and white, no music), and colorized (4k, 60fps,and music. Rather cool!)
(Side note: The above opening segment was cut out of the DVD and the version on Amazon. However, you can watch it in Amazon’s free preview. Why is it not included in the regular episode? I have absolutely no idea. I just noticed it now while writing this.)
From Hidden Treasures, the deleted barber scene from Sunnyside with Charlie and Albert Austin. Music is clever too. The song is from the opera The Barber of Seville. Like in Day 11 when it took me almost 30 years to realize Chaplin used Wagner in The Great Dictator, it took me a few years before I realized (though it was just 5 or so years). I was listening to the local NPR when they were playing Barber, and it got to that part, and I thought “Hey, I know that song!”. And then remembered Unknown Chaplin. Very clever use of the music :). You can watch the opera with that particular tune, “All’iddea di quel metallo”, here.
Also from Hidden Treasures, the cut scene from City Lights where Charlie tries to push a slat of wood down a grate. Most of the scene is slow, and I’m glad he cut it. BUT – the guy who comes out to window dress the mannequin and gets furious at Charlie for not figuring it out…. Love that!
Deleted from the DVD and Amazon release
One thing that got removed was Geraldine Chaplin’s introduction:
Right after the segment about the cut piece from “Behind the Screen” where Charlie just misses the huge axe landing on him, there was a pause before going onto the segment for “The Immigrant”. (Yeah, I watched the VHS that many times I remembered how it was edited, haha).
And, as I mentioned above about the Douglas Fairbanks opening for “Hidden Treasures”
Remember the Easter Egg in Robert Downey Jr’s Chaplin?
That documentary series I mentioned above that Brownlow and Gill made, “Hollywood” is an amazing multi-part series. One of the reasons why it’s amazing are the interviews with people who were there. Directors, actors and actresses that are no longer with us.
A great documentary that is not just about Chaplin, but the other great silent comedians: Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Harry Langdon. With interviews with Hal Roach, Frank Capra, and Jackie Coogan and a few other contemporaries. In “Comedy: A Serious Business”. Made by Brownlow and Gill a couple years prior to Unknown Chaplin.
It’s more of a video essay, but I really love the below video by the YouTube channel Newfangled (and currently has less than 1000 views at the moment): “Charlie Chaplin Doesn’t Give a F*ck”
Into history? – Shoulder Arms. Or (the sort of a sequel) The Great Dictator
Into political/social issues? – Easy Street, The Kid, Modern Times, Monsieur Verdoux, A King in New York
Want a good cry that tears your heart out and rips it to shreds and stomps it on the ground? – The Kid, Limelight
Romantic? – The Immigrant, The Gold Rush, City Lights, The Circus, Limelight
Film Noir? Monsieur Verdoux
Artsy (and that does not star Chaplin but everything else behind the scenes is Chaplin): A Woman of Paris
Afraid of a strictly silent film and want something in-between all-silent and all-talkie? Modern Times
Want a silent film that is narrated? The 1942 version of The Gold Rush. Chaplin narrates it himself. As well as composed the music.
Great music? 1942 version of The Gold Rush, City Lights, Limelight
A general good place to start (and the first one I saw) – Modern Times
But the best environment to watch his films is with a group of people (which, I know, can be tricky with the current pandemic). There is something about watching with an audience that make films more enjoyable, and in this case, funnier. Especially when it comes to silent films. A great YouTuber I enjoy is Austin McConnell. A couple years ago he did a video about his experiences in how he learned to enjoy silent movies.
And ever since the Covid pandemic started, Ben Model has been running weekly live-streams of comedy shorts of not only Chaplin, but other comedians as well, both famous and not so famous. Every Sunday he provides live piano improvised accompaniment. A fun way to watch with a virtual audience and get some trivia about the movies.
His whole autobiography is full of great stories. Traumatic childhood, going to America, making a huge success in movies, etc.
One story I really liked is a good example of what it was like to be super famous to an extent that no one had experienced before. With the popularity of movies, going from a fad to a international medium, Charlie was one of the first people to experience it.
He tells the story in his autobiography of how he fist found out how famous he really was. He was finishing up his film “Burlesque on Carmen” in 1915 (parody of the opera Carmen) and sent a telegram from California to his brother Sydney in New York saying that he’ll be leaving by train and to meet him in New York about various offers that were coming through.
With telegrams, a message is sent from city to city until it gets to its destination (this video from the Arizona Ghostriders helps explain it more). So each city got word that Chaplin was coming through, and so crowds began to gather in each train station. And each city there were bigger and bigger crowds. When the train got to Amarillo, Texas, this is what he saw:
Peeking out of the wash-room window, I saw the station packed with a large milling crowd. Bunting and flags were wrapped and hung from pillar to post, and on the platform were several long tables set with refreshments. A celebration to welcome the arrival or departure of some local potentate, I thought. So I began to lather my face. But the excitement grew, then quite audibly I heard voices saying: ‘Where is he?’ Then a stampede entered the car, people running up and down the aisle shouting: ‘Where is he? Where’s Charlie Chaplin?’
Chaplin, Charles . My Autobiography (Neversink) (p. 234). Melville House. Kindle Edition.
And a day or so later when reaching Kansas City:
The large railroad station in Kansas City was packed solidly with people. The police were having difficulty controlling further crowds accumulating outside. A ladder was placed against the train to enable me to mount it and show myself on the roof. I found myself repeating the same banal words as in Amarillo. More telegrams awaited me: would I visit schools and institutions? I stuffed them in my suitcase, to be answered in New York. From Kansas City to Chicago people were again standing at railroad junctions and in fields, waving as the train swept by. I wanted to enjoy it all without reservation, but I kept thinking the world had gone crazy! If a few slapstick comedies could arouse such excitement, was there not something bogus about all celebrity? I had always thought I would like the public’s attention, and here it was – paradoxically isolating me with a depressing sense of loneliness.
