back to article Silence is golden: Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp is 100 today

It’s 100 years to the day since Charlie Chaplin’s film The Tramp was released – the movie that, more than any other, projected silent comedy to new artistic and commercial heights. The Tramp: Charlie Chaplin and Edna Purviance The Tramp: Chaplin's character is momentarily tempted to steal money from the farm girl (Edna …

  1. Chris Miller

    I'm with Blackadder

    Captain Blackadder (having watched Baldrick's Chaplin impersonation): Yes... take down a telegram, Bob. To Mr. Charlie Chaplin, Sennet Studios, Hollywood, California. Congrats stop. Have found only person in world less funny than you stop. Name Baldrick stop. Signed E. Blackadder stop. Oh, and put a P.S.: please, please, please stop.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm with Blackadder

      You bungled the joke in that dialogue, it should end: "Please, please stop. STOP", so I'm now dubious of your view on comedy.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I'm with Blackadder

        No, the joke was Please Please Please STOP

        As evinced by the final line of the episode, a telegram from Mr Chaplin, ending "Don't let him ever STOP"

  2. William Donelson

    The greatest speech ever made.

    The greatest speech ever made - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2WJd5bXFg

    1. Trainee grumpy old ****

      Re: The greatest speech ever made.

      "This video is unavailable" - but if you meant the one from The Great Dictator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX25PDBb708) I couldn't agree more. Should be mandatory viewing for all who would rule.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: The greatest speech ever made.

        >"This video is unavailable" - but if you meant the one from The Great Dictator

        The one that got him kicked out of America for "premature anti-fascism" ?

        "Soldiers: Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! .... Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers,"

        Sounds like supporting terrorism, that's probably why the video is unavailable

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The greatest speech ever made.

      I have never taken much interest in Chaplin, nor watched his movies - but after reading this article and looking at the clips I might be warming to him.

      The speech in the Great Dictator is as relevant now as it was when he wrote it. Maybe that's why Paolo Nutini sampled it in "Iron Sky".

      Thanks El Reg for today's little bit of education.

  3. x 7

    I've never liked his films, nor do I know anyone else who did.

    To most, pathos does NOT represent humour, comedy or entertainment.

    Besides which, he was a commie.

    1. frank ly

      "To most, ..." - Citation needed.

      "Besides which, he was a commie." - Paranoid/wild imagination needed.

    2. Dave 126

      >To most, pathos does NOT represent humour, comedy or entertainment.

      Really? So M*A*S*H wasn't the longest running sitcom of its time? Blackadder Goes Forth, The Simpsons, Catch 22... pathos in all of them.

      >Besides which, he was a commie.

      Bullshit. He was a shrewd investor. He actually advised his friends to remove their investments just before the Wall Street crash.

    3. RobHib

      @ x7 — I'm sorry for you.

      I've been accused of being a humourless irritable bastard but you take the cake!

      Presumably, you're just buying an argument to wind us up. If not, then I'm genuinely sorry for you.

      Even I laugh myself silly at this comic genius, fortunately much of the world follows suit.

      1. x 7

        Re: @ x7 — I'm sorry for you.

        Thanks for the praise. I've given you a thumbs up for that.

        Doesn't hide the fact that he was a skill-less slimeball who abused women and was close enough to the communists to be the subject of serious enquiry by the FBI, serious enough to result in him being excluded from the USA.

  4. Fink-Nottle

    > undoubtedly influenced some of the biggest stars and directors of recent times

    One of odd bits of trivia that stuck in my brain ... Walt Disney started off in showbiz as a Chaplin impersonator.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Such a great shame he didn't stick to that.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      ...and if Disney had owned the Chaplin back catalogue, it would probably all still be in copyright today.

  5. WalterAlter
    Devil

    Horse drawn cab driver

    Yah, Chaplain was a hack and his work is corny, obvious and predictable. On the other hand you got yer Buster Keaton who brought existential dilemma to the silent screen a generation ahead of his time. Same for the utterly unwatchable Marx Brothers vs the actually clever Ritz Brothers.

    1. cd

      Re: Horse drawn cab driver

      Keaton is better, no contest. Watch Seven Chances after any Chaplin film.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Horse drawn cab driver

      You need to look at it from the perspective of the audience of the day. Many had never even seen moving pictures, or at least had very little experience of cinema. It was all still new to them. They weren't jaded by years of exposure to 500 crap TV channels full of wannabee "stars" fresh from "Meeja Studies" courses.

