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Biographical Books

My Autobiography - Charlie Chaplin

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As a child Charlie was awed and inspired by the sight of glamourous vaudeville stars passing his home, and from then on he never lost his ambition to become an actor. Chaplin’s film career as the Little Tramp adored by the whole world is the stuff of legend, but this frank autobiography shows another side. He tells of his childhood of grinding poverty in the south London slums and early debut on the musical hall stage, his lucky break in America, the struggle to maintain artisitic control over his work, the string of failed marriages, and his eventual exile from Hollywood after persecution for his left-wing politics and personal scandals. «My Autobiography» is an evocative and compelling account of one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable lives.

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His Life and Art - David Robinson

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The greatest icon in the history of cinema, Charlie Chaplin lived one of the most dramatic rags to riches stories ever told. His life was marked by extraordinary contrasts: the child of London slums who became a multimillionaire; the on-screen clown who was a driven perfectionist behind the cameras; the adulated star who publicly fell from grace after personal and political scandal. This engrossing and definitive work, the only biography written with full access to Chaplin’s archives, tells the whole story of a brilliant, complex man.

Now fully updated with added pictures and an extended filmography, it includes revelatory new material on Chaplin’s marriages, his affair with movie star Louise Brooks, his persecution by the FBI during anti-communist witch hunts — exposing their role in the ’white slavery’ case against him — and the significance of Richard Attenborough’s film Chaplin.

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Charlie Chaplin: Footlights with The World of Limelight - Charlie Chaplin & D. Robinson

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Long before becoming one of the masterpieces of Charlie Chaplin’s artistic maturity, and even before existing as a screenplay, Limelight was conceived by its author as a 34,000-word novella. After remaining virtually unknown for more than 60 years after its completion, Footlights is now published by Cineteca di Bologna in this volume for the very first time. Chaplin’s vivid, idiosyncratic style, unadulterated by editors, moves freely from the baldly colloquial to moments of rich imagery and Dickensian description. For a setting, he looked back to London and the music halls of his first professional years, an enchanted period in which he had broken out of the deprivations of his childhood to discover, progressively, his unique gifts as entertainer and communicator. But this retrospect also recalled the painful insecurity of an uneducated, uncultured boy launched into the world of success.

David Robinson, Chaplin’s most eminent biographer, traces the long yet logical... read more

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Charles Chaplin. The Freak. La storia di un film incompiuto - David Robinson, Cecilia Cenciarelli, Charlie Chaplin

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This book is not just the first-ever publication of an unknown Chaplin film script, but the comprehensive presentation of an unfinished film – one of Charles Chaplin’s most remarkable works, and his last. Chaplin had the idea for THE FREAK in 1968-9 when he was close to 80, and was inspired to produce the script in a much shorter time and with more confidence than any preceding screenplay. Once the script was complete, Chaplin and his producer Jerry Epstein saw the urgency, given Chaplin’s age, of getting the film into active production as soon as possible. Hence, even while still seeking funding, Chaplin at his own cost engaged designers to present his visual concepts and to produce storyboards, and explored the elaborate (pre-CGI) special effects techniques the story demanded. In particular, Chaplin, Epstein and the studio special-effects department spent much time and money in producing the prototype of the big... read more

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A Comedian Sees the World - Charlie Chaplin

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Re-issue of Charlie Chaplin’s “A Comedian Sees the World” with annotations and hyper-textual enhancements by Lisa Stein

A Legion d’honneur medal, “hate” mail from King George, a photo of a tanned and smiling Chaplin posing with Mahatma Ghandi and entourage, a pith helmet, an idea for a new “topless” male swimsuit, and evidence of a foiled assassination plot. These assorted souvenirs only begin to tell the story of Charlie Chaplin’s second world tour, conducted in 1931-2 a tour from which he returned a changed man, changed by the people he met, the places he visited and the ramifications of the Great Depression he witnessed. “A Comedian Sees the World” was Chaplin’s memoir of this tour, originally published in five installments in a popular American periodical known as The Woman’s Home Companion from September 1933 to January 1934. It was never available to Chaplin’s large world audience outside of the United... read more

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Chaplin Stage by Stage - A.J. Marriot

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Did Charlie Chaplin play on a theatre stage in your UK or US home town? This book lists the details of almost every single appearance Chaplin made during his years with, for example, the Eight Lancashire Lads, Casey’s Court, William Gillette and Fred Karno’s Company of Comedians, from child actor to adult. A.J. Marriot establishes just where, when, and with whom, Chaplin spent his time on the stage, before becoming a film star – he has found over 550 confirmed appearances between 1899 and 1913 in England, Scotland, Wales, Jersey, Guernsey, Northern Ireland, Eire, Paris, Canada and the USA.