Chaplin, Charles . My Autobiography (Neversink) (pp. 236-237). Melville House. Kindle Edition.
It seemed that everyone knew me, but I knew no one…
Chaplin, Charles . My Autobiography (Neversink) (p. 238). Melville House. Kindle Edition.
Below is a shortened version on a 1921 newsreel when he returned for a visit to London. It’s not the same event as what he writes about above, but it gives you a brief idea of what it was like where you can get an idea of the crowds:
Okay, I have a whole bunch that I love (does every scene in his movies count?), but narrowing it down to just two.
The first one I have mentioned before (Day 6 – Favorite First National): From “The Kid” (100 years old this year! Huzzah! Soundtrack that Chaplin wrote is 50 years old this year! Huzzah again!). Below is from the official Chaplin YouTube channel (I was so happy when they uploaded the whole scene! YAY!)
A favorite vlogger of mine, Jordan from the YouTube channel “Daze with Jordan the Lion“, does Hollywood and musician locations, usually in the Los Angeles area. About 4 years ago he visited a couple location from The Kid: one (at was the alley where we first see Charlie walking towards the camera) is at about 7:56. The other alley (starting at 14:28) from the ending of the above scene.
Just finished re-watching The Rink from 1916 from his Mutual period. Watching him on skates is balletic. How does he lean backwards for that long, on roller skates, and not fall down? And how does he do all the other things on skates?
I was wondering whether or not to include this day’s challenge because I don’t want to give publicity to poorly written books. But, on the other hand, I wanted to share my thoughts on books to be wary of.
This one is at the top of my list: Joyce Milton’s “Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin”.
I first heard about the book when I was on the road in a circus (ah, a story for another time!) in the summer of 1996 when I saw a newspaper article about it. I was excited to see another book about him and looked forward to getting it when I went back home.
Two obvious choices, but I’m going with them anyway:
His own “My Autobiography” (what a genius title! haha), and David Robinson’s “Chaplin: His Life and Art”
Chaplin: His Life and Art by David Robinson
Robinson’s book was the first Chaplin book I bought. It was around the beginning of my fanhood days. I had seen it in my favorite used book store, but was hesitant to get it because “what if it was no good?” The internet wasn’t a big thing yet, so I couldn’t Google it or check Amazon to find out other reviews. Then one day I was sitting in one of my college classes and out of nowhere I had an urge to go down to the store and get it after class.
So I drive down there and I stop and think I better skim through it, and right away there were some interesting images. One was of the Chaplin family tree (up to date as of book publishing, circa 1985), a newspaper clipping announcing his birth, and a picture of a child age Charlie for the Sherlock Holmes play. All three of these (especially the last one) sold me. And I have loved the book ever since!
A few years later I bought another edition of it that was published around the time of the “Chaplin” had more updated information about his family.
Below is a recent interview with David (during the coronavirus ordeal) by Dan Kamin for the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum YouTube channel:
My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin
I don’t remember when I first read Chaplin’s autobiography. Maybe before I bought it, like from the library? I don’t know. ut When “Chaplin” came out, they re-released the book in paperback and I bought it. And then visited England about 2 years later and while in a bookstore in the airport, I found another copy, and how could I *not* buy a copy from his birth country? And so I bought that as well. I still have both of those, which the silhouette of Downey as the Tramp on the cover. Wore them out.
I loved reading about his rough childhood, getting on stage, coming to America, being scared to death of getting into movies but taking the plunge anyway.
I do hope that sometime in the near future there will be a new, or re-release, of an audiobook version. There was one I listened to years ago on cassette tape (that gives an idea how long ago! LOL) from the library.
Love these two books. Absolute must-haves for Chaplin fans or fans of movies in general.
My Father, Charlie Chaplin by Charles Chaplin, Jr.
Charlie Sr, Charlie Jr, and Lita Grey Chaplin
Another book that I really love is “My Father, Charlie Chaplin” by Charlie Chaplin Jr (one of two sons when Chaplin was married to Lita Grey). That is a lovely book. One of my favorite stories was when senior Chaplin came home, still in makeup, and came over to toddler-aged junior. Junior was confused who this strange looking man was with his father’s voice, and started to cry. Not knowing why his son was crying, Senior tried to cheer junior up, and then it dawned on him why there was crying. The makeup. So senior washed off the makeup and junior began smiling at the familiar clean face of his dad.
Charlie, wearing his tree costume from Shoulder Arms
Oh boy. I’m going to be jumping all around his timeline!
Well, maybe 1918. Right when he starting rolling with his studio and around the time when he was working on creating United Artists. Watching the making of Shoulder Arms. That would be cool 🙂
Second would be the filming of Limelight.
Charlie as Billy the Pageboy in “Sherlock Holmes” play
And in 1894, to sit in the audience when he took the stage at the first time at 5 years old to save his mom when she had a breakdown on stage and people were booing her. To divert their wrath, he started to sing and everyone loved him.
And, as a Sherlockian, an absolute must would be to watch one of his performances as Billy the pageboy in the Sherlock Holmes play, with either William Gillette or H. A. Saintsbury as Holmes.
Just now I released how I started this article, and is somewhat fitting. “Oh boy” was the signature line said in one of my favorite TV shows, “Quantum Leap“, about a guy who time travels by leaping into people’s bodies.
