Edgar English cons a journalist out of some money. He applies for a job at his newspaper. Whilst the journalist is helping a trapped motorist Edgar steals the camera with the picture of the accident and rushes back to the paper with it. He steals the headlines. A short pursuit with the police ensues.
Chaplin plays a spectator at a 'baby-cart race' in California. The spectator keeps getting in the way of the camera and interferes with the race, causing great frustration to the public and participants. The film was shot during the Junior Vanderbilt Cup, an actual race with Chaplin and his co-stars improvising gags in front of real-life spectators.
In a hotel lobby a heavily drunk Charlie runs into an elegant lady, Mabel, gets tied up in her dog's leash, and falls down. He later runs into her in the hotel corridor, locked out of her room. They run through various rooms. Mabel ends up in one of an elderly husband where she hides under the bed. Enters the jealous wife, soon attacking Mabel, her husband, and Mabel's lover, not to mention the staggeringly drunken Tramp.
The film was believed lost and Chaplin's appearance unknown until a vintage 16mm print was discovered by director / film historian Paul E. Gierucki in 2010 at a Michigan antique sale. Chaplin has a bit part as a policeman.
Chaplin and Sterling play two young men, Masher and Rival Masher, who fight over the chance to help a young woman (Clifton) cross a muddy street. Sterling first sees the woman trying to cross and offers her an umbrella he stole from a policeman, and asked her to wait for him as he goes to get something to help her. Then Chaplin comes along and offers the woman to help her cross as well and wait for his return. While Sterling and Chaplin go to get the logs, a policeman (Conklin) lifts the woman across the street. When Sterling returns with the log, he was indignant that the woman did not wait for him to come back to help her cross the muddy street, and demands the umbrella back. When the woman refused, they engage in a fight which eventually involves Chaplin.
Charlie gets drunk in the bar. He steps outside, meets a pretty woman, tries to flirt with her, only to retreat after the woman's father returns. Returning to the bar, Charlie drinks some more and engages in rogue behaviors with others. He finally leaves the bar, sees the woman leaving, follows the woman home, and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself, eventually getting kicked out of the house.
This early Chaplin film has him playing a character quite different from the Tramp for which he would become famous. He is a rich, upper-class gentleman whose romance is endangered when his girlfriend oversees him being embraced by a maid. Chaplin's romantic interest in this film, Minta Durfee, was the wife of fellow Keystone actor, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Charlie stays at a boarding-house, where he is the landlady's favorite. Her husband grows jealous when observing this. Their little son has a camera. He happens to take some photos of his mother and Charlie in situations which are innocent but look indecent. He also takes a photo of his father and a female boarding-guest in a similar situation. In the evening the boy arranges a slide show in the boarding-house. Suddenly also the equivocal photos of his parents appear on the screen. His jealous father gets furious and starts chasing Charlie. Soon all the boarding-guests are involved in the fight.
Charlie, competing with his rival's race car, offers Mabel a ride on his motorcycle but drops her in a puddle. He also kidnaps his rival before the race. But Mabel decides to take the wheels in his place, thus causing a threat to Charlie. As the race progresses, despite a very late start, Mabel manages to gain a lead of three laps. Charlie with his henchmen, tries to sabotage the race by using oil and bombs on the track. They seem to succeed for a while, but their dirty tricks were not enough to stop the high-spirited Mabel from winning the race.
Charlie is amidst a number of loving couples in the park. He parodies one couple by embracing a tree. A girl asks her beau for a love token. The beau steals a pocket watch from a sleeping man, Charlie gets it away from him and gives it to the girl. He later gets it back and tries to sell it to his original owner who calls a policeman. Many park visitors wind up getting tossed into the lake.
When a married couple become separated in the park, Charlie takes up with the lady and is beat up when her husband rejoins her. He takes a room in their hotel, and she sleepwalks into his room so that when her husband returns from his walk he must go out again to look for her. Charlie returns the lady to her room but must climb out onto the window ledge in a downpour.
Chaplin's only lost film.
