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Post by nondescript spice on Jan 9, 2013 15:56:35 GMT -5
i was very excited to receive something in the mail that i have been yapping about in this thread since day one - charlie: the life and art of charles chaplin. my copy had been on an antiquated vhs tape, so this is my first dvd of this beloved (to me) documentary. it's what i caught on TCM back in '04 that drew me into chaplin's life and work. i've been keeping an eye out for a less expensive copy and finally found one on amazon. the commentary was fascinating by martin scorsese, johnny depp, robert downey jr., woody allen, richard attenborough, norman lloyd, marcel marceau and several others. jeffrey vance was a part of it too; he wrote chaplin: genius of the cinema and it is considered to be something of a chaplin bible to fans. and the three children of chaplin who ended up being something of spokespeople for him, geradline, sydney and michael. it's two hours and 15 minutes long and for me it zips by. it's pretty thorough and extremely well done. very honest. so glad i have it back in my life.
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Post by nondescript spice on Jan 30, 2013 16:30:23 GMT -5
i've been going through some of the mutuals lately - i avoided everything chaplin for about a year, so it is good to re-familiarize myself with his classics. the immigrant 1917 this truly is one of chaplin's most beautiful short films - funny and sad with one of the best endings of any chaplin work, period, imo. chaplin himself said it was his favorite ending - the two immigrants, the tramp and edna, in a new country - deciding to marry on a rainy day. but the restaurant scene, where the tramp desperately tries to escape a beating from the waiters after discovering he lost his money, is still funny as hell. ^that is an actual outtake from unknown chaplin, showing chaplin purposely screwing with albert austinthe count 1916 a lot of times i tend to pass the count by for some reason - it just never is my first pick, i guess, and so i'm doubly glad i watched it last weekend. it's really funny in places - it showcases the incredible working relationship between chaplin and eric campbell. and it has a very funny opening, when the tramp is awkwardly trying to take a woman's measurements as a tailor's assistant. the fireman - 1916 one of chaplin's best, i think - like the adventurer, there is almost constant action and it is thrilling to watch the tramp bravely climb the building to save edna from the burning house. campbell really shines in this one too - one of his best performances. the vagabond - 1916 another great one - really, they all are. to me it seemed chaplin really began stretching his legs when he got to the vagabond, and began showing the tramp's more poetic and romantic side. the chase scene was at the beginning, almost like he wanted to get it out of the way so he could concentrate on the real story - the tramp saving edna who is a kidnapped slave to the gypsy's and then loses her to an artist. the moment when edna's long lost mother comes to claim her, she offers the tramp some money with a faint look of disdain that he refuses - i love the look on the tramp's face as he pushes her hand away to hug edna instead. very sweet. and the scene where he washes edna's dirty face after rescuing her is great - i felt so bad for poor edna for enduring that. the adventurer - 1917 the last short chaplin was required to make for the mutual film company, and unfortunately, eric campbell's last film period - he would die in a tragic car accident after the adventurer was filmed. as usual, he and chaplin worked incredibly well together and the beginning is exciting and entertaining as the tramp, an escaped convict, is relentlessly chased by the police. poor campbell is the only one who knows his true identity after edna invites the tramp to stay in her fancy house, but has a hard time convincing anyone. i bet it got huge laughs in 1917 - still a damned funny short.
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Post by afriendlychicken on Jan 31, 2013 21:40:27 GMT -5
The Mutual Comedies are my favorite Chaplin films. They had the perfect balance of the romantic, slapstick & poetic sides of Chaplin. Like most guys I feel his full length films become a little to melodramatic. I do love City Lights, though. For me his best film.
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Post by nondescript spice on Feb 2, 2013 22:46:06 GMT -5
yeah, you can't go wrong with the mutuals. all of them are gems. some of the essanays are a little drawn out for me - a film historian referred to them as pure street comedy on the schickel doc, which i think is true. funny, but a very bop on the head, chase me around now kind of way. and you are right - a lot of people feel the same way about his feature films. myself, i think they are still beautiful, though i always go back to the keystones for a good dose of the old tramp who was less of a romantic and more of a trouble maker.
