After a hugely successful but tense year making films for
The Essanay Film and Manufacturing Company, Charlie Chaplin decided to look
elsewhere when his contract came to an end. Despite several offers from larger
studios, Chaplin under the advice of his elder brother and Business Manager
Sydney signed with The Mutual Film Corporation on February 26th 1916
for a world record breaking wage of $10,000 a week plus a signing bonus of
$150,000. This was ten times his already substantial Essanay salary of $1,250
per week. The contract made Chaplin the highest earning employee in history and
also stipulated complete artistic control over his films as well as a custom
made studio. The aptly named Lone Star Studio was where Chaplin was to produce
his twelve two-reel comedies for Mutual over the next twelve months. Chaplin
later wrote in his autobiography that those twelve months were amongst the
happiest of his career.
Although Chaplin was starting fresh with Mutual he did bring
along some of his stock actors from Essanay and the likes of Leo White, John
Rand and long time leading lady Edna Purviance joined him at the studio. In
addition to these regulars Chaplin also hired a new group to work with him
during his time at Mutual. Eric Campbell, Albert Austin and Charlotte Mineau
joined a much larger group of regular actors as Chaplin’s films grew in scale.
In addition to writing, directing and starring in his films,
Chaplin also began producing his movies with Mutual and went on to produce almost
all of his subsequent films. The first three were co-written with his behind
the scenes collaborator Vincent Bryan but Chaplin maintained sole writing and
directing credit for the remaining Mutual comedies.
As with Chaplin’s Essanay films, I’ll be watching each one
and posting a review on the blog plus a link to each one below.
