Charles Chaplin in 1916

Charles Chaplin in 1916

There’s a little vaudevillian who’s written, directed, and acted in about 60 films already and has released 9 films this year. His name is Charles Spencer Chaplin. Apparently, Chaplin grew up in a dismally poor home and was eventually abandoned by both his parents. Well, he started performing skits in a dancing troupe at the age of 12 and eventually made his way into the theatre as a performer by the age of 14. At the age of 17 he left the theatre to start up a comic vaudeville act with his brother. Being a great success in the vaudeville act, Chaplin drew the attention of American film studio, Keystone. He went on to make 36 films for them before he left  to work for the Essanay production company. For Essanay, in 1915, he made The Tramp and Police, which were different from his previous more brutish slapstick routines, and were more romantic and had more developed stories. This led to his signing with LA-based studio Mutual for a contract of $670,000 a year in 1916, making him one of the highest paid people in the world. By now Chaplin is world famous. At Mutual, Chaplin has made the films I’ve been avidly watching this year and that give me more entertainment than anything on the theatrical stage in the last 5 years. Particularly, One A.M., where Chaplin’s the only performer in the picture and the entire film consists of him playing a rich man coming home drunk and being impeded from going to bed by all the inanimate objects in the house, and The Cure, where he plays a drunkard who goes to a spa to dry out but brings a suitcase of alcohol, are two of the funniest performances I’ve ever seen. Chaplin’s films—at times biting satire and parody—are always clear and understandable, but I think the reason the films are so successful are because, no matter the story, they always have the highly original main character, Chaplin as The Little Tramp.