Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Bank (1915) is another Purviance picture, and there are several innovations in it.  Credits at the beginning, as well as some structural techniques.

Tramp on street walks into bank, down into basement, goes to vault: one combination, open, two combination, open, through gate, then reemerges with – a mop and bucket, followed by a janitor’s uniform!  Thus begins Charlie’s employment as a bank Janitor.  Charlie wanders around the bank, doing board-gag variations with the mop.  We are briefly introduced to a man desperate to sell bonds to the bank president.  Charlie goes upstairs to clean offices with the other janitor.  He does clean, by sweeping it all into the other guy’s room!  Quarrel, then Fight!  But the boss intervenes and breaks it up.

“The Cashiers birthday” Edna enters, as a Stenographer upstairs.  Charlie is smitten totally.  Back to the basement to finish the fight with janitor 2, and he beats him bad!  Meanwhile upstairs, Edna has a present for the cashier – a new tie – and a card: To Charlie, with Love, Edna.  Edna leaves it on the desk, Charlie finds it and thinks it is for him!  He is swept away by love!  He gets her flowers – with a card: To Edna with Love, Charlie.  He leaves the flowers for her.  The cashier gets the present and goes to thank Edna.  The president tears up the man’s bonds, and he swears revenge.  Edna finds the flowers and thinks they’re from the cashier, but he enters and clears up the situation. Edna is NOT amused, and tosses the flowers in the trash as Chaplin sees from the next room.  Heartbroken he retreats to the basement and falls asleep in the corner.  On the way he encounters the tie he thought was for him on the cashier, and even janitor 2 has a new tie in the basement – this earns him a punching out.

“Mischief.”  The Bond guy has returned with 4 hooligans.  2 go for the Presidents office where the cashier, Edna and the President are counting money for placement in the vault.  The Bond guy and the other 2 go down to the basement where they knock out Janitor 2.  Edna and Cashier come down with a money bag and are ambushed once they open the safe.  The Cashier pushes Edna down and runs, Charlie comes to the rescue as she fights them, and pushes all 3 into the safe and locks it!  Then upstairs to save the president, who is held at gunpoint.  But Edna faints, so Charlie has to carry her up the stairs, and pick up a gun off the floor.  When he gets the drop on the crooks, he gets attacked as he tries to dump Edna in a chair.  She comes to and grabs a gun as he is getting strangled on the desk.  Charlie calls the cops and the day is saved.  Charlie is a hero, the cowardly cashier is fired, and Charlie gets the girl.  And then he wakes up.  He is still in the basement, and Edna is still enamoured of the Cashier.  END.

It was all a dream!?  That is a first!  Never saw that before this, a remarkable innovation.  Done with an iris open for the fade in/out.  Totally in the camera.  The Credits in the beginning are also a new thing.

His Regeneration (1915) is a film directed by Chaplin but starring the CEO of Essanay, Mr. GM “Bronco Billy” Anderson, the first EVER movie cowboy.  As the title card says “Starring Mr. GM Anderson slightly assisted by Mr. Charles Chaplin.  And that is fair enough.  Chaplin only puts in a brief comic bit at the beginning, as a flirt in the night club who is driven onto a frenetic dancefloor, bounced around, and then bounced out.  The star here is Anderson, and this is essentially a story about a criminal who changes his ways in mid robbery, kills his accomplice and reforms, inspired by the woman who takes the blame for the killing.  Very odd acting, very odd piece. His transformation is demonstrated by friendliness towards a cop, and he walks away!

Shanghaied (1915) is a nautical funtime, whose rocker-based set is put to full comic use with nauseating effect!

We open with Dad and his ship captain plotting: “We must destroy the boat.  I need the insurance.”  The Captain has no luck raising a crew though, so Dad goes home, and the Captain and his first mate hire Charlie to help them Shanghai a crew.  “Shanghai-ing” is the age old maritime practice of drugging, knocking out, enticing, or otherwise kidnapping sailors or able bodied men to use as ship’s crew.  Just about every nation on earth has at one time or another engaged in this, how it came to rest on Shanghai’s back over say, Istanbul, or even Portsmouth, I don’t know.  Basically it is seaborne slavery.

So Charlie, hides in a barrel and knocks out 3 guys and then also the Captain by accident.  The Captain and Mate pay him, then Shanghai him as well and set sail.  Little do they know, Edna, Dad’s daughter has stowed away in a sack in the hold.  The men are beaten until they agree to work, Chaplin agrees without beating.  Now the gags begin, plenty of trying to eat on the rocking set, falling down, etc, and there is quite a motion-sickening primer for the avid student in this one!  There is also a tour de force involving the loading of the hold, and literally everyone on board except Charlie and an unseen crane operator end up in the water and smashed into the hold, alternately. Dad meanwhile has found the note about running away on the boat that Edna has left and is in hot pursuit in a motorboat.  The Captain and mate place a bomb and a keg of gunpowder in the hold (where Edna is hiding, and Charlie has found her) and they abandon ship.  Now we have an inserted closeup of a burning fuse! Charlie grabs the keg and tosses it overboard, where it blows up the two villains.  Dad saves Edna and Charlie, but tosses Charlie overboard, who swims under the boat, kicks DAD overboard, and Edna and Charlie speed away leaving him swimming.

