![]() My health is better than it ever was and I am getting fatter. Sid, we will be millionaires before long. I have my own valet, some class to me, eh what? I am still saving my money and since I have been hear I have 4000 dollars in one bank, 1200 in another, 1500 in London not so bad for 25 and still going strong thank God. I stay at the best Club in the city where all the millionaires belong, in fact I have a good, sane, wholesome time. I have made a heap of good friends hear and go to all the parties etc. It is a beautiful country and the fresh air is doing me the world of good. It is wonderful how popular I am in such a short time and next year I hope to make a bunch of dough. All the managers tell me I have 50 letters a week from men and women from all parts of the world. I tell you in this country I am a big box office attraction. ![]() All the theatres feature my name in big letters i.e. Letter from Charlie Chaplin to brother, Sydney. Here’s the letter, from August 9th 1914, five days after the outbreak of European war. Sennett gasped – ‘Why, that’s more than I earn myself!’ Chaplin reminded him that it was not for his name that the public lined up outside cinemas. Chaplin had announced he would require $1000 a week. It was written after a meeting with Mack Sennett to discuss his contract. ![]() In David Robinson’s definitive biography, you can read one of Chaplin’s rare letters from this period. And talking of The Great Dictator, his exact contemporary, Adolf Hitler, served throughout all four years unscathed. We would never have seen The Kid, The Gold Rush, City Lights or Modern Times. The name “Chaplin’ would have been merely a footnote in film history. Had he done so, the chances of his surviving would have been slight. But Chaplin was a British subject and it was the duty of British subjects in time of war to return immediately to the colours. One of countless Chaplin cartoons in the press during World War I.īy August 1914, Chaplin had already made two dozen short comedies for Mack Sennett’s Keystone studios and was experiencing his first rush of popularity. It mighter been Charlie.’Įven today, when deference has disappeared, this seems almost sacrilegious. ‘It was a dreadful thing for us when Lord Kitchener died.’ (Kitchener was the British military leader at the start on WWI)Ĭivilian: ‘I dunno. It showed a soldier talking to a civilian: Nothing illustrates it better than a newspaper cartoon headed HORRIBLE POSSIBILITY from 1919. It is hard today to believe the scale of Chaplin’s popularity during World War I. It has nothing to do with the war it shows off Chaplin’s studio, set among the bucolic charm of old Hollywood, and it conveys the personalities of the two men as they impersonate each other. A rough-cut and a great many outtakes exist but there is no evidence that it was ever finished. For some reason, the film was never used for the purpose for which it was intended. Lauder was a celebrated music hall comedian in Britain, who had lost his son at the front in 1916. Kevin Brownlow has kindly agreed for us to publish it here so others may benefit from his research for presentations of their own.Ĭhaplin & Harry Lauder at Chaplin Studios, 1918Įarly in 1918, Chaplin made a short film for Harry Lauder’s Million Pound Fund For Maimed Men, Scottish Soldiers and Sailors. This presentation was written for a public show in Bologna during one of the Cinema Ritrovato festivals. His three-part documentary The Unknown Chaplin is a must. He received an Academy Honorary Award in 2010, the first time an Academy Honorary Award was given to a film preservationist. His initiative in interviewing many largely forgotten, elderly film pioneers in the 1960s and 1970s preserved a legacy of early mass-entertainment cinema. Brownlow has rescued many silent films and their history. This interest grew into a career spent documenting and restoring film. British film historian, television documentary-maker, filmmaker, and author, Kevin Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era, having become interested in silent film at the age of eleven.
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