A couple of tramps, down on their luck and hungry, decide to fake an exhibition boxing match for a promoter. Meanwhile, Pug, a good-hearted but boisterous fellow, takes on a gang of mashers who make unwanted advances to his girlfriend. Impressed by his abilities, the mashers decide to pass Pug off as Cyclone Flynn, the champion, and enter him in the boxing match. But the real Cyclone shows up, and he and Pug battle it out in the ring. Soon the fight progresses to include pistols, rooftop chases, and the Keystone Kops in hot pursuit.
Mabel tries to sell hot dogs at a car race, but isn't doing a very good job at it. She sets down the box of hot dogs and leaves them for a moment. Charlie finds them and gives them away to the hungry spectators at the track as Mabel frantically tries to find her lost box of hot dogs. Mabel finds out that Charlie has stolen them and sends the police after him. Chaos ensues.
Although only a dental assistant, Charlie pretends to be the dentist. After receiving too much anesthesia, a patient can't stop laughing, so Charlie knocks him out with a club. Charlie is then sent to the drug store by the dentist, gets in a fight with a man who receives a brick in the face, thus becoming another dental patient. He also pulls the skirt off of the dentist's wife while she is outside walking. At one point Charlie pulls the wrong tooth from an unfortunate patient, using over sized pliers.
Charlie is in charge of stage "props" and has trouble with actors' luggage and conflicts over who gets the star's dressing room. Small caricatures on the wall indicate both the stars and the head of what can only be Charlie Chaplin with the word "PROPS" below. Once the dressing-room issue is resolved the next issue is getting everyone on stage with the correct backdrop. The order of performance, all of which we see is: The "Goo-Goo Sisters", billed as comediennes; two young girls dancing "Garlico" and his Feets of Strength (sic); a strong-man aided by his beautiful assistant who gets knocked out just before she goes on stage, allowing Charlie to step in. "Sorrow" a drama performed by a man and woman. During the performances we see the audience reaction throughout, ranging from delight to booing. Backstage Charlie and an old man fight, often distrupting the on-stage performances. The audience also break into a fight, and a hose brought out behind the scenes ends up squirted over them.
A painter turned tramp (Charlie Chaplin), devastated by losing the woman he was courting as a wealthy man, finds himself drunk and getting drunker by the minute with some sailors at a bar until he's literally falling down. He keeps futilely trying to draw the woman's picture on the floor with a piece of chalk until he finally passes out cold (or perhaps dies, as in the poem) at the end of the film.
Charlie meets a couple and agrees to care for the man's crippled uncle. After the couple breaks up the man's new girl drops some eggs which Charlie slips on while trying to control the wheelchair. Charlie sets up the uncle near another wheelchair on a jetty, from which he lifts a beggar's cup and "invalid" sign. These he places with the uncle, and money begins to roll in. Charlie takes the money and buys himself a drink. Returning, he gets to know the abandoned young woman. After pushing the uncle and his chair into the drink and battling the beggar and two policemen (one of whom arrests the uncle), Charlie beats up his rival and gets the girl.
Two drunks live in the same hotel. One beats his wife, the other is beaten by his. They go off and get drunk together. They try to sleep in a restaurant using tables as beds and are thrown out. They lie down in a row boat which fills with water, drowning them (a fate apparently better than going home to their wives).
The hero, a janitor played by Chaplin, is fired from work for accidentally knocking his bucket of water out the window and onto his boss the chief banker (Tandy). Meanwhile, one of the junior managers (Dillon) is being threatened with exposure by his bookie for gambling debts unpaid. Thus the manager decides to steal from the company. He is caught in the act of raiding the vault by the bank secretary (Carruthers) who rings the downstairs for help. Chaplin comes to the rescue only to be misjudged by the Chief Banker as the thief. The Secretary fingers the manager and Charlie receives a just reward and a handshake for foiling the robbery.
Charlie and a rival vie for the favors of their landlady. In the park they each fall different girls, though Charlie's has a male friend already. Charlie considers suicide, is talked out of it by a policeman, and later throws his girl's friend into the lake. Frightened, the girls go off to a movie. Charlie shows up there and flirts with them. Later both rivals substitute themselves for the girls and attack the unwitting Charlie. In an audience-wide fight, Charlie is tossed from the screen.
