Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin KBE (1889 – 1977) was the first world-famous movie star, a respected movie writer, director, editor, producer and composer. He remains one of the most recognizable icons of the silver screen today.Growing up in poverty with his brother, Sydney, with a mother who was a failed Music Hall entertainer of declining mental health, the brothers worked themselves up until he became a star stage comedian himself. On an American tour, He was hired by Keystone Studios and began starring in low budget one-reeler comedies in 1914. By the end of the year, he had starred in 35 movies, many of which he directed as well, and was known around the world. By 1916, he would work for the more prestigious Mutual Studios and would be the writer, director, star, editor, and producer of his own comedy films. In 1919, he co-founded United Artists - one of the major film studios that still operates today. He would continue making entertaining and influential comedies, which experimented with more dramatic stories amid the comedy.He is best known for the character of Charlot or The Tramp, a poor, downtrodden man who nevertheless takes on life with vim and alacrity, defeating the bully/policemen/figure of authority and getting the girl before walking into the sunset.Outside of films, Chaplin was quite politically active, although this never directly showed itself in his films until The Great Dictator. A scathing satire of Nazi Germany, the film closes off with a narrative-breaking Author Tract delivered directly to the camera, in which Chaplin touches on many of his Real Life personal beliefs (it is incidentally widely considered to be one of the greatest speeches ever delivered). Accused of being a Communist sympathizer by the United States government after the end of World War II, he fled the country as a refugee in 1952 and lived the remainder of his life in Europe. As a result of his political beliefs, his last American film, Limelight, wasn't allowed to be released until 1972, twenty years after it was actually filmed, but the fact that it was not screened in Los Angeles before then allowed it to win a competitive Oscar for best music score.Some films he produced include:
Being arguably the first major film comedian, he is responsible for establishing countless comedy tropes. Many of his descendants followed him into the acting world, including his granddaughter Oona Chaplin. Daughter Geraldine Chaplin actually played her own grandmother in Sir Richard Attenborough's 1992 BiopicChaplin, in which the man himself is played by Robert Downey Jr in one of his best-regarded performances.
Tropes invoked by his films and the man himself:
A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Great Dictator made a thinly veiled attack on Nazis in 1940 when not only were the Nazis still in power, but America was officially at peace with them.
The Chew Toy: The Tramp's role in every single movie.
Couldn't Find a Lighter: In Shoulder Arms, Chaplin in the trenches of WWI holds the cigarette over the trench gets a light from a helpful enemy sniper.
The Danza: His characters usually have No Name Given, so all the audience can call him is Charlie. Or The Tramp. Or Charlot.
Doing It for the Art: Chaplin was notorious as being a maddeningly perfectionist filmmaker. For instance, he made his leading lady, Edna Purviance, do so many takes eating beans that she was physically ill. To his credit, Chaplin was even rougher on himself; he did his famous boot eating scene in The Gold Rush so many times that he had to go to the hospital afterward.
Early Installment Weirdness: In his film debut, the short film Making a Living, Charlie appears as a con artist wearing a top hat with a drooping mustache. His iconic Tramp character debuted in Chaplin's second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice. Perhaps more surprisingly, in his first feature film, Tillie's Punctured Romance, made in late 1914 after the Tramp had become a huge breakout character, Charlie again plays a cynical con-artist type instead of the Tramp.
Hall Of Mirrors: in The Circus. Maybe the earliest use of this trope?
The Heavy, 11 of the 12 Mutual films feature Eric Campbell as an intimidatingly large Big Bad and a comic foil to the tramp's antics
Hot Pursuit: The Tramp often crossing paths with the police, resulting in hilarious chase scenes. Police chase scenes of note include ones from The Kid, The Circus, and A Dogs Life.
Huge Guy Tiny Guy: Chaplin, who was 5"5" and very thin, would often cast towering strongly built men to create a visual gag.
Iconic Item: His bowler hat, toothbrush moustache and bamboo cane.