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Charlie Chaplin's Red Letter Days: At Work with the Comic Genius - Dan Kamin and David James

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Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days is a newly discovered eyewitness account that reveals what was going on behind the scenes in Chaplin’s fun factory as he was creating the hilarious comedies that rocketed him to worldwide fame. Written by Fred Goodwins, one of the actors in the company, the breezy narrative originally appeared in 1916 as a series of thirty-seven articles in the British magazine Red Letter. Its republication marks a major find for cinema buffs and anyone who has ever been touched by Chaplin’s artistry. Dan Kamin, who trained Robert Downey, Jr. for his Oscar-nominated performance in Chaplin and created Johnny Depp’s physical comedy routines in Benny and Joon, annotated the book to highlight its many revelations about Chaplin and the familiar faces that populate his films. The shadow of World War One looms over every page, as Chaplin, a British subject, was being slammed by the British tabloid... read more

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Charlie Chaplin: Interviews - Kevin J. Hayes

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In late 1914, Charlie Chaplin’s name first began appearing on marquees. By the end of the following year, moviegoers couldn’t get enough of him and his iconic persona, the Little Tramp. Perpetually outfitted with baggy pants, a limp cane, and a dusty bowler hat, the character became so beloved that Chaplin was mobbed by fans, journalists, and critics at every turn.

Although he never particularly liked giving interviews, he accepted the demands of his stardom, giving detailed responses about his methods of making movies. He quickly progressed from making two-reel shorts to feature-length masterpieces such as The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Modern Times.

Charlie Chaplin: Interviews offers a complex portrait of perhaps the world’s greatest cinematic comedian and a man who is considered to be one of the most influential screen artists in movie history. The interviews he granted, performances in and of themselves, are often... read more

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Chaplin: A Life - Stephen Weissman

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Born in London in 1889, Charlie Chaplin grew up in dire poverty. Both his parents were in show business, but severe alcoholism cut short his father’s flourishing career, and his beloved mother first lost her voice, then lost her mind to syphilis. Charlie at age seven was committed to the Hanwell School for Orphans and Destitute Children. How then did this poor, lonely child become such an extraordinary comedian, known and celebrated worldwide? Chaplin cut his teeth in British music halls, but it was America that made him. At age twenty-five, he was touring here with a vaudeville troupe when his talents caught the eye of entertainment entrepreneur Mack Sennett, who spirited him off to California and signed him to a film contract. Chaplin became Sennett’s star comedian, and by twenty-eight the actor had become a millionaire and the world’s greatest celebrity. Weissman traces Chaplin’s life and the sources of... read more

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Syd Chaplin: A Biography - Lisa Stein

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This is the first study of the life and art of Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s brother, a person notable not only for his importance in establishing his brother’s career, but in several other early Hollywood enterprises, including the founding of United Artists and the Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation, America’s first domestic airline. Sydney also had a successful film career, beginning in 1914 with Keystone and culminating with a string of popular films for Warner Bros. in the 1920s. Sydney’s film career ended in 1929 because of an assault charge by an actress. This incident proved to be only the last in a string of scandals, each causing him to move to another place, another studio, or another business venture.

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Chaplin's Music Hall: The Chaplins and their Circle in the Limelight - Barry Anthony

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Charlie Chaplin grew up in and around the music hall. His parents, aunt, and their friends all earned their precarious livings on the stage and Chaplin himself started his career as a member of the Eight Lancashire Lads dance troupe. His experiences of the culture of the music hall were a significant influence, shaping his style of acting and the films he made.

Chaplin’s family and the circle of fellow performers whose life stories are told in this book were appearing at a time when music hall was in a state of transition, changing from an entertainment still reminiscent of its tavern-based origins to a complex, highly-financed industry seeking legitimacy with a far wider public. As venues grew larger, performers struggled to make connections with an increasingly remote audience.

This book tells the stories of Chaplin’s family and their music-hall circle – from “dashing” Eva Lester to the great Fred... read more

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Chaplin And Agee: The Untold Story Of The Tramp, The Writer, And The Lost Screenplay - John Wranovics

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“Chaplin and Agee” charts the friendship between James Agee, author of “Let us now Praise Pamous men” and the pulitzer prize - winning “A Death in the Family” and screenwriter for classic american films, including the “African Queen”, and Charles Chaplin, who starred in nearly a hundred films from 1914 - 1967. This friendship emerged in the midst of the tumult of the 40’s and 50’s, with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Mac Carthysm , and blacklisting.

In print here for the first time is Agee’s amazing screenplay, “The Tramp’s New World”, lost until recently. The striking screenplay - a comedy “so dark it was without precedent” - was written in 1947 for Chaplin’s little tramp character and set in a post apocalyptic New York City. Chaplin and Agee also features many previously unpublished letters, and photographs. As the story moves between Hollywood and Greenwich Village - this... read more

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Charlie Chaplin: A Political Biography from Victorian Britain to Modern America - Richard Carr

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Richard Carr’s book places politics at the centre of the filmmaker’s life as it looks beyond Chaplin’s role as a comedic figure to his constant political engagement both on and off the screen. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources from across the globe, Carr provides an in-depth examination of Chaplin’s life as he made his way from Lambeth to Los Angeles. From his experiences in the workhouse to his controversial romantic relationships and his connections with some of the leading political figures of his day, this book sheds new light on Chaplin’s private life and introduces him as a key social commentator of the time. Whether interested in Hollywood and Hitler or communism and celebrity, this books is essential reading for all students of twentieth-century history.

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Charlie Chaplin: A Brief Life - Peter Ackroyd

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He was the very first icon of the silver screen and is one of the most recognizable of Hollywood faces, even a hundred years after his first film. But what of the man behind the moustache? Peter Ackroyd’s new biography turns the spotlight on Chaplin’s life as well as his work, from his humble theatrical beginnings in music halls to winning an honorary Academy Award. Everything is here, from the glamor of his golden age to the murky scandals of the 1940s and eventual exile to Switzerland. There are charming anecdotes along the way: playing the violin in a New York hotel room to mask the sound of Stan Laurel frying pork chops and long Hollywood lunches with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This masterful brief biography offers fresh revelations about one of the most familiar faces of the last century and brings the Little Tramp vividly to life.