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Post by nondescript spice on Feb 14, 2013 13:40:14 GMT -5
watched chaplin recently. i try not to watch this very often, though it is a very good film by richard attenborough in 1992. robert downey jr., who played chaplin, was up for an oscar for his performance, but it went instead to denzel washington for his role in glory. i can see why denzel got it, but it would have been a nice bookend for chaplin's legacy. it's hard to believe iron man once played the tramp. he was just 27 and (to me) looked younger than that. johnny depp and jim carey was considered for the role, and even though depp might have pulled it off, i can't imagine anyone else stepping into the big shoes of the tramp than RDJ. he was a little more stocky than chaplin was, and didn't have the blue eyes, but other than that RDJ was perfect. it's really amazing at times, when i watch chaplin, seeing some of the expressions and nuances of RDJ - it either came naturally or he must have studied the hell out of CC's films. no one should ever watch this film with me, because i never shut up during the whole thing - it didn't happen that way, he didn't actually say that - etc. but certain allowances have to be made - attenborough, a devoted fan of chaplin, originally shot a four hour movie and admits the cuts hurt the film. chaplin's life and career was so epic that a two hour movie just couldn't do it justice. i've said before that i wish someone would do a mini-series, to better able get more in. but i don't have hollywood's phone number. RDJ with hugh downer, who played chaplin at age 5 - to me the kid looked more like eddie munsteranthony hopkins is the only fictional character in the film, playing chaplin's editor, going over points in chaplin's autobiography. not only was RDJ successful at pulling off a near perfect imitation of the tramp - he did a wonderful job of portraying chaplin as an older man. geraldine chaplin, chaplin's daughter, who played her own grandmother in the film, commented on how eerie it was to see RDJ in the makeup and clothes as her father in the last years of his life. after anthony hopkins is established in his role and you get a sense of chaplin as an older man, the story goes back to the beginning - chaplin's poor beginnings in london, living with his mother and older half brother, sydney. geraldine did a great job playing hannah, her grandmother. it touched on how poor they were and it showed a scene chaplin described in his autobiography of when he first took the stage when he was five years old. hannah had been attempting to sing, but she had a weak voice and became mute when patrons in the audience began throwing things at her, as that could happen back in vaudeville days. li'l chaplin went out and sang his mother's song and was a hit. chaplin said in his book that the people laughed because he was more concentrated on collecting the coins they were throwing on stage, than the actual song. other than the massive 'fro they gave young chaplin, he did a good job, i thought. the scene where the men come to take the boys to the workhouse wasn't what actually happened - it was nothing as dramatic as that. hannah just realized at a certain point that they would have to go there. but it was a very traumatic experience for him that left its mark. chaplin didn't show how hard life was on charlie after syd left to be in the navy and his mother went into the asylum. he basically lived on his own, taking odd jobs to stay alive. it didn't show the period of time charlie and syd lived with charlie's father for a while, either. it goes to his audition syd arranged with fred karno to join the vaudeville acts. RDJ and moira kelly, who played chaplin's first love, hetty kellyRDJ finally comes on the scene as charlie as a young man, by now at home in vaudeville. i loved the scene where you see him playing his signature role at that time - the drunken oaf in the audience that disrupts the show, something he recreated in a night in the show in 1915. RDJ was excellent and it gave a real sense of how comfortable chaplin was in his young career. meeting his first love, hetty kelly (played by moira kelly) had to be in the story. she affected chaplin for much of his life; was the inspiration for his leading ladies and any woman he thought he was in love with. though it wasn't as attenborough had it on screen. probably because it was much more subdued. chaplin did take her to a fancy restaurant, but wasn't turned away as he was in the film. hetty professed not to be hungry, so chaplin ordered an enormous meal for himself to impress her. he was much besotted with hetty, which probably scared her off. not sure if that is really her or not - but it is said to beto save face, chaplin broke it off with her, then immediately regretted it - something he would repeat many times in his later relationships. but there were no requests for her to wait on him, as was in the movie. but you get the point of his feelings, nonetheless. heard that before, jackwhen chaplin journeys to america for the first time, you find him traveling with karno's show, but he gets a telegram, alerting him that mack sennett wants to hire him for $150 a week to join the keystone cops. though no attention to it in the scene, the person who brings chaplin the telegram is really stan laurel, who chaplin worked with