Burlesque on Carmen

Charlie Chaplin’s 13^th Essanay film is loosely based on Georges Bizet’s famous opera Carmen and stars Chaplin as Darn Hosiery, a Spanish Officer on watch at a popular smuggling point. Local barman Lillas Pastia (Jack Henderson) persuades an attractive gypsy girl, Carmen (Edna Purviance) to distract the guard while they smuggle their goods. Despite having no interest in the man Carmen uses her charms to distract Hosiery who ends up in a love quartet for the gypsy’s heart.

Burlesque on Carmen is an above average Essanay picture and features some nice subtle comedy as well as the usual trips, kicks and pokes. It also features the first noticeably decent performance from Chaplin regular Edna Purviance.

A Night in the Show

For Chaplin’s 12^th Essanay film he turns to familiar ground by partially recreating a sketch he first performed in Fred Karno’s theatre company. Chaplin takes the part of two characters. The first is Mr. Rowdy, a working class theatre attendee who turns up drunk. The second is Mr. Pest, an upper class theatre attendee who also shows up inebriated. Both characters get in the way of other audience members and impact on most of the on stage action before one ends the show for good.

The film begins very promisingly with some superb ‘business’ from both of Chaplin’s characters. Rowdy walks down the isle of the dress circle and continues to walk off the edge, having to be hauled back up by other audience members while Pest first cuts in the ticket queue before changing seats much to the annoyance of those around him and finally has a fight with the musical conductor. Unfortunately the rest of the film doesn’t quite live up to the opening five or ten minutes and the volume and quality of the jokes tail off slightly before a return to form in the final minutes.

His Regeneration

A tough criminal gets in to an argument in a dancehall which escalates into a fight. When the criminal is shot he is aided by a mysterious woman and recovers. Once he recovers he burgles a house but gets a surprise which puts an end to his criminal path.

This is a bit of an oddity amongst my Charlie Chaplin – Essanay box set in that it isn’t a Chaplin film at all. Instead Chaplin has a credit as ‘slightly assisted by’ and has a very brief cameo in front of the camera too. The film was actually directed, written and starred in by Chaplin’s boss and co-head of Essanay Gilbert M. Anderson (Broncho Billy).

For a Charlie Chaplin fan this is one to ignore as Chaplin is on screen for all of thirty seconds. He tries to push his way to the front of a queue, is sent back and then gets pushed around when people start dancing. The film itself is forgettable and features a confusing and slightly dull storyline. Its saving grace though is its acting which feels remarkably real and natural compared to Chaplin’s regular cast. It is this that saves it from the depths of being a one star movie.    

3/10

Shanghaied

A ship owner intends to scuttle his ship and asks his Captain to round up a crew. The Captain in turn hires a Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) to help him ‘Shanghai’ (forcibly conscript) some sailors. This backfires for the tramp though as he himself is Shanghaied. On board ship the Tramp attempts to help out with a variety of different tasks but unsurprisingly is useless at all of them. Meanwhile the ship owner’s daughter (Edna Purviance) has stowed away aboard ship in an attempt to stop the crime of scuttling and save her lover, the Tramp.

After the wonderful highs of The Bank, this film was a huge come down. It is by far my least favourite Charlie Chaplin film to date although there are inevitably some good moments to be found.

The Bank

A janitor in a bank (Charlie Chaplin) has a crush on a secretary (Edna Purviance) who is in love with cashier (Carl Stockdale). Chaplin mistakes a present sent from Purviance to Stockdale as being for him and when his advances towards Purviance are laughed away he becomes depressed. Despite being a terrible janitor, Chaplin becomes the hero (or does he?) when he foils a bank robbery.

This film took me a little bit by surprise. I was expecting a slapstick affair with Chaplin getting into the sort of trouble that Buster Keaton did in his film The Haunted House but this is a much more rounded piece than pretty much anything Chaplin had done before. Chaplin spends more time off screen than in any of his previous Essanay films and instead of being in front of the camera, fooling around, allows his characters and story to propel the film along. That isn’t to say that Chaplin is a side character or not funny. He is still the central character and produces some great comedic turns.