Charlie and his friend Ambrose meet in a restaurant and accidentally leave with each other's coats. Charlie was going to pick up a baby bottle and Ambrose was going to mail a love letter that was in his coat pocket. Charlie's wife finds the letter and thinks he has a secret lover and Ambrose's wife believes he has an illegitimate child. Controversy arises in the park between Charlie and his wife and Ambrose and his wife. It is resolved at the end, but Charlie sparks another fight between the other couple by showing his friend's wife the love letter that was in his pocket.
Charlie talks wealthy farmer's daughter Tillie into eloping with him (and taking her father's money). In the city Tillie gets drunk and lands in jail while Charlie runs off with her money and his old girlfriend Mabel. Later Charlie reads that Tillie (now working as a waitress) has inherited the estate of her multi-millionaire uncle. Charlie dumps Mabel and talks Tillie into moving into her uncle's villa, and Mabel arranges to become a housemaid there. The uncle (never really dead) returns and summons the police to have them all thrown out.
Set in the stone age, King Low-Brow rules the land and a harem of wives. When Charlie arrives in this land (where every man has one thousand wives), he falls in love with the King's favorite wife. When the King falls over a cliff, he is presumed dead and Charlie crowns himself King. The King, however, is not dead and comes back and bashes Charlie over the head with a rock. It turns out it was a dream and a police man bashed Charlie over the head with his club because he was sleeping in the park.
When one of the actors on a movie set doesn't show up, Charlie gets his chance to be on camera and replaces the actor. While waiting, he plays in a dice game and gets on many people's nerves. When he finally gets to act, he ruins his scene, accidentally destroys the set, and tears the skirt of the star of the movie.
Charlie and Ben pay a visit to a pub, then decide to visit a swanky restaurant. Now intoxicated, they come into conflict with a French dandy and his ladyfriend. The large head waiter violently ejects Ben, and later ejects Charlie also. The pair pay another visit to a pub, then make their way to their hotel. They become interested in a pretty young woman staying in the room across the hall, but when Charlie spies on her through the keyhole a bellboy makes him stop. Charlie is taken aback to realize that the young woman's husband is the head waiter from the restaurant. He promptly checks out and moves to another hotel. Meanwhile, the head waiter and his wife, dissatisfied with the service, also decide to move to another hotel-- and, unfortunately, choose the same one Charlie has chosen, and once more wind up in the room across the hall from him. When the young woman's dog runs into Charlie's room she follows in her pajamas. Her husband returns to find his wife with Charlie in an apparently compromising position.
Walking along with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner "who can take a beating." After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love.
A tramp steals a girl's handbag, but when he tries to pick Charlie's pocket loses his cigarettes and matches. He rescues a hot dog man from a thug, but takes a few with his walking stick. When the thief tries to take some of Charlie's sausages, Charlie gets the handbag. The handbag makes its way from person to person to its owner, who is angry with her boyfriend who didn't protect her in the first place. The boyfriend decides to throw himself in the lake in despair, so Charlie helps him out.
The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) finds the girl of his dreams and works on a family farm. He helps defend the farm against criminals, and all seems well, until he discovers the girl of his dreams already has a boyfriend. Unwilling to be a problem in their lives, he takes to the road, though he is seen skipping and swinging his cane as if happy to be back on the road where he knows he belongs.
A rough criminal gets into an argument over a girl in a dance hall. The argument turns into a fight, and the criminal is shot. As everyone else looks on, a young woman comes to his aid, and it turns out that he is not seriously wounded. He still remembers the woman who helped him when, later, he is committing a burglary and gets a surprise that will change his life.
Charlie and his boss have difficulties just getting to the house they are going to wallpaper. The householder is angry because he can't get breakfast and his wife is screaming at the maid as they arrive. The kitchen gas stove explodes, and Charlie offers to fix it. The wife's secret lover arrives and is passed off as the workers' supervisor, but the husband doesn't buy this and fires shots. The stove explodes violently, destroying the house.