      I mean, the Apple ][, Speccy and IBM PC were pretty crap really, yes? How could anyone do anything useful with shitty old computers like that? They didn't even have YouTube kitty videos. They were rubbish compared to proper mainframes.</sarcasm>

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Horse drawn cab driver

        It's not that Chaplin was crap by today's standards - he was crap the standards of the time.

        There were better actors (Keaton, Lloyd) producing better films - Chaplin (and Mack Sennett) were better at marketing them. Not unlike the home computer industry.

  6. Robin

    Spoiler!

    Having burnt his backside on a camp fire while protecting the farmer’s daughter, the tramp is unable to sit down and has to eat standing up

    Thanks for the spoiler warning!

  7. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Joke

    When?

    Are we going to get our Benny Hill retrospective?

    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: When?

      Sod that, when are we going to get a decent Harold Lloyd retrospective? I've not seen any of his films since a special season on BBC2 in the early '80s.

      1. David Given

        Re: When?

        I was thinking about him, too --- I was a big fan when I was (much) smaller. I'd love to know how they did those hair-raising stunts. Knowing the state of the art at the time, probably for real.

        1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          Re: When?

          A lot of the Harold Lloyd stunts involved building very clever sets on top of buildings and lining up cameras so that the streetscape behind looked like it was below the set. The clock in Safety First was only about twelve feet above the roof of the building the set was built on, but when testing it by dropping a dummy from the clock it bounced off the roof into the street below.

          1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

            Re: When?

            Thinko - of course that should be Safety Last.

  8. harmjschoonhoven

    How it was done.

    Chaplin was an obsessive perfectionist. Sometimes it took over a hundred retakes before he was satisfied with the result.

    Charlie Chaplin demanded 'City Lights' co-star to do 342 retakes of one scene.

    Chaplin Directing City Lights (1931)

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remember when it was 60 years old

    and I was a child. Fuck, I am getting old.

  10. Arctic fox
    Happy

    It seems that one or two people don't get it. "It" in this case being..........

    ..........the fact that what one finds funny is very individual. Saying that Chaplin was no good because you don't like him is ridiculous, he was widely regarded as good at what he did and a lot of people did find him funny and do so even today. Personally I never found Tommy Cooper's act (just as an example) funny, it left me cold in fact. However, I never failed to notice that the guy was extremely good at working his audience - they thought he was hysterical. Me? I was not a member of his audience but that did not make him objectively unfunny - I just didn't get him. The only thing you can say about a comedian is where you personally find him/her funny or not. Comedy is proverbially subjective/individual - it is not possible by definition to say anything "objective" about it. The smiley? It seemed the most appropriate chose of icon in the circumstances.

    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: It seems that one or two people don't get it. "It" in this case being..........

      > what one finds funny is very individual

      Have an upvote for that.

      Some very successful (as in they earn a good living from it) modern comedians leave me wondering what is supposed to be funny in their act. Doesn't make them "not funny", just not the sort of humour I like.

      @ J.G.Harston

      I agree.

      I would suggest you keep an eye out for some of the programs/series Paul Merton does about the actors/comedians of that era.

      1. Arctic fox
        Thumb Up

        @SImon Hobson: Thank you - I appreciate it.

        See icon.

  11. Bleu

    He was very fond

    of underaged girls. That is visible in many of the films and on record in his life.

    Also, possibly a murderer who got away with it. That was on a yacht.

    I can't watch his films now without thinking about those things.

    1. Tom 7

      Re: He was very fond

      Its was thought Randolph Hearst may have tried to kill Chaplin but killed Ince by accident on the yacht.

      As for girls - he hasn't been associated with anyone younger than the legal age in the UK

      1. x 7

        Re: He was very fond

        according to this book review in the Daily Mail, he managed to get a 15-year old pregnant. Before that he got a 16-year old pregnant......

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597412/2-000-lovers-comedy-genius-didnt-like-women-New-book-reveals-Charlie-Chaplins-obsession-young-girls-cruelly-treated-them.html

  12. Pedigree-Pete
    Happy

    Eric Sykes anyone?

    The Plank, Rhubarb & probably others I can't remember now. You know what to do if you're interested.

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