Frst After completing The Pilgrim, Charlie Chaplin was finally free of his First National contract. He could now concentrate on making features for United Artists - the company he created with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith. But Chaplin had a problem: Edna Purviance. She'd been his leading lady for eight of his nine … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 11: A Woman of Paris

With The Kid's high acclaim and higher box office numbers, Charlie Chaplin proved that he could successfully make feature-length films. But he still owed First National three pictures, and his partners at United Artists desperately wanted Chaplin movies to release. To please both companies, he would have to make three more shorts before he could … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 10: The Last Shorts

Extreme perfectionism slowed Chaplin down as he made his last Mutual comedies. Up through Easy Street, his ninth movie with the company, he had managed to meet his contract's one two-reeler-a-month schedule. But he took three months to make The Cure, and another three for The Immigrant. His last Mutual, The Adventurer, took four months … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 7: Late Mutual

With almost full freedom, Chaplin was able to take considerable time to get his vision on film. According to Peter Ackroyd's biography, Charlie Chaplin, "he spent three weeks on filming one scene alone, in which he kicks his rival while whirling around with a partner on the dance floor." With that sort of perfectionism, it wasn't … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 6: Middle Mutual

During his year at Essanay, Charlie Chaplin became the most famous and beloved person in the world (Mary Pickford was the only significant rival). Movies changed the concept of celebrity, and no one before had ever been famous like Chaplin. Everyone loved him. It was like Beatlemania, except with a universal language and no generation … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 4: Late Essanay

My last diary entry covered Charlie Chaplin's first five short films at Essanay; the beginning of his second year as a filmmaker. But with his sixth Essanay comedy, The Tramp, Chaplin made a major step towards maturity. Before this seminal two-reeler, Charlie was a funny little man with ill-fitting clothes and a brush mustache. In … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 3: Middle Essanay

According to the Internet Movie Database, Charlie Chaplin directed 71 movies. By my count, he did 64. The remaining seven include recuts of previous films, uncompleted works, "features" that were actually compilations of shorts, promotional films, and what we now call public service announcements. Remove those, and you have 64 original movies. After his year … Continue reading Chaplin Diary, Part 2: Early Essanay