for a time - even shared a room with him when they were first in new york. wow - really??it's during a scene where chaplin is obviously entranced by the flickers he has been watching constantly at a nickelodeon. chaplin was not so fascinated with movies at that time. all he knew was the stage and he said he found the short comedies of mack sennett to be a bit of "rough and tumble" without much merit. but the lure of $150 a week convinced him to go. this is one of my favorite parts of the movie - as was it so when i read chaplin's autobiography. i love the beginning of his film career - when hollywood was so much younger and innocent. chaplin really didn't put on a on-the-spot audition for sennett as he did in the movie. in fact, sennett began to wonder where the hell chaplin was after the first few days he was supposed to arrive - chas was too shy to approach anyone. dan ackroyd as mack sennett in chaplin - david duchovny played rollie totheroh - the camera man who worked for chaplin for decadesdan aykroyd, as mack sennett, is one of the finest performances in chaplin. truly. like many comedians, aykroyd has decent talent in playing more dramatic roles. even so, sennett's character wasn't dramatic - he was a larger than life kind of man that aykroyd just understood and nailed. it was a shame he wasn't in more scenes than he was. it's also a shame how sennett, who was known as the king of comedy - was mostly forgotten when talkies came out and his fortune was wiped out in '29. i should have known i'd go on and on about this. i'll continue soon. girl's gotta eat! ^that's just for me
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Post by nondescript spice on Feb 27, 2013 17:31:20 GMT -5
chaplin - part 2 one of the best parts of of chaplin is when charlie first enters mack sennett's studios and sees how those "rough and tumble" films were made first hand. as i said before, chaplin was so overwhelmed by it all when he really did report to sennett's studios, that he kept well out of everyone's way - to the point where mack sennett wasn't sure if he had even arrived or not. chaplin was very shy back then and self conscious of his thick cockney accent. he became worried for his future when sennett seemed disappointed upon meeting him. sennett had thought he was an older man when he saw chaplin's act, but it was because of the heavy makeup he was wearing. chaplin was replacing ford sterling, a man older than chaplin and well established in film, going off on his own. chaplin faked confidence and told sennett it was just a matter of makeup to make him appear older. chaplin absorbed everything like a sponge - how the films were shot and learned early how to not end up on the cutting room floor, by ensuring he was in the frame at the beginning and ends of scenes. he was coming around on film after his early prejudice, though. he liked how they just got a vague idea of what the "story" would be about and run from there, making it up as they went. it appealed to his creative side and from there, there was no looking back. sennett ordered chaplin to get into any kind of comedy makeup one day for a film, and that was when chaplin put together his famous tramp costume. the mustache was added to make himself appear older. as he added the tight vest, the big shoes, the cane and hat, chaplin felt the tramp coming to life. from there, after kid auto races at venice in 1914, the tramp was born. i can't say enough about how convincing RDJ was as the tramp. the scene where the tramp waddles out in the middle of a scene is another great part in the movie. you get an idea of how the films were made - ackroyd, as sennett, yelling at the actors, telling them what to do as rollie cranked the camera. it makes me understand chaplin's distaste for the technology that would eventually invade the business. it might have made movies better, but i can see chaplin's point - they also lost quite a bit with the coming of technology. sydney is brought back into the story, as he and his wife move to the states so he can begin managing his brother's fast rising career. i'll say one more time that i don't like how pissy and bitter they made sydney to be in chaplin. i'm sure the brothers didn't always get along, but you really come away with thinking syd was a jerk. i'd hoped they would also give the audience a sense of how close they were, too. and they were, until syd's death on april 16th, 1965, on chaplin's 76th birthday. sydney stands over his brother, charlie, as the mutual contracts are signed in 1916i'm glad chaplin did show the viewers how close chaplin was to douglas fairbanks sr., though. played extremely well by kevin kline, they fit well together on screen as they did in life. without fairbanks, chaplin might not have entered the hollywood cliques so easily. they were two of hollywood's most famous stars, and even though chaplin was originally not thrilled to meet someone he might consider a rival, the friendship endured many years. RDJ with maria pitillo, as mary pickfordincluding mary pickford. i've said before i always thought theirs was a strained relationship. chaplin made no secret of that in his autobiography, when it came to business. as partners in united artists, pickford might have intimidated chaplin with her business acumen. but i just always thought they merely tolerated each other. maybe they both resented