Mother, Father and Daughter go to the park. The women dose off on a bench while the father plays a hide-and-seek game with a girl, blindfolded. Charlie leads him into a lake. Both dozing ladies on the bench fall for Charlie and invite him for dinner. The father returns home with a friend. Charlie rushes upstairs and dresses like a woman, shaving his moustache. Both men fall for Charlie.
Charlie does everything but an efficient job as janitor. Edna buys her fiance, the cashier, a birthday present. Charlie thinks "To Charles with Love" is for him. He presents her a rose which she throws in the garbage. Depressed, Charlie dreams of a bank robbery and his heroic role in saving he manager and Edna ... but it is only a dream.
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Charlie (Charlie Chaplin) takes a job as a janitor in the home of Colonel Nutt (unidentified actor), a munitions manufacturer. As the butler (unidentified actor) introduces Charlie to the ill-tempered cook (Billy Armstrong), Colonel Nutt demonstrates his new wireless explosive device to his daughter (unidentified actress). Meanwhile, agents of the Pretzelstrass meet with the Count (Leo White) to devise a plan to get at Colonel Nutt's device. Charlie carelessly dumps garbage all over the maid (Edna Purviance) and her newly clean floor. He takes the trash can and dumps it over the fence, inundating the Count in the process. Back in the kitchen, the maid scolds Charlie, but then becomes emotional, and he comforts her. The Count enters the house, and is hit by a wet rag thrown by the maid, intended for Charlie. The Count tosses it off to the side, and it winds up hitting the cook also, and when the cook begins to act cruelly towards the maid in return, Charlie sticks up for her. The Count makes his way to the Colonel, who rejects his offers and has the Count ejected by way of the butler. His day's work done, Charlie makes his way to a flophouse for a night's sleep. At this point, a pickpocket (also Billy Armstrong) holds up the Count, but instead of taking his money he agrees to join the caper to liberate Dr. Nutt of his invention. The conversation is overheard by a cop, who then runs off to inform his fellow officers; they are in an abandoned lot, shooting craps. They storm the Nutt house, and highly disrupt its resident, but explain to him that they "are on the trail of a great robbery." Back at the flophouse, Charlie is prevented from settling down by a loud, singing drunk (James T. Kelley) whom he eventually—and somewhat affectionately—dispatches with a champagne bottle. A thief (Bud Jamison) steals in during the night and robs the singing drunk, and although Charlie takes what he thinks are adequate precautions, he is robbed also. Charlie disguises himself unde
After causing havoc on the sales floor Charlie goes to the office floor. There he runs into the store inspector (who looks exactly like him) who has just robbed the safe and knocked out the manager. Charlie thinks he is in front of a mirror till he notices he holds a stock and his "image" the bag of loot.
Charlie is a fireman who always does everything wrong. A man talks the Fire Chief into ignoring his burning home (he wants the insurance money) unaware that his daughter (the love of the Chief) is upstairs in the house. When the house next door catches fire its owner rouses Charlie who rouses the force.
After passing the hat and taking the donations intended for German street musicians Charlie heads for the country. Here he finds and rescues a girl from a band of gypsies. The girl falls in love with an artist whose portrait is later seen in a shop by the girl's real mother. The mother and the artist arrive in a chauffeured auto and offer Charlie money for his services, money which he rejects.
Charlie burns a count's trousers while ironing them and is fired. The tailor finds an invitation to dinner at Miss Moneybags and goes in place of the count. Charlie goes to the kitchen of the same house; he is attracted to the cook, and so are the butler and a policeman. Once discovered by the tailor-count, Charlie must pretend to be the count's secretary. The real count shows up.
Three movies are being shot simultaneously and Charlie is an overworked scene shifter. The foreman is waited on hand and foot until all the shifters but Charlie go on strike. A girl looking for work pretends to be a man and helps Charlie. Charlie discovers her gender and falls in love with her. The foreman thinks they are homosexual and in the ensuing fight they become involved in a long pie throwing scene from one of the movies in production. The frustrated workers dynamite the studio.