Instant Seduction: In his autobiography, he mentions that a girl staying next to him flirted with him by knocking on the wall a few times. He went to meet her and within three lines, they "engaged nocturnally." Awesome.
Kick the Dog: Often the 'dog' is Charlie himself, other times a dog is literally kicked, such as in the short Sunnyside.
Missing Episode: Her Friend The Bandit (1914). Notable because while many Silent Films are lost, this Keystone short is the only known Chaplin film for which no copy survives.
Meat O Vision: In The Gold Rush. An anecdote says that the extra performing in the chicken suit couldn't get The Tramp's distinctive walk just right, and eventually Chaplin had to do it himself.
Nice Hat: Just try imagining the tramp without His trademark Bowler hat
Directing Against Type with A Woman Of Paris, in which Charlie took a break from doing slapstick comedies in which he also starred, and instead directed an entirely serious romantic drama in which he had only a brief cameo. The idea was to establish his former comic leading lady Edna Purviance as a dramatic actress. It failed, and Purviance retired from film shortly thereafter.
Eric Campbell played the bad guy in 11 of Chaplin's 12 short films with Mutual and probably would have done more with Chaplin if he hadn't been killed in a car accident in 1917.
Edna Purviance made her film debut in in 1915 with A Night Out, Chaplin's second movie after leaving Mack Sennett, and played the Love Interest and/or female lead in almost every picture Chaplin made for the next eight years.
Henry Bergman joined Chaplin's company in 1916 and worked with Charlie both onscreen and in production for the next 24 years.
Roland Totherot was Charlie's cinematographer for 32 years, 1915-1947 (and got a "photographic consultant" credit for Limelight in 1952).
Riding into the Sunset: An ending used in many of his films as the tramp, when at the end he would be seen walking down a street into the sunset, alone or along with the female lead. Fittingly, the last of his Tramp movies, Modern Times, ends this way.
Romance on the Set: Practically every film he made from 1915 to 1940, with the exception of City Lights.
Silence Is Golden: Several silent film greats faded into obscurity with the arrival of talkies, but not Chaplin; he continued to make silent films (City Lights, Modern Times which has very little dialogue) and had success with them. It would take until 1940's The Great Dictator before The Tramp would speak intelligibly.
The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Limelight sat on the shelf for two decades due to accusations of his being a communist sympathizer. It was eventually released in 1972.
Speaking Simlish: Chaplin's Tramp character never spoke a word until 1936's Modern Times, where he gets a job as a singer. But he's forgotten the words, so he sings complete gibberish instead.
Strictly Formula: This was Chaplin's main misgiving about his period with Mutual: he felt his films there were drifting to this trope, as he noted "Does every film have to end with a chase?"
Super Cell Reception: A few years ago there was talk of the "discovery" of a time-traveller in a film from 1928 who looked to be talking on a cell phone. Apart from the ability (or lack thereof) to travel in time, there weren't any cell phone towers to make it work.
Take That: After repeatedly being "accused" of being Jewish, he finally retorted, "I'm afraid I don't have that honor."
Hanna and Barbera have said that Chaplin was a big influence on the slapstick and mostly wordless comedy in Tom And Jerry. Jerry sometimes displays the same mannerisms as Chaplin.'
In the film Benny And Joon, Johnny Depp's character, a silent film enthusiast and Cloud Cuckoolander, reenacts the 'bread roll dance' Chaplin does with his forks in The Gold Rush, among a few more of Chaplin's routines and mannerisms.
Zombieland briefly features a zombie Chaplin cosplayer once the main characters reach Hollywood.
He makes a brief cameo in The Powerpuff Girls episode "Silent Treatment", where the girls get trapped in a silent movie. His appearance is perhaps modeled after his cameo in Felix In Hollywood.
In the fourth Black Adder series, we learn that Edmund really, really hates Chaplin films, and of course, everyone else likes them. He sends Chaplin some hate mail, and the actor responds with a letter to General Melchett suggesting they have a big comedy film festival, with Edmund specifically requested for projectionist.
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