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The Sound of Charlie Chaplin -

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Take a new look at Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) through the music he composed for his films. Chaplin began his silent-film career in 1914, and with the invention of his character the Little Tramp, he became a screen icon. When sound was introduced in 1927, Chaplin—a self-taught musician—not only wrote scores for his new films, but also composed soundtracks for earlier works, and deftly created comic sound by interweaving sound effects and music.Though he worked with what he termed “musical associates” who helped with notation and orchestration, all his scores sound recognizably “Chaplinesque” and some of his tunes are classics: “Smile” and “Eternally” have been covered by musicians worldwide. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Paris Philharmonic, this new book is fully illustrated with photographs, documents, and ephemera from the Chaplin archives.

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Chaplin at Essanay - James L. Neibaur

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When Charlie Chaplin left Keystone Studios for more money and greater creative control at Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, he added more depth to his character, more thought to his direction, and more substance to his humor: at Essanay, he grew from a comedian to a true cinematic artist. This work carefully examines all sixteen Chaplin comedies produced at Essanay—from His New Job (1915) to Triple Trouble (1918)—showing the artist in transition from the knockabout Keystone farces to more refined, sometimes brilliant Mutual productions.

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The Stars of History: Charlie Chaplin - Bernard Swysen

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Graphic novel - In creating The Little Tramp, Charlie Chaplin became a legend. Who remembers now that he was English, that he came up from nothing, that he made his fortune in the United States, that he had to flee the country under pressure from McCarthyism, or that he created the very first production house run by artists? Full of humor, the “Stars of History” collection offers a fresh new look at the legends of cinema.

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Charlie Chaplin: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works - John W. Fawell

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Charlie Chaplin was a skilled comedian, filmmaker and composer, and the mission of this book is to educate readers on the wide variety of Chaplin’s artistry: the subtlety of his mimetic satire, the sophistication of his film direction, and his prodigious musical skill that resulted in some of film’s greatest orchestral arrangements. This encyclopedia also emphasizes the singular nature of Chaplin’s biography: his unprecedented renown, the wide list of notables in art and culture with whom he fraternized, and the controversies that seemed to dog each stage of his life, perhaps most notably in his run-ins with the FBI and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, both of whom suspected him of communist leanings.

Charlie Chaplin: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works captures his life, and legacy. It features a chronology, an introduction that offers a brief account of his life, and a dictionary section listing entries on Chaplin’s... read more

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The Early Years of Charlie Chaplin - Lisa Stein Haven

Medium the early years of charlie chaplin

Charlie Chaplin’s career has been described, critiqued, and scrutinized. There are book-length studies on Chaplin’s music hall career, his career at Keystone Studios and the Mutual Studios. Somehow, his tenure with First National, however, has been largely neglected, even though it was during this several-year contractual time period that Chaplin built and occupied his own studio for the first time, that he attempted and succeeded in filming a comedy feature (The Kid) and that he helped to set up United Artists, an organization that protected the salaries and creative freedom of actors in Hollywood. This period in Chaplin’s story is especially interesting because such landmark moments are accompanied by Chaplin’s first marriage and divorce, the death of his first child, his friendship with French silent film comedian Max Linder , World War I and the role he would play in it, and the production and release of several unsuccessful films... read more

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Charlie Chaplin vs. America : When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided - Scott Eyman

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Eyman takes a close look at the political turmoil and events that led to Chaplin’s exile out of his adopted country. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin lost the American public’s sympathy. He was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold. Eyman also discusses the intimate details of Chaplin’s life, many of which made front page news and scandalized the American public. He delves into the Joan Barry affair in detail, as well as the roles that Hedda Hopper, J. Edgar Hoover and several others played during this time. Research included the Chaplin Archive, the Library of Congress, the Nixon Library and many other sources.

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Dawn Addams - My Life As Chaplin's Leading Lady - Filming Charles Chaplin's A King In New York - James Pepper

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Dawn Addams - My Life As Chaplin’s Leading Lady is a cleverly compiled book by journalist and author James Pepper which includes John Francis Lane’s interview with Addams while A King is New York was still in post-production and original writing by Charles Chaplin from the same period, giving his thoughts and definitions of comedy and tragedy. The chosen extracts are from a rare draft typescript preserved in the Chaplin Archives.

Printed in a limited edition, this little gem of a book is illustrated with black and white photographs from the Chaplin Archives and can be ordered at www.jamespepperbooks.com

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Illustrated Books


The Charlie Chaplin Archives - Paul Duncan

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From Alaska to Zimbabwe, the bowler hat, cane, baggy trousers and outsized shoes of the Tramp is still the most recognized silhouette in the world, more than 100 years after Charlie Chaplin first created him. With The Charlie Chaplin Archives, TASCHEN presents the ultimate book on the making of Chaplin’s films, using the vast resources of the Chaplin archives.