sharing fairbanks. you also see chaplin's first meeting with j. edgar hoover, though their real first meeting didn't take place at a swank hollywood restaurant as it did in chaplin. but it goes without saying that their relationship was strained right from the start. one of the most poignant scenes in chaplin is when charlie returns to england for the first time since becoming the most famous man in the world. it was on the train, playing cards with his old boss, fred karno, that he learns of hetty kelly's death. in his autobiography, chaplin learned this through hetty's brother and treated it very casually, but it was clear to see its effect on him. but in the movie, it is very well done - chaplin is overcome with grief and desperate to hide it. the train pulls into the station a midst hundreds of fans, and you get the feeling he realizes then, the price of his fame. he must go out, as he said, smiling, for his fans, which he does. but clearly, he is devastated. a very well done scene. couldn't resist one thing that i definitely didn't like was how little edna purviance was used in chaplin. she was a very big part of his life - both professionally and personally and deserved more than a couple of short scenes. i didn't like the choice of actress to play edna, either; she looked nothing like her. but it didn't really matter, since she was barely in it. RDJ with penelope ann miller, who played edna, in a scene that was cut from the film the story quickly runs from chaplin finally achieving control in owning his own studio and rights to all his films. that was well done too. i thought attenborough did an amazing job at recreating chaplin's studio. from the pictures i've seen of it, he really got it. it also zips right through chaplin's disasterous marriage to lita grey, but so did chaplin himself in his autobiography. he only devoted a short half paragraph to it. he meets paulette, played very well by diane lane and they begin their romance as he moves into the world of talkies with modern times and the great dictator. this was as good a place as any to show chaplin's obsession with his work, how he barely slept, ate or communicated with anyone not directly involved with the making of his latest film. you see his marriage to paulette crumble and his relationship with syd become more tense over the great dictator and the actual idea of making fun of hitler. weird, huh? everyone makes fun of hitler nowadays. but chaplin was one of the first ones to do it ever - and while hitler was in power. that took balls. nancy travis played the part of joan berry. i was sorry that couldn't have been expanded as well. that was a very important part of chaplin's life, for his downfall from the court case - even though it was proved he was not the father of joan's baby - really was a direct hit to his career. chaplin had to learn a very valuable lesson after that fiasco - "discovering" young, pretty women to be your next big name in your movie was not the same as it was in the teens and 20's. i couldn't find a picture of james woods in chaplin, so i figured this was close enoughjames woods played the part of joseph scott, the killer lawyer who represented joan berry and her young daughter in the paternity case against chaplin. he was a good choice; he seemed just as vicious as i read scott was at tearing chaplin a new one on the stand. it's a relief when he meets oona, played once again by the actress that played hetty kelly, moira kelly. i didn't know until today that she was the voice of nala on the lion king. good for her. you see little of their romance - the most telling scene is the two of them watching city lights together. oona is genuinely laughing at the tramp's antics, and you can see chaplin watching her and you know he's falling in love with her, despite the age difference. i'm such a fan of oona and charlie - i'm sure everyone went nuts when they went public with their romance, shortly before their marriage. especially poor syd. but they proved them wrong, which was such a relief. very little was filmed on chaplin's exile, other than oona giving him the news (in life, she did not). but they did use the house they lived in, the manoir de ban in vervey, switzerland. RDJ seemed to capture chaplin's individualism well, i thought, in chaplin's final years. but the story ends with the trip back to hollywood to receive the long ignored recognition at the oscars for chaplin's contributions to film history. this never fails to put a lump in my throat. it's hard to imagine chaplin as a frail old man, even harder to see it. as oona wheels him in his wheelchair to the backstage, you can see his confusion and fear, terrified of what is expected of him. and i am always grateful RDJ played this difficult part as well as he did, for they did not have to re-shoot him in scenes from chaplin's work - they showed the actual clips from the kid. chaplin, backstage without the comfort and security of oona, watches the tramp scamper over the roof to rescue the kid with growing tears in his eyes and he watches himself as a young, energetic man again with his career still young and new. it was a beautiful way to end the film - though there are many flaws that irk me about this movie, i have to say it was very well done. if only it could have been released in the original four hours - wow, what would that be like for chaplin fans?