A Woman

Charlie Chaplin’s ninth Essanay film is perhaps one of his most controversial. A Gentleman (Chaplin) is out walking through a park when he comes across a family (Charles Inslee, Marta Golden & Edna Purviance). The father, Inslee has his attention drawn towards a flirt (Margie Reiger). Reiger blindfolds Inslee after suggesting a game of hide and seek. Chaplin meanwhile discovers the blinded man and leads him towards a lake where he pushes him in. Later Chaplin comes across Golden and Purviance who fall for the cheeky chappy and invite him home. When Inslee arrives home soaking wet to find his attacker in the house Chaplin resorts to disguising himself in an unorthodox manner.

This film is most famous for Chaplin’s cross-dressing, something that must have been quite brave and scandalous 97 years ago. For a twenty-first century audience it isn’t particularly shocking or even funny so you have to imagine a late Edwardian audience’s reaction in order to understand its significance.

Work

Izzy Wake (Charles Inslee) a paperhanger and his assistant (Charlie Chaplin) slowly make their way to the house of Billy Armstrong and Marta Golden where they are due to hang wall paper. After experiencing difficulty even getting to the house, once they get there things go from bad to worse.

This film made me laugh, a lot, but overall it was messy – much like the on screen action. I didn’t really get any sense of who any of the characters were and to be honest apart from inhabiting the house at the centre of the story, Billy Armstrong and Marta Golden’s characters weren’t really necessary. They and Leo White were only really used during the films frenetic ending which is somewhere between a chase and a farce. That being said, there is still much to like about this Chaplin Essanay effort.

By the Sea

While on a windy beach The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) turns his attention to two married women and ends up getting in trouble with their husbands. This film feels like a bit of a step back after Chaplin’s previous films. It feels much closer to His New Job than the likes of The Champion or The The Tramp in that it is a knockabout comedy and a farce which lacks character development. Despite this there is still much to like.

I especially enjoyed Chaplin’s use of string attached to his jacket and hat which stops his hat blowing away in the wind. It’s a great idea and it’s almost a shame it didn’t catch on! The idea is used successfully in a couple of ways; Firstly in a scene in which Chaplin and Billy Armstrong get their strings intertwined and end up tangled up and inevitably fighting and in a second scene while trying to woo Bud Jamison’s wife. In this scene Chaplin manipulates the string behind his back to make it seem as though the hat is jumping off his head. It’s a simple, clever and very funny idea.

Apart from those two examples and a brief fight involving ice creams there isn’t much else of note in this film. There are of course Bud Jamison’s over the top eyebrows and the background setting of an almost deserted Los Angeles beach is quite interesting but compared to Chaplin’s later films this feels a little weak.

5/10

The Tramp

A Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) is on the road when he rescues a farmer’s daughter (Edna Purviance) from thieves out to steal her money. As a reward the Tramp is taken in and offered work by Edna’s father (Ernest Van Pelt). On the farm the Tramp is asked to halt a second attempt by the criminals and ends up in a love triangle.

This was Chaplin’s 6^th Essanay film and the first I had seen before watching the studios output in full. It marks the first time that the Tramp is seen fully formed although Chaplin had played the character before. Here the tramp is a much more rounded character and although he still looks out for number one he is more inclined to help others and in fact ends up leaving the farm so that he doesn’t get in the way of Edna and her boyfriend. This is a quite different Tramp from say In the Park and The Champion.

A Jitney Elopement

Edna (Edna Purviance) has been betrothed to a rich Count by her father (Ernest Van Pelt) but she already has a secret love, The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin). Edna persuades her love to save her and he impersonates the Count at tea with Edna and her father. Once the Count (Leo White) turns up with his fantastical facial hair The Tramp is thrown out. Later in a park the foursome come together again and the two young lovers attempt to elope in an act that brings about a prolonged car chase.