Within a year of arriving in Hollywood in 1914, British-born Chaplin, playing the Tramp, had become the slapstick king of America. By the end of his second year on the silver screen, Chaplin’s fame had spread worldwide. He was the first international film star and, with a million dollar contract, became one of the richest men in the world. With his own studio and his stock company of close collaborators, Chaplin began making his greatest movies: The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931)... read more

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Charlie Chaplin: The Keystone Album: The Invention of the Tramp - Glenn Mitchell

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Charlie Chaplin: The Keystone Album brings together 794 images-technically photograms, printed directly from film frames-from 29 of Charlie Chaplin’s first 36 short films made with the Keystone Film Company in 1914. The strips trace the evolution of Chaplin’s iconic Tramp character as the actor developed his trademark gestures in his short films, before eventually immortalizing the character in the 1915 feature The Tramp. These images were found in a curious document, dubbed “The Keystone Album,” laid out almost like a comic book, with handwritten captions giving the titles of the films and their reconstituted scenarios. It was confirmed in 2014 that H.D. Waley, a former artistic director of the British Film Institute, compiled the extraordinary album in the 1940s in order to keep a record of the original versions of Chaplin’s first films, which were being restored at the time. This beautiful Japanese-bound volume reproduces The Keystone Album in... read more

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Genius of the Cinema - Jeffrey Vance

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Noted film historian and silent comedy authority, Jeffrey Vance draws on exhaustive research and interviews with those who knew Chaplin to produce this definitive illustrated account describing in lively detail the atmosphere on Chaplin’s film sets and his relationships with the cast and crew, his first attempts at comedy sequences that later became famous, the development of his scenarios and characters, and the main themes and ideas that persist through the major Chaplin films.

Composed with full access to the Chaplin Family archives. Coincides with the DVD release of Chaplin’s Classic film through MK2 and Warner Home video.

Introduction by David Robinson
With an interview by Richard Meryman

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Silent Traces - John Bengtson

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Edited by John Bengtson
Published by Santa Monica Press

Uncovering tidbits of the history of Los Angeles and the early film industry that are hidden within Charlie Chaplin’s timeless films, this stunning work of cinematic archeology combines Chaplin’s movie images with archival photographs, vintage maps, contemporary photographs, and scores of then-and-now comparison photographs to conjure up the silent-movie era from an entirely new perspective. Through his research of the locations used in such classic Chaplin films as The Kid, City Lights and Modern Times as well as Chaplin’s lesser known but equally brilliant short films and early work, the author illuminates both Chaplin’s genius and the evolving city that served as the backdrop of his art. Part time machine, part detective story, this title presents a truly unique look at Chaplin’s work, and a captivating glimpse into Hollywood’s most romantic era.

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A Photo Diary - Michel Comte

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Several years ago Michel Comte discovered that the Chaplin office held an extensive photo archive, consisting of thousands of glass negatives, negatives and photographic prints.

Chaplin’s life and work was documented with passionate enthusiasm: private photographs taken by his friends, his family and his children had been collected and kept, as well as officals photographs made during shootings and work in Hollywood Studios. Many of this photographs have never been published. From this tremendous find Michel Comte has put together a sensitive album wich shows a hitherto unknown Charlie Chaplin. He has concentrated on Chaplin’s trips round the world, “snapshots” with artist colleagues and visiting dignitaries, with relatives, his children and grand children. This exceptionnal book begins in the 1909, and follows Chaplin’s life step by step, presenting an artist who “acted” throughout his life, and who was also “in the limelight” in his private life too.

Edited by Steidl

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Taschen Icons: Chaplin - David Robinson, Paul Duncan

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“Charles Chaplin’s Little Tramp is the supreme icon of motion pictures—still recognized and loved throughout the world, more than 90 years since he first burst on the screen. The shabby little figure - with derby hat, too-tight jacket, oversized boots and pants, dandified bow tie, and swagger cane - seemed to symbolize the hopes and fears, defeats and optimism of all humanity. Chaplin’s own biography was a rags-to-riches story that saw the product of a destitute childhood in Victorian London become one of Hollywood’s first millionaires and the owner of his own studio before he was 30. His supreme gift was to transform his experience and knowledge of the human lot into comedy, for which his invention and skill have never been surpassed. […]”

  • Edited by TASCHEN
  • Editor: Duncan, Paul
  • Text: Robinson, David
  • Photos: Roy Export Company Establishment
  • Flexicover, 14 x 19.5 cm (5.5 x 7.7 in.), 192 pages Icon

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Charlie Chaplin Movie Posters - Israel Perry

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The idea to publish a book on the posters advertising the movies of Charlie Chaplin, the artist we loved to watch in our childhood and our admiration towards him grew as we learned to understand his art of acting, came to our mind a few years ago. However it took seven years and great effort to assemble such a collection of original posters of Chaplin’s greatest movies under one roof.

In this book for the first time, the astonishing career of Charlie Chaplin is viewed through the posters used to advertise his movies. These posters were created by artists who tried and quite succesfully to convey to the mass, the story of the movie and the character played by Chaplin …

By Israel Perry and Jean Louis Capitaine
Book in English & French

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Essays

The Search for Charlie Chaplin - Kevin Brownlow

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Account of how Kevin Brownlow and David Gill found the incredible outtakes that enabled them to put together their unparallelled three-part documentary series UNKNOWN CHAPLIN, and of the other adventures they had during the making of the documentary film.