Great ending, and it is always such a kick when Charlie gets the girl, because frequently he does not.  Chaplin always craved tragedy, like most comedians and comics, and he worked very fluently between comedy (both broad and carefully drawn) and tragedy (tragic irony, heartbreak, isolation, rejection), so you really never know which way he is going to go.  Add to that his known reputation for creative freedom and independence, and it makes for a real sense of tension  and suspense from picture to picture because, although it LOOKS old, it is NOT formula!  There are recurrent themes and gags, true, but not recurrent endings.  Some are sad, some are fun, and some are just absurd and abrupt.

A Night In The Show (1915) is taken directly from his “funny drunk” character and routine he traveled in the Fred Karno Music Hall Vaudeville Show.  The routine in that show was known as ” Mumming Birds”.  Here Chaplin plays TWO characters, one in the Orchestra level(Funny Drunk) seating and one in the balcony (Mr. Rowdy-and he IS).  The show they are watching is a variety show of different acts.  The main focus is on the funny drunk, so I shall refer to this character as Charlie, and Rowdy as Rowdy.

We start out with quite a bit of funny business involving seating.  Charlie is first in the absolute front row, then moved back a row, but rushes to the front again after an ugly shrew is seated next to him.  He then proceeds to get in fights with the conductor and a trombone player and toss a hot towel down the tuba bell before being dragged to another seat further back.  Mr. Rowdy several times almost goes over the rail, and generally heckles and amuses his lower class balcony companions.  The stuffed shirts and grand dames of the Orchestra floor cluck and laugh.  Charlie flirts from girl to girl, eventually ending up in side seating 2 seats from the stage.

An Arabian belly dance act so arouses Mr. Rowdy that he tries to rush the stage and is held by the crowd.  Charlie has to pluck a womans feather hat to see the stage, which is then occupied by a snake charmer act.  Charlie dozes off and ends up covered with snakes which drive the orchestra screaming from the pit.  Chaplin awakes and sweeps snakes off himself and into the tuba.  Next are a tall/short singing duo, Dot and Dash, who are so bad that they are pelted by Rowdy from the balcony with fruit, vegetables, and then ice cream, which is also splattered on the stuffed shirts below.  As Dot is driven off, Charlie mounts the stage drunkenly and with great preparation, blasts Dash in the face with it, finishing the act.

Lastly, Professor Nix the fireeater.  A groggy Mr. Rowdy sees the fire and grabs the firehose off the balcony wall and puts out Nix, the Set, the balcony crowd, the orchestra crowd, and finally Charlie.  END.

This picture is so much damn fun. I highly recommend it.

A Burlesque on Carmen (1915) is the beginning of the end for Charlie at Essanay.  This film would become a bitter wound in Charlie’s heart and possibly create him powerful enemies that will haunt him later.  Originally conceived to satirize De Mille’s “Carmen”, Charlie even brought in real Diva Geraldine Farrar to play Carmen.  Well, after Chaplin left Essanay, the company reinserted a LOT of footage, turning a two reel comedy by Chaplin into a FOUR REEL picture by Essanay!  Chaplin had a physical breakdown over the release and sued. Essanay also altered “Police”(1915), but The Image Entertainment DVD versions I own however, have been reconstructed as close to the Chaplin versions as possible, even using lawsuit court documents from the Chaplin Archives for guidance. KUDOS TO YOU IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT AND BLACKHAWK FILMS COLLECTION!!! BRAVO!!! It is this company who made the DVD’s of the Complete Essanay and Complete Mutual Films of Chaplin, and they are exquisite, the footage is time corrected (so it’s not all stupid and jerky looking), and has been lovingly reconstructed from elements brought together from all over the world.  Truly and excellent and dedicated piece of work, I thoroughly endorse the purchase of this set, it will make funny people funnier, and unfunny people laugh their asses off, Charlie is simply irresistible.

Charlie plays “Darn Hosiery. The New Officer” in command of literally a hole in a wall that lets people into a city in Spain.  The Gypsies depend on access for their smuggling and so Carmen offers to give them Charlie “trussed up in chains of love” after the Gypsy King fails to bribe him (and loses his money in the process!).  Also in the running for Carmen’s affections are Corporal Morales, and the Toreador.  Carmen first seduces Charlie (and here even kisses ON THE LIPS about 5 TIMES!!), then drives him mad with jealousy by cavorting with the toreador.  Carmen is then in a fight with another woman at the cigarette factory, which gets her arrested.  Charlie, in trying to free her, gets into a fight over her with Morales, who he kills!  Carmen escapes, telling Charlie she has just used him and basically “so long Sucker!”.  Charlie escapes as well and follows Carmen to the woods.  She tells him she is leaving for Seville with the Toreador, and does.  Heartbroken Charlie wanders the woods, then follows to Seville to have it out.  When he gets there, she again insists “no man owns Carmen.  She Must be FREE!” Charlie stabs first her, then himself, and dies on top of her, at the gates of the Gypsy King’s house.  The King opens the door to the bodies and … Charlie mule kicks him!  Then he and her get up, he pulls the dagger out of his shirt and then “stabs” her, showing it to be a simple disappearing prop blade.  They laugh heartily and we iris fade out! BRAVO!

