Tag Archives: Charlie Chaplin

1950, 1980, 1989, 2005, 2016, Comedy

Bill Irwin, The Actor All The Actors Know

February 23, 2017 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

Every once in a very long time an actor comes around that is so good at what he/she does that they make it look like anyone can do it. They make it look easy. Effortless. Add-to-that, an unassuming and quiet demeanor and you get an actor that feels like he’s a part of the scenery. Like, he comes naturally with the set design, that he just becomes fused in that world. Meaning, you forget that he’s an actor. You take for granted that he’s really the characters he plays and that he is integrated into the story as a permanent fixture. I’m not so sure this is coming across as intended…

Regardless, one of these such actors, would undeniably be the phenomenal, Mr. Bill Irwin. He first came across my radar in the live action version of Popeye in 1980. He is a very gifted physical comedian, albeit, 50 years too late. He really has the same physical gifts that made Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and those early comedians so good. You can see it in Popeye right away. In fact, he reminded me most of Stan Laurel.

He has an extensive background in theatre and still does a lot of theatre work regularly, but he also can be seen on TV and in the movies every year, even though you may not know him by name. In 1989, was nominated for four Tony Awards for “Largely New York“: as author of a Best Play nominee, Best Actor (Play), Best Director (Play) and, with collaborator Kimi Okada, Best Choreographer. In 1999, his show “Fool Moon” won a Special Tony Award for Live Theatrical Presentation. Won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, for his performance as George in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” opposite Kathleen Turner.

In TV and Film, he’s starred in some great projects over the years, including: My Blue Heaven, Hot Shots!, Northern Exposure, 3rd Rock From The Sun, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Elmo’s World, Lady in the Water, Sesame Street, The Good Wife, CSI, Blue Bloods, Sleepy Hollow, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and most recently on FX’s new show, Legion. Can’t recommend him enough, he’s brilliant. He can often be found as his clown alter ego, Bagatelles, along with partner David Shriner. Check out some of these videos on You Tube. It’s no surprise that he graduated from Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus’s Clown College and eventually was inducted in the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1999.

1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, Stunts

Best Stunts of the Year List 1930-1939

December 6, 2015 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

The best movie stunts for the decade listed for 1930-1939 as talked about in the book 100 Years of the Best Movie Stunts:

1930: Canyon Hawks

Yakima Canutt shows off his guts in this one with a buckboard ride with horses straight down the side of a hill. Crazy, but I bet it was a whole lot scarier in person.

1931: The Phantom

The prison break at the beginning of this movie is just fantastic and ends with a really great train to plane transfer. The frustrating aspect is that back then they didn’t record who the stunt man was or who the stunt pilot was. Many stunts in the movies were uncredited during this time of studio filmmaking.

1932: Air Mail

John Ford directed two films on this list during this decade, this film and Stagecoach. He was a supporter of good stunts and usually filmed them himself. Paul Mantz does some nifty flying in this picture, specifically he flies a Stearman plane through an airplane hanger.

1933: The Fighter and the Lady

Before they fought for the actual title fight for the Heavyweight belt, they fought in this feature film. Max Baer and Primo Carnera mix it up on screen here, and Max later said he beat Primo in the real fight by studying his moves for the movie.

1934: Murder in the Clouds

This decade is ripe with plane stunts and this film has them in droves. This one has some fancy aerial tricks and the stunt photographers should get just as much credit for these fantastic shots as the stunt pilots themselves.

1935: The Crusades

Cecil B. DeMille is famous for his grand epics, and this film started that process for him. It has stuntmen and actors fighting in full armor for a huge war on several fronts.

1936: Modern Times

Charlie Chaplin was a very talented skater, and shows off his chops in this movie in a nifty little bit of tension added to the fact that he was doing it right next to a missing railing. The danger was not real, but the skating sure is. He’s also got a few nifty bits with a great big machine and a little one attached to the front of his chest. Fun Stuff.

1937: Wells Fargo

Ray Bunten and Richard Farnsworth, along with a slew of other uncredited stuntmen did a lot of work on this film. It has a lot of cowboys falling off horses, wagons, rocks and just about anything that moves. The scene at the end where the Wells Fargo wagon fights Indians have at least two dozens stunts in a ten minute period.

1938: The Adventures of Robin Hood

Howard Hill was a world class Archer. It’s him doing all the fancy bow and arrow stuff in this movie. A nod also goes out to all the stuntmen that lined up to be shot in the chest by Howard!

1939: Stagecoach

This one is a classic in the stunt world. Yakima Canutt has a great stunt that he was perfecting in several movies at this time. This one actually shows the first half of the stunt and was perfected in Zorro’s Fighting Legion the same year. The nod goes to Stagecoach because it was first but really should be co-presented with the later picture.

To learn more about these films, please read about them and the great trivia behind the scenes in our book, 100 Years of the Best Movie Stunts!

1936, Stunts

Charlie Chaplin and Modern Times

November 30, 2015 Donovan Montierth Leave a comment

This one is mentioned here because of the sheer physicality of the role of the tramp in this film. With the machine scene and the skating, what he performs here is utterly amazing. This type of stuff would not be done with a live person today as he did it then, but with CGI.

Charlie Chaplin had taken to the roller skates before in 1916’s The Rink, but his crowning moment on the little wheels came in this classic. He and Paulette Goddard don the skates in the fourth floor toy room of a department store and he glides around ever-so-gracefully, blindfolded, right next to a precipice, while gorgeous gamin’ Goddard stumbles around trying to warn him. It’s classic. And still hair-raising! The effect, however, was created using a matte, so there was actually no huge drop and no risk to the actor. His blindfold, meanwhile, was a see-through mesh. But he did all the skating himself — devoting a whopping eight days to the short scene.