The book comes with a DVD of UNKNOWN CHAPLIN

Volume in English and Italian, 2005
Published under the direction of the Cineteca di Bologna

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Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp in America, 1947-77 - Lisa Stein Haven

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This book focuses on the re-invigoration of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp persona in America from the point at which Chaplin reached the acme of his disfavor in the States, promoted by the media, through his departure from America forever in 1952, and ending with his death in Switzerland in 1977. By considering factions of America as diverse as 8mm film collectors, Beat poets and writers and readers of Chaplin biographies, this cultural study determines conclusively that Chaplin’s Little Tramp never died, but in fact experienced a resurgence, which began slowly even before 1950 and was wholly in effect by 1965 and then confirmed by 1972, the year in which Chaplin returned to the United States for the final time, to receive accolades in both New York and Los Angeles, where he received an Oscar for a lifetime of achievement in film.

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Le Manoir de Ban - Birth of a Paradise - Pierre Smolik

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Bilingual edition in French-English published by Call Me Edouard - Why couldn’t there be oases in time as well as in space? Above Vevey, a little town snuggled up on the Lake Geneva shore, a plateau rises amid vineyards. Farmers and lords occupied it before a colonial-style house was built there around 1840. That residence was successively home to a prominent citizen from St. Gallen and his family, an unmarried man of private means, a master watchmaker, an industrialist and playwright, an American diplomat, and the greatest film-maker of all time: Charlie Chaplin. All of them were captivated by the magic of the property looking out on one of the world’s most beautiful panoramas. On the site of this unique belvedere, they discovered an earthly paradise. From this point on, it is up to the reader, through these pages, to roam every nook and corner of the place, to discover... read more

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The Gold Rush (BFI Film Classics) - Matthew Solomon

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One of the biggest hits of the silent era, The Gold Rush (1925) was famously described by Charlie Chaplin – the star, writer and director of the film – as ‘the picture I want to be remembered by’. Enjoying popular and critical success not once but twice, the film was given a new lease of life with sound in 1942 after Chaplin added his own narration and music.

Matthew Solomon provides an in-depth discussion of the film’s genesis within the Northern genre, its production and reception history, and its subsequent canonisation. Considering both unauthorised and authorised versions of the film, he places them in the context of the turn-of-the-century Alaska Klondike Gold Rush and analyses their narrative and formal features. In tracing the
stories of these multiple versions, Solomon shows how The Gold Rush problematises commonly accepted ideas about the singularity, authenticity and originality of an individual film.</div>


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Chaplin’s Limelight and the Music Hall Tradition - Hooman Mehran (Editor), Dan Kamin (Associate Editor) Frank Scheide (Editor)

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“Charles Spencer Chaplin was a stage performer before he was a filmmaker, and it was in English music hall that he learned the rudiments of his art. The last film he made in the United States, “Limelight”:/en/articles/7 was a tribute to the music hall days of his youth. As a parallel to Chaplin’s past, the film was set in 1914, the year he left the stage for a Hollywood career.

This collection of essays examines “Limelight”:/en/articles/7 and the history of English music hall. Featuring contributions from the world’s top Chaplin and music hall historians, as well as previously unpublished interviews with collaborators who worked on “Limelight”:/en/articles/7 the book offers new insight into one of Chaplin’s most important pictures and the British form of entertainment that inspired it. Essays consider how and why Chaplin made “Limelight”:/en/articles/7 other artists who came out of English music hall, and the film’s international appeal, among... read more

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Chaplin: The Dictator and the Tramp - David Robinson, Eric James, & more

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The Dictator and the Tramp is a collection of essays about Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) written by some of the world’s leading authorities on chaplin and early film comedy. The primary focus of the volume is Chaplin’s 1940 film satire on Nazi Germany, “The Great Dictator”. This film has recently attracted intense interest during its wide international theatrical and DVD re-release. “The Great Dictator” is also the subject of a remarkable documentary, The Tramp and the Dictator, by the distinguished historian and film maker Kevin Brownlow, who serves as adviser to this publication, and has made available research material and interviews gathered in the course of the production.

Other advisers and contributors are David Robinson, Chaplin’s principal biographer as well as the first Research Foundation, Eric James, Chaplin’s long-time music associate, Glenn Mitchell, author of the Chaplin Encyclopaedia, Bonnie McCourt, Dan Kamin and Bo Berglund.

The essays have been assembled and... read more

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Chaplin and American Culture - Charles J. Maland

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Title : Chaplin and American Culture
Author : Charles J. Maland
PublicationDate : 1991-02-01
Publisher : Princeton University Press
NumberOfPages : 464

Charles Maland focuses on the cultural sources of the on-and-off, love-hate affair between Chaplin and the American public that was perhaps the stormiest in American stardom.


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The Freak - Chaplin's Last Film - Pierre Smolik

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What would The Freak, Chaplin’s last film, have been like if it had been made? Pierre Smolik guides us through the process of preparing this project to which the “master of masters”, as Renoir called him, devoted his last years, and whose beauty lies in its incompletion. Chaplin left the film nearly ready for shooting, since everything is there: script, preparatory notes, development, music, drawings and even some filmed rehearsals that constitute the last production by this giant of the cinema.

These heretofore unpublished documents pull the reader into a universe that blends aspects of the fantastic tale, dreams, poetry, myth and tragedy—a universe where humour is not left out: “Offering an egg to a bird—how very tactless!”