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Post by nondescript spice on Apr 14, 2013 15:19:39 GMT -5
in honor of chaplin's upcoming 124th birthday on tuesday, i drank some absinthe and watched a few essanay shorts last night. the essanays are typically not always my first choice when i watch his short films - i usually go for the mutuals. i also watched a couple of keystones, including making a living, the first time chaplin appeared on screen - ninety-nine years ago. dig that. i thoroughly enjoyed them. particularly work. it is one of my favorite shorts that feature the tramp and edna. i also watched the tramp, by the sea, the bank, a woman and kid auto races at venice. great viewing. happy birthday, charlie!
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Post by nondescript spice on Apr 16, 2013 14:48:05 GMT -5
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Post by nondescript spice on Apr 29, 2013 11:06:53 GMT -5
a friend of mine, a fellow chaplin fan, sent me this - a very short piece, but features the beautiful music of smile, with some classic moments from chaplin's films over the years.
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Post by nondescript spice on May 1, 2013 9:32:31 GMT -5
that same friend also sent me this - a very talented little girl doing what has been called the nonsense song the tramp performs in modern times when he speaks for the first time. really amazing how well she imitated it. chaplin would be so proud.
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Post by nondescript spice on May 3, 2013 15:40:58 GMT -5
chaplin, you dog. check out how the tramp looks at the camera and then makes a grab for the dress dummy's breast. this is from the 1915 keystone short, the woman. that's the kind of thing you could watch a dozen times before noticing. that was exactly why i was so thrilled when the keystone shorts were restored. it opened up so many of those funny little gestures, gags and expressions that had been lost for so long.
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Post by nondescript spice on May 26, 2013 13:48:14 GMT -5
i've been threatening to do this for a couple of years now, so here it is at last - the women of charlie chaplin's lifewe all have help in our lifelong formation by the different relationships we cultivate, and chaplin had more than enough help in his 88 years. chaplin lived with a reputation of a wolf all of his life, even when he gave that lifestyle up for oona and their children. but he did his share of poom! for decades. his press agents used to joke that they were his suppress agents, with all the work they had to do to keep his activities from becoming public knowledge. but we found out about most of them, anyway. not all of his relationships with women were intimate, but they would influence him in many ways. hannah chaplin chaplin's mother couldn't have known she gave birth to someone that would eventually be one of the most famous men in the world. according to his biography, chaplin said this about his mother - "mother was a soubrette on the variety stage, a mignonne in her late twenties, with fair complexion, violet-blue eyes and long light brown hair that she could sit upon. sydney and i adored our mother. though she was not an exceptional beauty, we thought her divine looking. those who knew her told me in later years that she was dainty and attractive and had compelling charm." cane hill asylum, where hannah would spend years during chaplin's rise to famebut hannah had maybe the toughest job back in the 19th century - a single mother. she had split from chaplin's father and at first, life wasn't so bad as she had a somewhat lucrative job in the english music halls as a singer. chaplin remembered his very early years as easy and pleasant. but when his father stopped paying child support and hannah lost her voice, therefore losing her place on the stage, they were forced to move to one shabby room to the next to live, until they eventually ended up in the workhouse. chaplin said his mother would take in piecework to keep them going, and sydney would do any odd job he could find. young chaplin would give dance lessons to the rich kids for five shillings a week. but times were tough - they sometimes had nothing to eat and hannah grew weak and unstable under the strain. she eventually went mad - chaplin accredited it malnutrition and her constant worry for sydney, who was away at sea at the time. others have said she had syphilis, which was very possible, but chaplin would have never admitted to that. she and chaplin were very close. he said even when they lived in a drab back room, his mother kept it spotless and cheery for he and sydney. she had talent for comedy as well as her singing abilities (before she lost her voice) and sometimes while charlie would lay in bed, sick, she would look out the window and imitate the people walking on the street outside to make her son laugh. chaplin when he was around seven years oldhannah went in and out of asylums but eventually she would stay there until chaplin had her moved to america, where he installed her into a small house near the ocean with a married couple who watched over her. he loved her his whole life, but avoided her quite a bit once she was in america. it's been said he just couldn't bear to see her the way she was and feared one day he might become hostage to the same fate. though her mind was spotty at best, hannah seemed quite content. it must have been a better life than wasting away in an english asylum at the turn of the century. she passed away while chaplin was making the circus. in his autobiography he wrote: i do not know if i have given a portrait worthy of mother. but i do know that she carried her burden cheerfully. kindness and sympathy were her outstanding virtues. although religious, she loved sinners and always identified herself with them. not an atom of vulgarity was in her nature. and in spite of the squalor in which we were forced to live, she had kept sydney and me off the streets and made us feel we were not the ordinary product of poverty, but unique and distinguished. hannah would continue to influence chaplin all his life. paulette's character in the great dictator was named after her, and while making limelight, chaplin used hannah as a model in choosing period costumes - he even used a quote hannah was fond of saying in limelight- you can always stoop and pick up nothing.