Dance, musicality, a combination of tragedy and comedy, and a blend of the highbrow opera and lowbrow slapstick.  This is Chaplin’s MARK!

Police (1915) is Chaplin’s final piece for Essanay, his relations with them now soured, and a HUGE Mutual picture’s contract waiting for him at $10,000 a WEEK, Chaplin lets the horse’s out one more time, and makes some big gains in his development, adding at LEAST another coat of paint to the tramp character.  It is also a very interesting picture because in many ways it is a comedic remake of “His Regeneration” only done infinitely better!  This must have been plain and irksome to his boss, GM Anderson, who, as you remember, was the STAR of “His Regeneration”!  This film, as I said, was edited and generally screwed with by Essanay after Chaplin left.  They also were out of business by 1918!  AND GOOD RIDDANCE!

We begin with The Tramp being released from Prison.  He is met at the gate by a holy roller who starts selling him sentiment and sobs, which Charlie does, sob that is.  Charlie is bid well wishes on his reformation and Charlie exits.  First thing he comes upon is a drunk with a freely dangling watch up against a pole.  Charlie is tempted, even examines the watch, but no, stays straight.  Later the Holy Roller steals the watch!  After some initial travail, Charlie is held up at gunpoint in an alley by a robber who turns out to be a former cellmate.  The robber enlists Charlie to help him rob a girl’s house, but their plotting is seen by a mustached copper who follows, watching. When they get to the house, as Charlie is trying all manner of prying open the front window on the porch, the cop appears to bust them.  Charlie takes it all in stride, and has the cop hand him the mallet he immediately knocks him out with!  Turns out the door was unlocked all along!  They enter, but they are not very stealthy, knocking all manner of thing over.  The girl awakens and comes downstairs, but is undetected and calls the police, who very leisurely begin to respond to “Come Quick! – Burglars!”.  They basically act like slowmoving pompous self-important assholes.  Soon the girl is detected and scares Charlie half to death, not so the other robber, who quickly takes her in charge with his pistol.  But she turns the tables, insisting that she has a sick mother upstairs and begging them to be quiet and not bother her.  She will even make them a meal and some bottles of beer!  They go along, until the robber notices some nice rings and a necklace on the girl accompanied by a suspicious look on her face that makes him conclude that she is holding out on them.

This is EXTRA excitingly done, because here we have I believe the first POV subjective perception shot ever!  A mise-en-scene is created by a partially closed iris which then slowly proceeds from her hand up her body to her face, then a back and forth facial CU of the robber and the girl, then back to the master! AWESOME!!

After the meal, as the Police chug along towards them in their touring car, the robber demands to go upstairs. Edna struggles to stop him, but when he goes to punch her, Charlie intervenes, stopping him. This basically starts a fistfight between the robber and Charlie, with Edna fleeing. The cop knocked out on the porch during the initial breakin wakes, comes in, gets hit with the swag bag, and goes back to the porch to lie back down again, yelling for help and feigning unconciousness. The robber draws a pistol and makes a getaway out the kitchen window, shooting Charlie 3 times in the ass for his trouble. Charlie is blocked from escape through the window by a cop beneath, he knocks the cop out, but the 3 “gentlemen” officers catch him in the kitchen. As they take him away, Edna vouches for him – “He is my husband”. Now Charlie gets a cigar and a light from the cops before they leave. Edna gives him a dollar piece and sends him on his way, a free, reformed man. As he starts to walk down the street into the sunset, he makes like a crucified Christ and starts to walk. Suddenly the first cop appears before him. His arms drop and he quickly makes an exit to the screen right foreground, with the cop shaking his fist and advancing in the background. Iris fadeout on the cop, pissed off. END.

And this ends Charlie Chaplin’s career at the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. He is a fully developed filmmaker now. He has shot on beach, boat, car, park, house, bank, farm, and studio. He has been essentially his own master for a year now. Compared to his year (1914) at Sennett’s Keystone Studio’s, where he made 35 very similar films in one year. Here he has slowed to only 16, with a glut at the beginning and a slower pace with each successive picture. The Mutuals are about to happen, and Chaplin will become the biggest star in the world. Already at the end of 1915, Chaplin is more recognized and more widely known than any other human being on planet Earth. 1916 will make him immortal.

Elsewhere in the world, World War 1 gets deeper and deeper, as Serbia is invaded by 2 countries, and the Serbs begin retreating to Greece. In Armenia, the Turks are slaughtering Armenians as fast as they can (this is virtually uncommented on at the time – being an internal dispute) and this will come back to haunt us in 2007 as the US struggles with the self-inflicted moral suicide that is “the Iraq – uh, what are we calling it this week?”. The Lusitania is sunk in October, and in a field in England, a secret little contraption that will change the world is tested for the first time. To conceal it’s true nature as a weapon of war, it is given the innocuous label “Tank”.

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