Charlie Chaplin
Adventurer
1917 - 20 min.
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
The Adventurer is fast-paced, with its opening and closing chases which are the apotheosis of the Keystone-style rally. It begins with a manhunt filmed on the coast near Santa Monica, California. (During the filming Chaplin rescued a seven-year-old girl from drowning after she had been swept into the waters from a rock as she watched). The police are after an escaped convict (Chaplin) who appears out of the sand beside a resting prison guard (Frank J. Coleman). Soon five guards are chasing Charlie over and through the hills and crags of the rough seacoast. The chase ends with Charlie taking to the ocean where he steals a swimsuit from a boater.
Meanwhile Edna Purviance and her suitor Eric Campbell are lunching at a seaside cafe and hear the cries of Edna's mother who has fallen off the pier into the ocean. Edna begs Eric to jump in and rescue her, but he refuses to risk his life and instead can only stand on the pier and cry for help. Edna bravely jumps in, but is no better a swimmer and is soon also yelling for rescue. As Eric yells from the pier, a swarthy breaks the railing, plunging them both in the drink. Charlie has meanwhile swum to shore but hearing the cries for help, he swims to the pier where mother, daughter and Eric are all treading water. He rescues Edna, who sends him down again for her mother and then for Eric, whom Charlie tows along to the pier by his beard. The ladies' chauffeur (played by Chaplin's own chauffeur, secretary and valet Toraichi Kono) aids in helping the ladies to their limousine, where Charlie explains that he heard their cries "from my yacht." When Eric is accidentally dumped back into the sea by Charlie, he foils Charlie's second rescue by kicking him off the ladder to the pier. At Edna's orders, Kono discovers the unconscious Charlie and carries him to the car.
Waking in a strange bed with bars on the headboard and dressed in someone else's striped pajamas, Charlie thinks he's back in prison until the butler enters with clothes for him. A party is under way in the household. The hero of the day introduces himself as Commodore Slick and meets Edna's father, Judge Brown, who eyes him suspiciously. Charlie is very interested in Edna, but also in all the free drinks. His rivalry with Eric soon escalates into covert kicking and seltzer squirting, until Eric finds Charlie's picture in a newspaper article about his escape. Before Eric can bring the article to Judge Brown's attention, Charlie cleverly draws Campbell's beard on the photo, allaying the judge's suspicions. In a classic bit of pantomime, when Charlie accidentally drops his lump of ice cream down his pants front, we can trace the exact position of the freezing lump just by watching Chaplin's face. When the guards arrive, a marvelous chase sequence begins, upstairs and down, during which Charlie eludes capture. Jumping down from the balcony, one of the guards grabs Charlie who has paused to apologize to Edna for his deception. When the guard loosens his hold to shake hands with Edna, Charlie takes to his heels…
CAST
Charles Chaplin - Escaped Convict
Edna Purviance - A Girl
Marta Golden - Her Mother
Henry Bergman - Her Father and a Doctor
Eric Campbell - Her Suitor
Charlie Chaplin
Bank
1915 - 20 min.
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
Chaplin enters the bank importantly, strolls down a staircase and opens a large safe. He emerges carrying a mop and bucket and dons his janitor's uniform. He wanders into the lobby/reception area and accidentally puts his soaking mop into the top hat of a bond salesman, who's waiting for the arrival of the Bank President. Hitting the salesman and a bank workerwith the wet mop, he's chased away to the back office where he finds fellow janitor Billy Armstrong with whom a series of minor battles occur.
Edna Purviance is a stenographer, who arrives at work with a birthday present and love note for a cashier whose name is also Charles. Chaplin finds the note and gift and assumes they're for him, and it's clear he loves Purviance. He brings her a bouquet of flowers and leaves a note himself. The bank president arrives and rejects the bond salesman's pitch and the angry salesman vows revenge. The Cashier comes in to thank Purviance for the tie and tells her that it wasn't he who left the flowers, but Charlie the Janitor. Angry, Purviance calls Chaplin a fool and, unaware that he's watching through the door, throws the flowers into a trash basket. Crushed, Chaplin retrieves the flowers, and goes back downstairs to the vault to rest.