There are two very distinct halves to this film and I believe that the first half is amongst Chaplin’s best Essanay work to date. Having come off In the Park which was fast and a little bit messy, the first half of A Jitney Elopement was surprisingly slow, calm and more reminiscent of his later feature films. The second half though features a full on frenetic car chase which takes place in and around San Francisco and makes this Chaplin’s most sprawling film to date. The title incidentally comes from the type of vehicle that the couple attempt to run away in – a kind of shared taxi.

The Birth of a Nation

One of the most famous and best films of the early silent era, The Birth of a Nation can be split into two distinct parts. The first part is a story of the American Civil War and features two families, The Stonemans from Pennsylvania and the Camerons from South Carolina. Early on the Stonemans are seen visiting their friends in the south and the beginnings of relationships occur between some of the younger members of the family. There is slight tension in the air though as the Civil War looms in the near future. Fast forward to the war and both families join their respective armies and in the end meet on the battlefield in an incredible battle scene. It is at about this time that the first overtly obvious racism crops up as a group of black militia ransack the Cameron home and search for white woman to abuse. This section ends with a fairly accurate depiction of the assassination of President Lincoln.

Part two, The Reconstruction begins with views of a battered and beaten south in which the formerly wealthy Cameron family has been reduced to rags and renting out rooms in their mansion. The head of the Stoneman family travels south with his protégé, a mixed race man called Lynch. With the help of black soldiers they turn white voters away from poll booths and create a landslide election win in which the South Carolina legislature is filled with black members. Lynch is elected as Governor General. With laws being passed which give blacks more rights and infringe on the rights of whites (intermarriage – the outrage!!) Ben Cameron forms an organisation called the Ku Klux Klan who band together to threaten and kill black men who attack white women.

In the Park

Chaplin’s first one reel farce for Essanay is set in a park. A lady has her handbag stolen by a thief who then attempts to steal Chaplin’s sausages. Chaplin ends up with the bag and it goes from person to person with each usually ending up with a brick to the face or foot to the bottom until one man tries to kill himself and another ends up in Police custody.

For such a short film In the Park has a surprisingly large cast. Chaplin regulars such as Edna Purviance, Leo White, Ernest Van Pelt and Bud Jamison all appear along with three or four other bit players. Considering the film is only fourteen minutes long it feels like a lot happens and is more reminiscent of Chaplin’s Keystone pictures rather than say The Champion which was released just a week earlier than this.

The Champion

Chaplin’s third Essanay picture and he finally appears to have found his feet with the new studio. Chaplin’s tramp, destitute and famished spots a sign offering money to act as a sparring partner. He watches as three men go in before him and return battered and bruised. Chaplin however has a trick up his sleeve or rather in his glove; a lucky horseshoe, which he uses to knock out his larger, more adept opponent. Spotting his potential a trainer prepares the slight Chaplin for a big fight against the champion Bob Uppercut (Bud Jamison) but Chaplin has other things on his mind, namely the trainer’s daughter Edna Purviance.

I was so glad that this film was good. I was really disappointed with Chaplin’s first two Essanay films His New Job and A Night Out. This is a real return to form. The idea was actually taken from a Fred Karno sketch that Chaplin performed before entering the movie industry. Perhaps one of the reasons for the film’s success is that Chaplin knew what he was doing before he went in rather than partially making it up as he went along.

A Night Out

Charlie Chaplin’s second film for Essanay saw him move production to their Californian studios for the first time. Chaplin and Ben Turpin are on a night out and end up getting very drunk. They go to a nice restaurant where they cause trouble for a smartly dressed gentleman. The head waiter arrives and throws the pair out but not before Chaplin has caught sight of the waiter’s girlfriend Edna Purviance. Back at their hotel Chaplin and Turpin bump into Purviance once more and again cause trouble for themselves and get thrown out of their hotel. Onto another hotel and Chaplin alone this time meets Purviance again, but will the waiter get in the way of his affections?