It was during a meal in the 1960s that Chaplin told his family the story of a strange creature—a bird woman who falls, injured, onto the roof of a professor-writer’s house in... read more

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Chaplin Facing History - Christian Delage

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This book shows how in the “Great Dictator” Chaplin exposes his personal world to the pressure of world events. Chaplin’s “real history” was not just the one he was facing up to, but also the one he himself was recounting by combining the characters of the Tramp and the jewish barber in the image of the “pariah”. The analysis presented here is articulated through historical archives, photographs, poetry and fiction. It attempts to recapture the spirit of one of Jorge Luis Borges last books, Atlas, which he presented as being “neither a series of texts illustrated with photos nor a series of photographs explained by epigraphs. Each title encapsulates a whole, made up of image and words.” This “whole” comes to light in the movement that goes from exploration of the archives to the works of ordering and interpretation. Why not build this experience of editing and researching into the... read more

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The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion - Dan Kamin

Medium the comedy of charlie chaplin by dan kamin

This excursion into the enchanted comic world of Charlie Chaplin will appeal not just to Chaplin fans but to anyone who loves comedy. Dan Kamin brings a unique insider’s perspective to the subject. An internationally acclaimed comic performing artist himself, he trained Robert Downey, Jr. for his Oscar-nominated portrayal in Chaplin, and created Johnny Depp’s physical comedy scenes in Benny and Joon. The Comedy of Charlie Chaplin: Artistry in Motion reveals the inner workings of Chaplin’s mesmerizing art as never before. Kamin illuminates the comedian’s incredibly sophisticated visual comedy in disarmingly direct prose, providing new insights into how Chaplin achieved his legendary rapport with audiences and demonstrating why comedy created nearly a century ago remains fresh today. He then presents provocative new interpretations of each of the comedian’s sound films, showing how Chaplin remained true to his silent comedy roots even as he kept reinventing his art for... read more

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Silent Comedy - Paul Merton

Medium pau merton book

“The tiresomely idiotic debate on Keaton versus Chaplin is, in my experience, overwhelmingly used by proponents of Buster to attempt to rubbish Charlie…” It’s an appealing mind-set for some people, who say: “We’ve all heard that Charlie Chaplin was meant to be the greatest comedian in the world, but my preference for Buster keaton demonstrates my ability to think for myself. Chaplin was overly sentimental, but Keaton’s coolness and cynical eye chime exactly with our Modern Times.

Well, the good news is that they are both fantastic. There’s no need to choose between them. Enjoy them both ! That’s one of the main aims in my book. I shall examine the films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster keaton, not in isolation, as has been the usual practice, but showing how they influenced each other in a creative rivalry that also featured Harold Lloyd (the man hanging off the clock). This... read more

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Modern Times - Tempi Moderni - Christian Delage, Cecilia Cenciarelli

Medium modern times bologne book

The book traces back the history of Modern Times from its planning stage to its distribution, through the analysis of more than a hundred pages from the Chaplin archive, here published for the very first time. The book starts off investigating the impact that the cultural and historical climate of the 20s and 30s (from the beginning of the Depression to the New Deal) had on intellectuals, writers, filmmakers.

A second part is devoted both to Chaplin’s ‘iconography of the machine age’ and the analysis of his stylistic development with the use of sound effects and eventually sound. Particular attention is also given to one of Chaplin’s best orchestral score, to issues such as censorship, changing distribution strategies, the film’s reception and revenues, press reviews. The book also includes a selection of more than a hundred photographs.

Documents and essays compiled by Christian Delage with the collaboration of Cecilia Cenciarelli.

... read more

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The Great Dictator - Il grande dittatore - Anna Fiaccarini, Cecilia Cenciarelli and Michela Zegna

Medium great dictator bologna book

“I was beginning to have the impression that I’d been swept away by a political avalanche,” wrote Chaplin in his autobiography. “I began to wonder why: to what point was I stimulated by the actor within me and by the reactions of a flesh and blood audience? Would I have thrown myself into this quixotic adventure if I hadn’t made an anti-Nazi film? Was it the sublimation of all my furies and all my dislike of sound pictures? I imagine that all these elements had a part in it, but the strongest was still my hate and contempt for the Fascist regime”.

This book, created by the Cineteca di Bologna, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna and by Le Mani in co-operation with BIM distribuzione, starts off the series of “Quaderni” for the Chaplin Project.

The book contains a selection of original documents reconstructing the preparatory phases from the first... read more

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Limelight - Documents and essays - Anna Fiaccarini, Peter von Bagh, Cecilia Cenciarelli, Roberto Benigni

Medium limelight   luci 4982dfab2be17

The original archive material, only available to a few film historians up to now, published and reproduced for the first time in a series of monographic volumes.

The critical comments by film critics and historians of the unpublished papers, allow us to trace the crucial stages around the origins of the films, their creation, the unused versions, the censorship and distribution issues.