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Post by nondescript spice on May 26, 2013 17:37:56 GMT -5
the women of charlie chaplin's life the first part of chaplin's life was dedicated to just basic survival. after a rough childhood, chaplin began his career in show business, and one of his first roles on the stage was as billy in sherlock holmes. he worked with the beautiful marie doro. chaplin, just a young teenager, fell head over heels for her. he said: she was so devastatingly beautiful that i resented her. i resented her delicate, pouting lips, her regular white teeth, her adorable chin, her raven hair and dark brown eyes. i had just turned sixteen, and the propinquity of this sudden radiance evoked my determination not to be obsessed by it. but, oh god, she was beautiful! it was love at first sight.
marie was barely aware of him, but years later when chaplin was a new movie sensation, she requested to meet him, not knowing they had once shared a stage together. chaplin told her of his huge crush on her and it must have been pretty gratifying for him to fulfill it. they discussed several things they might go out and do together, but he said in his autobiography - however, we did not do any of those things, but just dined quietly in marie's apartment alone. wacka-chica-wow-wow. chaplin, as "billie" in his run of sherlock holmes but other than oona o'neil, the greatest influence on chaplin was a young girl named hetty kelly. chaplin met her when he was nineteen and working for fred karno's company, where his education really began. not only in finding his feet in comedy, but i think chaplin really got an education in human behavior there, including love and sex. you would have to imagine that sex was pretty casual in the traveling vaudeville circuit, and since chaplin was coming of age in those days, he probably learned hard lessons - ones that would stick with him. women back then were already dismissed as second class citizens, especially when they became stage performers. i imagine chaplin viewed sex as a pretty casual act and had little to do with love. he described himself as being quite a romantic, though, and that was the basis for his feelings for hetty kelly, a sixteen year old dancer for "bert coutts yankee doodle girls." chaplin began courting her with boundless enthusiasm and passion. though they never did more than hold hands, chaplin was so in love with her that he broke it off when he felt her feelings were not the same. she was a little bewildered by his ardor, and chaplin, who would do this many times over in his life, immediately regretted breaking up with her and hoped to win her back. but he could see her feelings had grown cold, so he gave up to save face. he said: "although i had met her but five times, and scarcely any of our meetings lasted longer than twenty minutes, that brief encounter affected me for a long time."