After amusements working in a restaurant, Charlie uses his lunch break to go roller skating. Mr. Stout makes advances toward the unwilling Edna (whose father and Mrs. Stout had earlier carried on in the restaurant). After a roller skate ballet, Charlie (now as Sir Cecil Seltzer) is invited to a party at Edna's. All the "couples", including a new partner for Mr. Stout, show up.
When Charlie the Tramp wanders into a mission he is smitten by Edna and puts back the collection box which he has taken. Reformed, he becomes a policeman and is assigned to rough-and-tumble Easy Street. Unable to trick or beat Eric the Tough, he puts Eric's head in a gas pipe and anesthetizes him. A hero, he now helps many poor people living on Easy Street. Eric escapes jail, Edna is kidnapped, but Charlie (recharged after sitting on a doper's needle) conquers all. Easy Street is transformed as is Eric.
Charlie goes to a spa to dry out, but he takes a trunk of liquor with him. He tangles with another's gouty foot in a revolving door. Later he thinks the gouty man is making love signs to him (he doesn't Edna, the real object of the man's efforts), so he signs back. He interpets a massage to be a wrestling match. When management throws his liquor into the fountain, when flow the healthful waters, everyone gets drunk.
Charlie is on his way to the USA. He wins in a card game, puts the money in Edna's bag (she and her sick mother have been robbed of everything). When he retrieves a little for himself he is accused of being a thief. Edna clears his name. Later, broke, Charlie finds a coin and goes into a restaurant. There he finds Edna, whose mother has died, and asks her to join him. When he reaches for the coin to pay for their meals it is missing (it has fallen through a hole in his pocket).
Charlie has escaped from Sing-Sing. He burrows up through sand on the beach and is chased by several guards. Nearby Edna's mother is drowning and her 'strong man' beau is afraid to rescue her. Charlie rescues Edna, then (unwillingly) her mother, and is then nearly drowned by her suitor. Found by the family chauffeur, Charlie is brought to Edna's house to recover. There he romps through drinks, encounters with Edna and her friend, and the law.
Poor Charlie lives in a vacant lot. He tries to get a job but when he gets to the head of the employment line the jobs are gone. Back "home" he rescues Scraps, a bitch being attacked by other strays. Together they manage to steal some sausages from a lunch wagon. They enter a dance hall where Edna is a singer and unwilling companion to the clientele. He is thrown out when he can't pay. Back "home" Scraps digs up a money-filled wallet buried by crooks. They return to the dance hall to find Edna fired. The wallet goes back and forth between Charlie and the crooks. Charlie, Edna and Scraps end up very happily.
The Bond is a propaganda film created by Charlie Chaplin at his own expense for the Liberty Loan Committee for theatrical release to help sell U.S. Liberty Bonds during World War I. Made in 1918 with Edna Purviance, Albert Austin and Sydney Chaplin, the film has a distinctive visual motif set in a simple plain black set with starkly lit simple props and arrangements. The story is a series of sketches humorously illustrating various bonds like the bond of friendship and of marriage and, most important, the Liberty Bond, to K.O. the Kaiser which Charlie does literally.
Charlie is in boot camp in the "awkward squad." Once in France he gets no letters from home. He finally gets a package containing limburger cheese which requires a gas mask and which he throws over into the German trench. He goes "over the top" and captures thirteen Germans ("I surrounded them"), then volunteers to wander through the German lines disguised as a tree trunk. With the help of a French girl he captures the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and is given a statue and victory parade in New York and then ... fellow soldiers wake him from his dream.
Professor Bosco, a poor flea trainer, rents a bed in a flophouse. Before going to bed, he rallies his troops and once he has made sure his beloved fleas are settled for the night, the professor prepares to sleep the sleep of the just man. Unfortunately he accidentally knocks the box off his bed and the fleas have the time of their lives pestering Bosco's neighbors. To get the escapees back in their box again, the trainer resorts to... his whip! All is back to normal one more time. But not for long, as a stray dog enters the flophouse and very unwisely opens the box, thus creating new havoc.