Modern Times was directed by Charlie Chaplin for Charles Chaplin Productions.

Things to look up (go to IMDB page):

History of film companies as defined by Wikipedia: Charlie Chaplin Studios is a motion picture studio built in 1917 by silent and sound film star Charlie Chaplin just south of the southeast corner of La Brea and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.

After being sold by Chaplin in 1953, the property went through several changes in ownership and has served at various times as Kling Studios, the Red Skelton Studios, the shooting location for the Adventures of Superman and Perry Mason television series, and as the headquarters for A&M Records and Jim Henson Productions. In 1969, it was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.

Check out our new Book, 100 Years of the Best Movie Stunts!

Comedy

Little Known Facts About Charlie Chaplin

October 10, 2015 Adam Montierth Leave a comment

Here are some fun and lessor known facts about Charlie Chaplin:

• Charlie Chaplin was the first actor who graced the cover of Time magazine. He appeared on the July issue of Time in 1925.
• He was 73 years old when his youngest son was born.
• He was trained in playing the cello and violin.
• Charlie Chaplin joined a “Charlie Chaplin Look-Alike Contest” and he only came in third.
• Queen Elizabeth II knighted him when he was 85 years old.
• There is an asteroid named after Charlie Chaplin – the 3626 Chaplin. It sits in the asteroid belt found in between Venus and Mars.
• Charlie Chaplin stood 5 feet 5 inches tall.
• Charlie Chaplin had blue eyes. Most people guessed he had brown eyes since they only see him in black and white films.
• He was ordered to pay child support for a child that was not his own. In the 1940s, Charlie had a brief relationship with actress Joan Barry. Several months after their breakup, she claimed that Chaplin was the father of the child to which she had just given birth. When blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father of the child, Barry’s attorney moved to have the tests ruled inadmissible as evidence. Because there was little historical precedent to admit the test results into the trial, the judge did not allow them to be used as evidence of Chaplin’s non-paternity. After a mistrial and a retrial, Chaplin was ordered to pay Barry $75 per week for child support, a respectable amount in those days.
• Three months after Chaplin died on Christmas 1977, his body was stolen in an effort to extort money from his family. Chaplin’s body was recovered 11 weeks later after the grave-robbers were captured. He is now buried under 6 feet of concrete to prevent further theft attempts.
• His daughter portrayed his mother in the movie Chaplin. The accomplished actress, Geraldine Chaplin, is Charlie’s daughter with his last wife Oona. In the 1992 Hollywood movie adaptation of Charlie Chaplin’s life, Chaplin, she portrayed Hannah Chaplin, Charlie’s mother.

1915, Comedy

Charlie Chaplin in The Tramp

September 13, 2015 Adam Montierth Leave a comment

It should be no surprise to anyone that I open this blog with the Master himself, Charlie Chaplin. He gets my first vote for his film,” The Tramp”. It is actually Chaplin’s sixth film with Essanay Studios. The Tramp marked the beginning of The Tramp character most known today, even though Chaplin played the character in earlier films. This film marked the first departure from his more slapstick character in the earlier films, with a sad ending and showing he cared for others, rather than just himself.

Plot – The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) meets his dream girl (Edna Purviance) and takes a job on her Father’s (Ernest Van Pelt) farm. The Tramp helps around the farm, including getting rid of criminals. Everything is perfect, until the Tramp meets his dream girls’ boyfriend. He doesn’t want to get in the way of her happiness, so the film ends with the Tramp heading on back down the road.

Directed, Written, and Starring Charlie Chaplin
Produced by Jess Robbins
Also Starring Edna Purviance and Ernest Van Pelt
Cinematography by Harry Ensign
Edited by Charlie Chaplin
Distributed by Essanay Studios
Release Dates April 11, 1915
Run Time 32 minutes

Goof – Near the end of the movie, the “Tramp” writes a note and there are two separate shots of it edited in. Both notes are in completely different handwriting and the word “good bye” is spelled differently. But Charlie couldn’t blame the editor because… Yep, you guessed it! It was himself.

Sir Charles Spencer “Charlie” Chaplin, (16 April 1889 – 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor and film-maker who rose to fame in the silent film era. Chaplin became a worldwide icon through his screen persona “the Tramp” and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry.

Chaplin’s childhood in London was defined by poverty and hardship. His Father was mostly absent and his Mother was committed to a mental institution, so Charlie began working at a very young age. He always preferred performing to the workhouses, so he toured music halls and later worked as a stage actor and comedian. At 19 he travelled to America and began working for the Fred Karno Company, appearing in the popular Keystone comedies. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a large fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from an early stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best known figures in the world.

In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him complete control over his films. This is where he wrote, directed, and produced many films that rank on various industry lists of the greatest films of all time.

Chaplin’s later years are marked with controversy as he found his popularity decline. He was accused of having communist sympathies and was criticized for having marriages to much younger women. There was even a scandal involving a paternity suit. Eventually, an FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and settle in Switzerland.

In 1972, as part of a renewed appreciation for his work, Chaplin received an Honorary Academy Award for “the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century”. Today, he continues to be held in high regard and is often celebrated as one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood.

Just as a side note, I think that Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the film “Chaplin” was brilliant. It’s a travesty that he didn’t win an Academy Award for it, but you’ll have to wait to read all about it in my next series, “100 Years of the Best Oscar Snubs”.

Top 10 Charlie Chaplin Films (As rated by IMDB)

Brothers' Ink Productions