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Post by nondescript spice on May 27, 2013 12:49:07 GMT -5
the women of charlie chaplin's lifeto continue hetty's story - chaplin mentions her a few more times in his autobiography. he saw her a year later and as he watched her dancing with her brother, she looked more developed and acted more flirtatious than she did before. chaplin said he discovered he was not as attracted to her as he'd once been. he kept in touch with her brother, who had moved to america. shortly after chaplin finished the kid, he received a letter from hetty, asking if he remembered 'a silly young girl,' and asked him to look her up when he returned to england. she was married by then, but he still wanted to see her, perhaps to prove to himself through her that she had really missed the boat with him. chaplin met her brother in his train car as he traveled the english countryside, and found out hetty had passed away of spanish influenza. chaplin said, "hetty was the one audience from the past i should have liked to meet again, especially under these fantastic circumstances." mabel normand nothing happened romantically between chaplin and normand, but it wasn't for the lack of trying on chaplin's part. i think he felt some kind of obligation to try and bed most women he met. but mabel told him she was not his type and he was not hers, so they remained friends. mabel was the lover of mack sennett, who hired chaplin for his keystone comedies that made him a star. mabel was the darling of the movie sets at keystone - she basically grew up there and was considered a tomboy that insisted on doing her own stunts. she was funny, pretty and talented. like fatty arbuckle, she and chaplin did many shorts together and though she lacked edna purviance's refinement and aloofness, she could match the tramp's energy and mischievousness. but mabel was addicted to cocaine, and trouble seemed to follow her as she was connected with two shooting scandals with which she was indirectly involved. she died of tuberculous at the age of 37. chaplin, looking a bit manic as the tramp with mabel in caught in a cabaret, 1914
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Post by nondescript spice on May 29, 2013 11:37:09 GMT -5
the women of charlie chaplin's lifeedna purviance edna purviance was born in 1895 in paradise valley in nevada. she never had aspirations to become an actress that anyone knows of, but she starred in over thirty films with charlie chaplin. when chaplin left keystone for essanay, he put together a stable of actors, but was having trouble finding a pretty girl to be his leading lady. he thought he'd found one before edna, but he said he could not get a reaction out of her no matter how hard he tried, so he gave up. later he found out it was gloria swanson. she told him years later that her agent pushed her into auditioning for the part, but she had no interest in comedies, so she purposely sabotaged her chances. edna was discovered in a cafe. someone told chaplin that he'd seen a pretty girl eat at tate's cafe on a regular basis, so chaplin, desperate by then, had her brought in. he said she seemed sad and serious and wasn't convinced she could pull off comedy, but he also said she was "more than pretty; she was beautiful" and thought she would be good eye candy for his films. edna could be a serious person, but she confessed she was getting over a broken relationship at the time she met chaplin. she soon proved herself worthy on screen. though she had no formal training, she could do whatever was required of her. in fact, that was what chaplin preferred in his co-stars - no prior training. they would have to unlearn everything they knew to work with chaplin, whose method of directing was to just have you watch him act out your part and then you were expected to mimic it perfectly. it sounds crazy, but chaplin was very patient when it came to this and once he got what he wanted - well, you can't argue with his success. at any rate, edna could do it very well. eventually chaplin and edna would become involved romantically. i imagine she must have been a calming influence on him, and he said in his autobiography that he'd considered marrying her. but when he was working, he had no time for anyone or anything, and it wouldn't be the first time his work came between him and a woman. they eventually parted company, but continued working together as flawlessly as they ever did. i have to hand it to edna - she held herself up pretty well. she learned of chaplin's first marriage by reading it in the newspaper - just like her character did with her lover in a woman of paris. couldn't have been easy. chaplin starred her in AWOP to try and develop a career independent from him, since he was moving away from shorts and into feature films full time. but it just didn't work. edna just didn't have the presence to be the star of a film - adolphe menjou totally overshadowed her in AWOP, and that was the film that really jump started his career. chaplin considered her for a role in monsieur verdoux, and after an emotional reunion, edna tested for the part. but chaplin didn't feel she was right for it and he said edna seemed relieved to hear that. edna, with eve sothern in a woman of the sea, 1926edna did star in the 1926 film, a woman of the sea. shot on location in france and allegedly at chaplin's studio (chaplin was said to have directed a couple of scenes), it was about two sisters in love with the same man. it was never released in the u.s. and there are no known copies of it since it was said all copies were burned at chaplin's request. she's credited for appearing in monsieur verdoux and limelight, but she's become a where's waldo for chaplin/purviance fans, because no one has been able to spot her. if anyone can, for god's sake, tell me! edna kept in touch with chaplin after his marriage to oona, by writing him whenever she could. she did marry in 1938 to a pilot that died in 1945. she developed throat cancer and died january 11th, 1958. chaplin kept her on the payroll until her death and ended his autobiography shortly after relating her final letters to him before she died. i think she would have devoted herself to him much like oona did, and it's a pity she is not more well known today. according to wikipedia, there is a petition to have her star put on the hollywood walk of fame. she definitely deserves one.
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