“That little man we see is the same one who, minutes before, wanted to kill all women in the world. It’s really him. And now he’s doing all he can, and he despairs, hoping that one of them may come back to life. Limelight” is powerful, geometric, troubled and deceitful, in which beauty, like sun upon mirrors, goes glittering away. There is Buster Keaton. A sphinx-like appearence just a few seconds long, wherefore the heart almost loses itself in fear. Together. As if Michelango, when sculpting his David... read more

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The Tramp's Odyssey - Simon Louvish

Medium louvish book

An Everyman who expressed the defiant spirit of freedom, Charlie Chaplin was first lauded and later reviled by the audience that made him Hollywood’s richest man. He was a figure of multiple paradoxes, and Chaplin looks afresh at this classic comedian and his most recognizable character: The Tramp. Louvish charts the tale of the Tramp himself through his films—from the early Mack Sennett shorts through the major features (The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator) and weighs the relationship between the Tramp, his creator, and his worldwide fans. Chaplin is an epic journey, summing up the roots of Comedy and its appeal to audiences everywhere, who revelled in Chaplin’s raw energy, his ceaseless struggle against adver sity, and his capacity to represent our own fears, foibles, dreams, inner demons and hopes.

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Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance: Paul Robeson, Charlie Chaplin, Isadora Duncan - Colin Chambers

Medium 51mp7ss13wl

Title : Here We Stand: Politics, Performers and Performance: Paul Robeson, Charlie Chaplin, Isadora Duncan
Author : Colin Chambers
PublicationDate : 2007-04-01
Publisher : Nick Hern Books
NumberOfPages : 256

Paul Robeson, Isadora Duncan, and Charlie Chaplin: three famous performers who all suffered personally and professionally for their political stand. Here We Stand looks at their very different careers and how their artistic work was affected by their determined stand for what they believed was right, from Robeson’s outspoken criticism of racism, to Duncan’s Soviet sympathies and Chaplin’s antiwar stance, which led to his expulsion from the United States.


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The Charlie Chaplin Walk - Stephen P Smith

Medium chaplinwalkinlondon

The Charlie Chaplin Walk is targeted at fans of Chaplin, those interested in film history, people with a connection to the Lambeth and Kennington areas of London, and anybody with an interest of the social history of London’s poor of the late Victorian and early Edwardian era. Explore the London streets of Charlie Chaplin’s childhood in a chronological tour that can be taken on foot or from the comfort of an armchair. This book concentrates on the story of Chaplin’s formative years and takes a fresh look at the influence they had upon his films.

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Chaplin Aujourd’hui - Joël Magny, Noël Simsolo

Medium 51gd5yobipl

Alors que le cinéma de Charlie Chaplin est plus que jamais présent dans l’actualité du cinéma contemporain, cet ouvrage collectif des « cahiers du cinéma » se propose de remonter du mythe au créateur, du personnage de Charlot au cinéaste Chaplin. Chaplin fut en effet le premier « auteur » reconnu de l’histoire et la bibliographie Chaplinesque représente une somme considérable. Mais les milliers d’articles et la centaine d’ouvrages qui s’intéressent à lui, se sont attachés à la description d’une vie devenue légendaire et du personnage mythique derrière lequel s’abritait le créateur. Du cinéaste, jusqu’à une période récente, il fut trop rarement question ( Louis Delluc, André Bazin, Francis Bordat) c’est à sa recherche que s’attache le présent volume.

Organisé autour de 4 axes, l’ouvrage propose autant de manière d’approcher le réalisateur: l’homme Chaplin dans ses rapports conflictuels avec L’Amérique comme dans ses relations avec sa création, la constitution puis... read more

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Mort de Charlot - Albert Cohen

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Ces textes, d’Albert Cohen, ont été publiés dans les années 20 dans la Nouvelle Revue Française et dans la Revue Juive. Ils marquent l’entrée en littérature du jeune Albert Cohen, remarqué et admiré par Jacques Rivière, directeur et animateur de la Nouvelle Revue Française puis, quelques temps après par Max Jacob, André Spire, et Albert Einstein.

Depuis lors, ces textes n’avaient jamais été réédités.

On y retrouve la langue, le style, et l’humour de l’auteur de Belle du Seigneur et de Mangeclous.

Ils témoignent par ailleurs, selon Christel Peyrefitte “ que la totalité des thèmes qui seront ultérieurement développés jusqu’à l’obsession est déjà présente “.

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The Art of Charlie Chaplin - Kyp Harness

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This thorough critical study of Chaplin’s films traces his acting career chronologically, from his initial appearance in 1914’s Making a Living to his final starring role in 1957’s A King in New York. Emphasizing Chaplin’s technique and the steady evolution of his Tramp character, the author frames the biographical details of Chaplin’s life within the context of his acting and filmmaking career, giving special attention to the films Chaplin directed/produced.

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The Essence of Chaplin - John Fawell

Medium 51q 3flssvl. sx348 bo1 204 203 200

Charlie Chaplin’s remarkable life and comedic talent have been the focus of countless popular and scholarly studies. In this groundbreaking work, Chaplin’s often underrated skills as a film director take center stage. Highlighting the screen icon’s significance as a filmmaker, this study focuses on the heart of Chaplin’s cinema—his silent works starring his alter-ego, Charlie—and examines both his great silent film features like The Kid, The Gold Rush and Modern Times, and his shorter, earlier films like The Immigrant, The Pawn Shop, The Pilgrim and A Dog’s Life. An analysis of the formal properties of Chaplin’s filmmaking reveals the merit of his cinema, the depth of its emotion and the extent of its meaning. Chaplin is among the great artists of any medium, in any time, with an ability to touch on very subtle aspects of the human condition.