An unwed woman (Edna Purviance) leaves a charity hospital carrying her newborn son. An artist (Carl Miller), the apparent father, is shown with the woman's photograph. When it falls into the fireplace, he first picks it up, then throws it back in to burn up. The woman decides to leave her child in the back seat of an expensive automobile with a handwritten note imploring the finder to care for and love the baby. However, the car is stolen. When the two thieves discover the child, they leave him on the street. The Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) finds the baby. Unwilling at first to take on the responsibility, he eventually softens and names the boy John. Five years pass, and the child becomes the Tramp's partner in minor crime, throwing stones to break windows that the Tramp can then repair. Meanwhile, the woman becomes a wealthy star. She does charity work among the poor to fill the void of her missing child. By chance, mother and child meet, but do not recognize each other. When the boy becomes sick, a doctor comes to see him. He discovers that the Tramp is not the boy's father. The Tramp shows him the note left by the mother, but the doctor merely takes it and notifies the authorities. Two men come to take the boy to an orphanage, but after a fight and a chase, the Tramp regains his boy. When the woman comes back to see how the boy is doing, the doctor tells her what has happened, then shows her the note, which she recognizes. The fugitives spend the night in a flophouse, but the manager (an uncredited Henry Bergman), having read of the $1000 reward offered for the child, takes him to the police station to be united with his ecstatic mother. When the Tramp wakes up, he searches frantically for the missing boy, then returns to doze beside the now-locked doorway to their humble home. In his sleep, he enters "Dreamland," with angels in residence and devilish interlopers. He is awakened by a policeman, who places the Tramp in a car and rides with him to a house. W
The "Little Tramp" (Charlie Chaplin) heads to a resort for warm weather and a bit of golf. At the golf course, the Tramp's theft of balls in play causes one golfer (Mack Swain) to mistakenly attack another (John Rand). Meanwhile, a neglected wife (Edna Purviance) leaves her wealthy husband (also played by Chaplin) until he gives up drinking. When the Tramp is later mistaken for a pickpocket, he crashes a masquerade ball to escape from a policeman. There, he is mistaken for the woman's husband. Eventually, it is all straightened out, and the Tramp is once more on his way.
There is no real plot in this little short, who was made only as a wedding present for Lord and Lady Mountbatten. The main plot line is that Lady Mountbatten has a valuable pearl necklace, which a very large number of crooks wants to steal. Charlie Chaplin, even though he is wearing his tramp costume, is called to hunt the crooks, which he does with a wooden hammer, which appears suddenly in his hand. Then the unconscious crooks are all lined up on the lawn, close to Jackie Coogan, who was, at the beginning of the film, hidden there under a blanket, for no apparent reason whatsoever!!
Chaplin plays a laborer on a house construction site. When he gets paid, his wife wants all of the money, but he manages to keep enough of it to go out drinking. He returns home just in time to pretend he has just woken up to go to work.
Chaplin plays an escaped convict who steals a minister's clothes to get out of his prison uniform. He ends up in a small town mistaken for a parson, and accepts a position at the local church. The Pilgrim's true identity is revealed when he tries to get a fellow crook to return money the crook stole from the Pilgrim's landlady. But rather than incarcerate the Pilgrim, the sheriff releases him at the Mexican border.
Marie St. Clair believes she has been jilted by her artist fiance Jean when he fails to meet her at the railway station. She goes off to Paris alone. A year later, mistress of wealthy Pierre Revel, she meets Jean again. Misinterpreting events she bounces back and forth between apparent security and true love. Also misinterpreting, Jean commits suicide.
A home movie version of the Dumas play: a young woman becomes a courtesan and tragedy befalls her.
Charlie's Tramp character finds himself at a circus where he is promptly gets chased around by the police who think he is a pickpocket. Running into the bigtop, he is an accidental sensation with his hilarious efforts to elude the police. The ringmaster/owner immediately hires him, but discovers the Tramp cannot be funny on purpose, so he takes advantage of the situation by making the Tramp a janitor just happens to always in the Bigtop at showtime. Unaware of this exploitation, the Tramp falls for the owner's lovely acrobatic daughter, who is abused by her father. His chances seem good, until a dashing rival comes in and Charlies feels he has to compete with him.
