CHARLIE CHAPLIN AND THE ESSANAY COMEDIES: 1915-1916. STARRING CHARLIE CHAPLIN, EDNA PURVIANCE AND BEN TURPIN. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) had such fascinating beginnings, though when he was up to his eyes in poverty and deprivation, he could totally be forgiven for not seeing it like that himself, haha. His father was a mostly absent alcoholic and his poor mum a mentally-unstable syphilis sufferer who ended her days pitifully in an insane asylum.
At the time of Charlie's birth, though, both his parents were music hall entertainers, and it was his mum in particular who gave him a sense of his own potential for a career in the performing world. If she only could have known what he went on to achieve!
The British Film Institute described the diminutive English comic actor, film-maker and composer as 'a towering figure in world culture,' no mean feat for the man who actually spent time in Victorian workhouses in his childhood. Can you imagine the horror, loneliness and privations? Those places aren't all just singing about 'food, glorious food' and hilariously trying tro escape the clutches of the preposterously fat beadle, you know...!
The way Charlie Chaplin carved out a career for himself, first on the stage and then in the film industry which was then in its infancy, is the reason why his is possibly the most dramatic rags-to-riches story on record. He didn't just act in his films, either.
He was also a director and always wanted as much creative control over his projects as possible. He was a total film-maker, if you like, and the groundbreaking work he did over a century ago is still recognised and applauded by film-makers today.
Now to bring in the reason for this particular review. The British Film Institute has just released a fantastic box-set of sixteen of Charlie Chaplin's silent films from a particular period of his career. The films are known as The Essanay Comedies because they were filmed between 1915 and 1916 for the ESSANAY FILM MANUFACTURING COMPANY, a company ironically best-known for these exact Charlie Chaplin comedies.
Charlie's period of working for ESSANAY, named after the initials of its two founders George K. Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, came just after his time at the Keystone Studios and just before his time at the Mutual and First National companies. They sound like banks, don't they, but they're not!
Of course, in 1919 Charlie founded his own film company UNITED ARTISTS with several other movie notables whose names you might know: Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. I think from then on he worked mostly for himself, as he really just wanted creative control over his own projects, as we mentioned earlier. It's a very admirable quality, that desire for independence. It's what led me to self-publish my own books, for crying out loud. Those two sales a year are so worth it...!
Anyway, the ESSANAY COMEDIES are a series of sixteen short films (roughly thirty minutes apiece), each featuring Charlie Chaplin in situations that should be simple enough to resolve but which end up being ridiculously convoluted and complicated. I'll never forget the time that Charlie's contemporary Buster Keaton went out for a simple game of golf and somehow ended up condemned to death on the gallows...! You know the kind of thing, haha.
The films all contain the perfect blend of slapstick and pathos that would become Chaplin's trademark. Later on, he would include more social commentary and political messages in his movies, like when he filmed THE GREAT DICTATOR in 1940. This film parodied that other little fella you might know, the guy who was born in 1889 just like Charlie, who rose from innocuous beginnings to world domination just like Charlie and who sported a dapper little toothbrush moustache... just like Charlie! Uncanny, isn't it, haha.
Now that I think about it, there might just be more slapstick than pathos in these ESSANAY
comedies. Everyone's being kicked in the butt, bonked on the noggin, tripped up and even hit in the face with pies (yes, actual pies!) in these lively short films that helped to make Chaplin one of the most bankable and recognisable stars of the film industry. The Charlie Chaplin merchandise industry alone was big business, let me tell you.
The human butt actually features heavily in the films as a source of major comedy. Hardly a scene goes by where someone isn't being poked, kicked, jabbed, stabbed, booted or walloped in the posterior for comic effect. Female derriรจres are not exempt from inclusion in these scenes, either.
Edna Purviance, a comely actress of curvaceous proprtions, is Charlie's leading lady for several of the films, and her ample behind features more than once as a source of both comedy and sexiness. I believe the pair were an item romantically for a while, as well, which is hardly surprising as she's gorgeous and the very epitome of female 'silent film' beauty.
There's a lot of fur in the films as well, in the form of fox-fur stoles and suchlike, and all real, I'd reckon. In A WOMAN, a controversial film in its day as it featured a cross-dressing Charlie as an alarmingly convincing female, a woman is seen holding a furry muff (stop sniggering, you lot!) that actually looks like the entire original animal is still intact. It still has a face! It looks very luxuriant and opulent, to be sure, but the anti-fur lobby would have a bloody fit.
Just a few points on interest about some of the films. HIS NEW JOB actually features a then-unknown Gloria Swanson ('I AM big, it's the pictures that got small...!' SUNSET BOULEVARD- 1950) as a typist in the background while Charlie applies for a job at a film studio.
THE TRAMP has one of the saddest and most famous endings in cinema history. Charlie, in full 'tramp' regalia of baggy trousers, hat, stick and little handkerchiefed bundle, has failed to win the hand of the beautiful Edna Purviance due to the untimely appearance of a boyfriend. Boo...! He hits the road all sad and dejected in that famous walking-away scene. Then he brightens up, much to the audience's delight, in anticipation of possible adventures to come, aaaaaaand iris out...!
A JITNEY ELOPEMENT features a good-old fashioned car chase in the kind of olde-timey motorcar that will thrill lovers of vintage cars everywhere, as Charlie and Edna flee from her disapproving dad and a suitor for Edna's hand, the odious Count Chloride De Lime. Terrific getaway music, too...!
I personally love A NIGHT OUT, in which The Little Tramp gives a magnificent performance as a drunken man on a binge with his mate, the actor Ben Turpin. It's the best portrayal of drunkenness I've ever seen on-screen anywhere. Check out the bit where he diligently and oh-so-assiduously applies toothpaste to his slipper!
Of course, you've got to cherchez la femme here as always, and Charlie's accidental presence in the hotel bedchamber of a married woman with a burly brute of a husband will cause hilarity and mayhem to ensue, and that's a promise.
Of course, you've got to cherchez la femme here as always, and Charlie's accidental presence in the hotel bedchamber of a married woman with a burly brute of a husband will cause hilarity and mayhem to ensue, and that's a promise.
Because I love you guys to absolute bits, I'll give you the names of all sixteen titles in this magnificent Dual Format Edition 2-Disc Box-set, and don't forget they come with some excellent special features too. Here they all are, in order:
HIS NEW JOB
A NIGHT OUT
THE CHAMPION
IN THE PARK
A JITNEY ELOPEMENT
THE TRAMP
BY THE SEA
HIS REGENERATION
WORK
A WOMAN
THE BANK
SHANGHAIED
A NIGHT IN THE SHOW
BURLESQUE ON CARMEN
POLICE
TRIPLE TROUBLE
BFI releases are available from all good home entertainment retailers or by mail order from the BFI Shop. Tel: 020 7815 1350 or online at www.bfi.org.uk/shop
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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