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Chaplin in the Sound Era - Eric L. Flom

Medium 978 0 7864 4052 8

Charles Chaplin’s sound films have often been overlooked by historians, despite the fact that in these films the essential character of Chaplin more overtly asserted itself in his screen images than in his earlier silent work.

Each of Chaplin’s seven sound films—City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)—is covered in a chapter-length essay here. The comedian’s inspiration for the film is given, along with a narrative that describes the film and offers details on behind-the-scenes activities. There is also a full discussion of the movie’s themes and contemporary critical reaction to it.

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Chaplin’s War Trilogy - Wes D. Gehring

Medium 51lvony wvl. sx348 bo1 204 203 200

The book examines Charlie Chaplin’s evolving perspective on dark comedy in his three war films, Shoulder Arms (1918), The Great Dictator (1940), and Monsieur Verdoux (1947). In the first he uses the genre in a groundbreaking manner but yet for a pro-war cause. In Dictator dark comedy is applied in an antiwar way. In Monsieur Verdoux Chaplin embraces the genre as an individual in defense against a society out to destroy him. All three are pivotal films in the development of the genre in film, with the latter two movies being very controversial for their time.

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Charlie Chaplin and A Woman of Paris - Wes D. Gehring

Medium 51pfoz405ol

Charlie Chaplin’s A Woman of Paris (1923) was a groundbreaking film which was neither a simple recycling of Peggy Hopkins Joyce’s story, nor quickly forgotten. Through heavily-documented “period research,” this book lands several bombshells, including Paris is deeply rooted in Chaplin’s previous films and his relationship with Edna Purviance, Paris was not rejected by heartland America, Chaplin did “romantic research” (especially with Pola Negri), and Paris’ many ongoing influences have never been fully appreciated. These are just a few of the mistakes about Paris.

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Le Dictateur de Charlie Chaplin - Jean-Pierre Esquenazi

In French: 15 octobre 1940. L’Europe est en guerre et les États-Unis affichent leur volonté de rester en dehors du conflit. Charlie Chaplin lance alors sa bombe : Le Dictateur. S’appuyant sur une peinture à la fois burlesque et terrifiante du nazisme et de son incarnation, Adolf Hitler, le film en est une dénonciation explicite, au moment même où les troupes allemandes envahissent l’Europe. Un tour de force rendu possible par l’indépendance artistique et financière de Chaplin, qui lui a permis de ne pas plier malgré les pressions. C’est à travers l’analyse de scènes clés et des partis pris cinématographiques de Chaplin, l’étude des personnages et de leur évolution, ainsi que par l’examen des différents niveaux de discours que l’auteur répond à la question essentielle et toujours vive : comment, en tant qu’artiste, dénonce-t-on une situation intolérable ? Comment réalise-t-on un film politique, notamment dans un contexte brûlant ?

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Charlie Chaplin and the Nazis - Norbert Aping

Medium 978 1 4766 8740 7

Until recently, it was assumed that the Nazis agitated against Chaplin from 1931 to 1933, and then again from 1938, when his plan to make The Great Dictator became public. This book demonstrates that Nazi agitation against Chaplin was in fact a constant from 1926 through the Third Reich. When The Gold Rush was released in the Weimar Republic in 1926, the Nazis began to fight Chaplin, whom they alleged to be Jewish, and attempted to expose him as an intellectual property thief whose fame had faded. In early 1935, the film The Gold Rush was explicitly banned from German theaters.

In 1936, the NSDAP Main Archives opened its own file on Chaplin, and the same year, he became entangled in the machinery of Nazi press control. German diplomats were active on a variety of international levels to create a mood against The Great Dictator. The Nazis’ dehumanizing attacks continued... read more

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Children Books

Chaplin, The Funniest Man in the World - Sid Fleischman

Medium 51puvexj ql

Age Range: 8 - 12 years
Grade Level: 4 and up

See him? That little tramp twitching a postage stamp of a mustache, politely lifting his bowler hat, and leaning on a bamboo cane with the confidence of a gentleman? A slapstick comedian, he blazed forth as the brightest movie star in the Hollywood heavens.

Everyone knew Charlie—Charlie Chaplin. When he was five years old he was pulled onstage for the first time, and he didn’t step off again for almost three-quarters of a century. Escaping the London slums of his tragic childhood, he took Hollywood like a conquistador with a Cockney accent. With his gift for pantomime in films that had not yet acquired vocal cords, he was soon rubbing elbows with royalty and dining on gold plates in his own Beverly Hills mansion. He was the most famous man on earth—and he was regarded as the funniest.

Still... read more

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Charlot - Clémence Simon

Medium 008724131

French children’s book: Charlot est un des plus célèbres personnages du cinéma muet, et du cinéma tout court. Un “Doc art, 7e art” pour découvrir son histoire, ses principaux films et ce qui a fait son universalité. (Collection « Mes docs ART », une collection d’art pour les plus jeunes, dès 5 ans.)

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Miscellaneous



Les drôles d'histoires de Charlot - Ségar

Medium les droles d histoires de charlot

Re-publication of vintage comic books: French translations of Elzie Crisler Segar’s Chaplin comic strips. Segar would go on to create Popeye over a decade after drawing his Chaplin comics. (Réédition parue en 2019)

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Charlot au régiment - Mat

Medium charlot au regiment

Re-publication of vintage French Charlot comic books: Charlot au régiment. (Réédition parue en 2017)

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