This film is a bit of a mess, though it isn’t easy to say to what extent this is Chaplin’s fault and how much time is to blame. The version I saw seems to have been made up of three or four different copies and as a result it changes from black and white to sepia and back quite often. The editing is also pretty poor, often cutting away in the middle of a gag. The story also makes little sense and Turpin just disappeared altogether half way through the film. Most of the gags are simple door in face or fist in face sort of things which is a shame.

His New Job

Chaplin’s first Essanay Picture was released in February 1915. Chaplin is at a film studio looking for a job. After several bits of humorous business he is hired as an extra but after being a nuisance on set is instead demoted to Carpenter’s Assistant. Through a mixture of wit and luck, Chaplin regains his position in front of the camera and ends up accidentally wearing the lead actor’s costume. All hell breaks loose when he arrives on set to find Chaplin in his clothes and Chaplin again uses a mixture of wit, luck and this time also violence to continue in his job and get revenge on several characters who had wronged him.

The film marks not only Chaplin’s first film with Essanay but also his first with fellow comic actor Ben Turpin. The two share a couple of great scenes together, the first of which involves a fight to get through a door and is excellent. It’s such a shame that the two actors couldn’t find a way to work together because on screen at least, they made a great partnership. Unfortunately a mixture of Turpin’s impatience with Chaplin’s methodical methods and Chaplin’s jealousy of Turpin’s ability to get laughs, their partnership went no further. 

Charlie Chaplin - The Essanay Films

Just a year after his screen debut and after he had earned his chops with Keystone, Charlie Chaplin had become one of the biggest stars in the new medium of film. After appearing in 36 films for Keystone, Chaplin moved on to the Essanay Film Company having received an offer of $1,250 a week and a promise that he could write and direct all of his own films.

Essanay had been formed in Chicago in 1907 by George K Spoor and Gilbert M Anderson who took their surname initials of S and A to form the name Essanay. Anderson was himself an actor and director and became famous under the pseudonym Broncho Billy. He also had a role in the first ever Western, the now highly regarded The Great Train Robbery. In search of better shooting locations for his Westerns, Anderson travelled with a small crew to California where he eventually set up a studio in Niles, CA. Chaplin shot his first Essanay picture at the Chicago studio but being unimpressed with the conditions subsequently produced the rest of his films at the Niles studio.

In total Chaplin made 14 films for Essanay between February 1915 and May 1916. Although today these films are not generally considered to be amongst his best, they were produced at a time when Chaplin went from being a star to the world’s first movie super star and show the development of his craft. They also introduced Chaplin to Edna Purviance who over a span of eight years appeared in more than thirty of his films. Chaplin’s Essanay films were more coherent and less frenetic than his Keystone pictures and featured greater character development. Not everything was well inside Essanay though. Chaplin had a fraught relationship with fellow Essanay star Ben Turpin and despite working well together on screen; Turpin appeared in only a couple of Chaplin’s films. When Chaplin left the company in 1916 it caused a rift between the two founders and the company eventually collapsed in 1920.

I will be watching each of Chaplin’s Essanay films in order and writing a brief summary and critique which I’ll link to below. Also, The Charlie Chaplin Film Club have also very kindly compiled my reviews here.

1. His New Job  3/5
2. A Night Out 2/5
3. The Champion 4/5
4. In the Park 3/5
5. A Jitney Elopement 4/5
6. The Tramp 4/5
7. By the Sea 2/5
8. Work 2/5
9. A Woman 2/5
10. The Bank 5/5
11. Shanghaied 2/5
12. His Regeneration 2/5
13. A Night in the Show 4/5
14. Burlesque on Carmen 4/5
15. Police 3/5
16. Triple Trouble 1/5