Shortly afterward, the bond salesman along with four seedy crooks enter the bank. Two of them go upstairs and see the president, Purviance and the Cashier counting money. When Purviance and Charles head downstairs to the vault, they hold up the president. Charles pushes Purviance over and runs away, but he's held at gunpoint by one of the crooks as the other tussles with the president. Meanwhile her screams have awakened Chaplin and he rescues her, kicking three of the crooks into the safe and locking it as Purviance collapses. Carrying her over one shoulder, he climbs the stairs and rescues the cashier by disarming the crook. He then takes care of the other thief, rescuing the president. When the police have the robbers in custody, Chaplin is congratulated by the president. He wanders into the office and takes the flowers out of his coat, and Edna enters and picks up the flowers, smiling...and the look of love and hope on Chaplin's face is truly angelic. They embrace, but just then the camera crossfades and Chaplin awakens in the vault kissing a mop. As the picture fades, Charlie wanders off screen, flowers in hand. Was it all a dream?
CAST
Charles Chaplin - The Janitor
Edna Purviance - Secretary
Charles Insley - The Bank President
Carl Stockdale - Charles the Cashier
Lawrence A. Bowes - Bond Salesman
Bud Jamison - Chief Bank Robber
Fred Goodwins - Doorkeeper and Bank Robber
Charlie Chaplin
Behind the Screen
1916 - 20 min
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
'Behind The Screen'''Behind the Screen' is a funny and sublime combination of fast-paced slapstick and gentle pathos, with skillful choreography and dazzling set pieces - and gives another behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a movie comedy factory. As the film opens, a young, innocent girl, dressed like a country bumpkin asks the producer for an acting job. Taking one look, he turns her down. Chaplin is David, the prop man's assistant, who must do all the heavy work while his boss sits and lifts his finger only to point. David is constantly getting in trouble, nearly kicking over the camera tripod many times and getting caught resting after particularly strenuous tasks. One of these is to move some wood chairs, which he accomplishes in amazing Chaplinesque fashion by slinging them all over his shoulder, taking on the appearance of a porcupine as he carries them across the studio and picking up a prop upright piano along the way. Putting the final touches on the set, David grooms a bearskin rug as a barber would a customer.
Lunchtime finds Goliath eating a stack of pies, while the assistant must satisfy himself with his two slices of bread. David then plays an impromptu concerto on the overturned pie tins, using two bones as mallets. When the snoozing stagehands are roughly told to get back to work, they are furious and go on strike. Goliath and David stays on the job, and meanwhile, the girl has dressed in boy's clothes, hoping to get a job as a replacement stagehand, which she does. After messing up a dramatic scene by missing his cue on a trap door, sending everyone down the trap, David finds the "boy" playing the guitar and singing sweetly. He teases "him" about his femininity, but discovers she's a girl when she faints upon seeing the split pants of the director involved in the earlier trap accident. She begs David not to reveal her secret and he steals a few kisses in the process.
David and Goliath then get drafted to act in a comedy sketch involving pies, while the vengeful strikers plan to set off a bomb at the studio. While David refuses to be hit with the pies and instead hits Goliath, the director, and the actors in an adjacent set, the strikers carry out their plot. On the comedy set, David is shoved backwards by Goliath causing him to hit the lever of the trap door, sending Goliath and the comedy director through the trap. David finds Edna struggling with the bomber, and, with a kick dispatches him through the trap as well. Just then the bomb explodes, collapsing the set. But David gets his reward for saving the girl — her smiles and kisses.
CAST
Edna Purviance - Girl Seeking Film Job
Charlotte Mineau - Actress
James T. Kelly - Cameraman
Leo White - Scene Shifter
Lloyd Bacon - Director of Comedies
Frank J. Coleman - Producer
Charles Chaplin - Scene Shifter
Henry Bergman - Director of History Film
Eric Campbell - Scene Shifter Foreman
Charlie Chaplin
A Day's Pleasure
1919 - 20 min.