Charmingly simple story of The Little Tramp who meets a lovely blind girl selling flowers on the sidewalk who mistakes him for a wealthy duke. When he learns that an operation may restore her sight, he sets off to earn the money she needs to have the surgery. In a series of comedy adventures that only Chaplin could pull off, he eventually succeeds, even though his efforts land him in jail. While he is there, the girl has the operation and afterwards yearns to meet her benefactor. The tear-inducing closing scene, in which she discovers that he is not a wealthy duke but only The Little Tramp, is one of the highest moments in movies.
Chaplins last 'silent' film, filled with sound effects, was made when everyone else was making talkies. Charlie turns against modern society, the machine age, (The use of sound in films ?) and progress. Firstly we see him frantically trying to keep up with a production line, tightening bolts. He is selected for an experiment with an automatic feeding machine, but various mishaps leads his boss to believe he has gone mad, and Charlie is sent to a mental hospital... When he gets out, he is mistaken for a communist while waving a red flag, sent to jail, foils a jailbreak, and is let out again. We follow Charlie through many more escapades before the film is out.
Twenty years after the end of WWI in which the nation of Tomainia was on the losing side, Adenoid Hynkel has risen to power as the ruthless dictator of the country. He believes in a pure Aryan state, and the decimation of the Jews. This situation is unknown to a simple Jewish-Tomainian barber who has since been hospitalized the result of a WWI battle. Upon his release, the barber, who had been suffering from memory loss about the war, is shown the new persecuted life of the Jews by many living in the Jewish ghetto, including a washerwoman named Hannah, with whom he begins a relationship. The barber is ultimately spared such persecution by Commander Schultz, who he saved in that WWI battle. The lives of all Jews in Tomainia are eventually spared with a policy shift by Hynkel himself, who is doing so for ulterior motives. But those motives include a want for world domination, starting with the invasion of neighboring Osterlich, which may be threatened by Benzino Napaloni, the dictator of neighboring Bacteria. Ultimately Schultz, who has turned traitor against Hynkel's regime, and the barber, may be able to join forces to take control of the situation, they using Schultz's inside knowledge of the workings of the regime and the barber's uncanny resemblance to one of those in power.
Due to a revolution in his country, King Shahdov comes to New York - almost broke. To get some money he goes to TV, making commercials and meets the child from communist parents. Due to this he is suddenly a suspected as a communist himself and has to face one of McCarthy's hearings.
Natascha, a White Russian countess, stows away on a luxury liner at Hong Kong, determined to seek a new life in America. Natascha hides in the cabin of Ogden Mears, a millionaire diplomat, thereby causing an endless stream of misunderstandings and complications; particularly when his wife, Martha, joins the trip at Honolulu, necessitating a 'marriage' to Ogden's valet, Hudson, a saronged-dive overboard and more subterfuge on the part of Ogdon and his associate, Harvey.
Sequences that Chaplin filmed, and mostly discarded, from many of his features are shown, including a lengthy one from 'The Professor (1923)', which was never released.
British re-release of this film with commentary by Peter Sellers)
1948 British re-release with the voice of Tommy Handley
circa 1920. A one-reel version of the second Essanay short, A Night Out, incorporating alternate takes and footage of Chaplin conducting a band at Mer Island
A look back at Charlie Chaplin's early life and career, from his rough childhood and music hall success in England to his early Hollywood days and the development of his enormously popular "Little Tramp" character.
1942 re-issue version, prepared by Chaplin himself, which uses his own narration, music score, and editing (running time: 72 minutes). This version is the only one which has its copyright owned by the Chaplin Film company. Many scenes of the 1942 version derived from an alternate camera that was shooting simultaneously. This explains some of the very slight differences in camera angle, although Chaplin also deleted some footage in order to tighten the pacing (such as Big Jim and the Tramp's near-encounter in the Gold Rush town and the shot of a woman comforting another woman during the singing of "Auld Lang Syne".)
Video essay, written and narrated by author and broadcaster Glenn Mitchell, examining Charlie Chaplin's tenure at Essanay Studios.
An animated Charlie Chaplin must find a white elephant for the girl he loves. He resorts to trickery, but is foiled by Fatty.