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
'A Day's Pleasure' is a lightweight entry and a throwback to earlier days. It begins with Charlie, Edna and their two boys leaving their house for a day's outing. The family piles into the family flivver, and after Charlie's amusing efforts to keep the engine running, they arrive at a dock and board a crowded day cruiser.
Charlie has a disagreement with another passenger (Tom Wilson), when he squeezes himself into a place on the bench next to the fellow's hefty wife, (Babe London). When Wilson tosses the famous derby onto the dock, Charlie races off the boat to get it. As the vessel pulls away from the dock, a large woman with a baby carriage tries to board, but ends up stretched between the dock and the boat. Charlie, returning with his hat uses her as a gangplank, then tries to pull her aboard with a grappling hook.
Once the boat is under way, the passengers dance to the music of a small combo, but soon everyone is feeling the effects of the violently rocking cruiser. Meanwhile, Edna and the kids are napping on deck chairs and Charlie decides to join them. Overcome by seasickness he collapses into the lap of the equally bilious Babe and is covered with a blanket by a helpful steward. When the lady's jealous husband returns with drinks he tries to attack Charlie, but becomes too nauseated to continue, of which the now recovered Charlie takes advantage.
During the eventful return trip in the family car, Charlie runs afoul of a couple of traffic cops, is blocked by some irate pedestrians, one who spurs Charlie to indicate the divine retribution awaiting him, and backs into a tar truck which spills its contents on the street. The cops, berating Charlie for blocking traffic, get stuck in the tar along with Charlie, but he cleverly steps out of his large shoes and drives off with his family, much to the amusement of the onlookers.
CAST
Babe London - His Seasick Wife
Edna Purviance - Mother
Loyal Underwood - Angry Little Man in Street
Tom Wilson - Large Husband
Albert Austin - Trombonist
Jackie Coogan - Smallest Boy
Henry Bergman - Captain and Man in Car
Charles Chaplin - Father
CREW
Charles Chaplin - Producer / Screenwriter / Composer (Music Score) / Director
Roland H. "Rollie" Totheroh - Cinematographer
Jack Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles Hall - Production Designer
Charlie Chaplin
A Dog's Life
1918 - 30 min.
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin plays a tramp, who shambles around the cold, cruel world with his dog Scraps. Unable to land a job, Charlie and Scraps cadge a meal from lunchwagon proprietor Syd Chaplin (Charlie's brother). Things take a turn for the better when Charlie befriends down-and-out singer Edna Purviance. After routing a gang of crooks, Charlie and Edna head down the road "Where Dreams Come True" for a deliberately improbable happy ending.
CAST
Edna Purviance - Bar Singer
Louis Fitzroy - Unemployed Man
Ted Edwards - Unemployed Man
Rob Wagner - Dance Hall Man
Tom Wilson - Policeman
Albert Austin - Crook
Dave Anderson - Unemployed Man
Sidney Chaplin - Lunch Wagon Owner
Henry Bergman - Employment Agency Man and Dance Hall Lady
Charles Chaplin - Tramp
CREW
Charles Chaplin - Producer / Screenwriter / Composer (Music Score) / Director
Roland H. "Rollie" Totheroh - Cinematographer
Jack Wilson - Cinematographer
Charles Hall - Production Designer
Charlie Chaplin
The Fireman
1916 - 20 min.
Silent, B&W
Director - Charles Chaplin
''The Fireman' is virtually wall-to-wall slapstick, where Chaplin is an earnest but inept member of a ramshackle small town fire department. His boss has entered into an unhanded deal with the wealthy father of heroine Edna Purviance; the father plans to burn down his house for the insurance and split the settlement with Campbell, provided that the latter does not attempt to extinguish the blaze. Chaplin, of course, knows nothing about this set-up, and when the house catches fire, he rushes to the rescue. And a darn good thing too: Purviance, also unaware of her dad's machinations, is in the house at the time it is torched.