When Marlon, Sophia and Charlie Got Together

Today I'm turning over my blog to a former writer for Life Magazine. 
Her name was Dora Jane Hamblin. She died in 1993, in a retirement home in Rome, at the age of 73. 

But on April 1, 1966, she wrote an article about the new movie being produced in London. Written and directed by Charlie Chaplin and starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, the film was generally panned by critics as being "out of date." During pre-production, Chaplin suffered a great personal loss when his brother, Sydney, died in Nice, France at the age of 80. 





Two esteemed visitors to the set during shooting were Gloria Swanson and the film historian Kevin Brownlow. Kevin wrote about his experience that day, which David Robinson included in his magnificent biography of Chaplin. 

Sadly, this was Chaplin's final film.

But, right now, let's listen to Dora Jane Hamblin. These are excerpts of her article. The "Sydney" she refers to here is Charlie's son.

"Walking onto Charlie Chaplin's set at England's Pinewood Studios feels quite a bit like trying to tip-toe into church after the service has started. There are, to be sure, a lot of slamming doors and exploding champagne bottles and actors leaping around like scalded cats, but between the bangs and the crashes there is a silence quite unlike the perfunctory quiet of the ordinary movie set. Everybody's watching Charlie teach some new tricks to a trio of old pros - Sophia, Marlon and Sydney Chaplin. The stars sit rapt, like well brought-up children, hanging on his every word. That is much easier than hanging onto him.

"Marlon is supposed to chase Sophia around the furniture? Charlie takes off in a frantic deadpan dash, to show Marlon how he wants him to do it. Sophia is supposed to flee? Charlie skitters around uttering little yelps of alarm and casting arch looks back over his tweedy shoulder. Sydney Chaplin is supposed to puff on a cigar and make himself sick? Charlie Chaplin wraps his small hand around an imaginary cigar, tilts his head, and everybody not he set can smell the nonexistent smoke.....

"The new picture, though it is the 81st of Chaplin's 52-year movie career, is a first in a couple of significant categories: it is Chaplin's first film in color; it is the first time he hasher directed established stars, let alone a pair of Oscar winners and staggering personalities like Loren and Brando; and it is the first time in years that he has worked for a company not his own. Universal is bankrolling this one at an estimated production cost of $4 million and will distribute it. But Chapin is clearly running it. .... Hardly a day passes that Charlie doesn't mutter 'We're using too much film.' Actually, Charlie's first feature-length film, the six-reeler Tillie's Punctured Romance in 1914, had almost exactly the same shooting time as this present film, 14 weeks.

"'That was very, very difficult, that scene,' Sophia says. 'It was a charlie Chapin scene, you see. Silent, and subtle. He has the timing exactly right when he does it. Charlie never does the obvious thing, like most actors. He turns it all upside down, thinks of the opposite from the obvious thing.' "...

"'In the next few days I thought I had gone raving mad, Charlie had gone raving mad, and it was impossible,' says Brando. 'I can't do fades and triple-takes and things like that, and I was wanting to go to Charlie to say, 'I'm afraid we've both made a horrible mistake. But then it all started to work out. With Charlie it's chess, it's chess at 90 mph.' ...

"He (Charlie) plays one scene in the film. The morning he did it, he hopped onto the set grinning from ear to ear. He slid into the white jacket of a ship's chief steward, and he combed his hair and muttered his lines under his breath and gave that old familiar half-apologetic look just over the left shoulder. His assistant director called 'Action!' and Chaplin opened the door. He put on the walk of an aging chief steward and then the look of a seasick chief steward He made straight for a porthole and tripped over something that wasn't in the script. Just before the assistant director could call 'Cut' he stopped, bent down, picked up an imaginary object and slipped it intones pocked, adjusted his shoulder, walked on. It was very funny.


"'Well, that's my contribution,' he said as he walked off the set. Kona gave him a big kiss and everybody told him the scene was wonderful. The only reason there wasn't a round of applause was that everyone in the place was afraid he might snap at them. 'Quiet, now let's all be adult!'"

And so ends the article. I've included photos from the magazine, which were shot by famed photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Also included is an ad from that same issue which features another very funny man.

From Venice to Bologna

Three points in my timeline are about to be joined. In Bologna, Italy.

The first point is February of 1914. That's when Charlie Chaplin stepped in front of a camera in Venice, California, not long after Mack Sennett called the young Englishman to Los Angeles to try out his talent in the new medium called "movies." The name of the film was "Kid Auto Races in Venice." In that short film, Charlie appears as a character that would soon, with modifications, become famous around the world as The Little Tramp. Or, as Chaplin preferred to call him, The Little Fellow.

The second point is June of 1960. Just out of the army (ours), I lived in San Francisco and began to frequent a bar/restaurant on the waterfront in Sausalito, just across the Golden Gate Bridge. I went there on Tuesday nights, when they showed Chaplin shorts on a worn screen. The prints were scratchy, jumpy, pieces missing, often faded. They were silent; no accompanying musical tracks. With all its faults, I was mesmerized by the unique character and his antics - and imagination. At the still impressionable age of 25 I had discovered The Little Tramp.

David Robinson

The third point focuses on Zanesville, Ohio, fifty years later, in October of 2010. Thanks to the efforts of Lisa Stein (now with a Haven at the end), an International Chaplin Conference revealed to me just how deep and widespread the allure of Chaplin was. This was the "Charlie in the Heartland" gathering. I met people whose books, articles and restorations sat on my shelves at home:  David Robinson, Chuck Maland, Hooman Mehran, Frank Scheide, David Shepard. Countries represented included England, France, Japan, Austria, Belgium. I  couldn't believe how vital the Chaplin culture was. 

With Joe Delmore and a
genuine Chaplin derby and cane.

Chuck Maland

Most of the group. That's Lisa Haven in the
front row, 5th from the right.

It all comes together in  Bologna, 
beginning June 25th and continuing until the 28th.

Bologna, strangely enough, is just 165 km south of Venice. No auto races there, however. This is a 4-day event featuring a Who's Who of the World of Chaplin, silent films, and movie history. Besides the above mentioned, the esteemed Kevin Brownlow will be there. I met him at a Buster Keaton celebration a couple of years ago, a big day for me, a man I had admired since I had read "The Parade's Gone By...," his remarkable 1968 volume on the early history of the film industry.

The line-up for this 100th anniversary of the first appearance of The Little Tramp is too lengthy for this blog. Here's a link to information for the event.  Birth of The Tramp Celebration

I'll tell you how I feel about this celebration. It's like going to an All-Star game and getting to meet Mantle, Dimaggio, Williams, Musial and Ruth. Sorry about the sports analogy, but it'll give you an idea of the stature of these people. 

Thanks to all the dedicated people involved in putting this event together, beginning with Kate Guyonvarch, director of Roy Export S.A.S (Archives) in Paris, and Cecilia Cenciarelli and the Cinetecca Bologna. 
The Little Tramp is bigger than ever.

Charlie & Buster: What Might Have Been

Jazz musicians used to get together, usually after hours, for jam sessions.

It was a thrill to see and hear these jazz greats sitting in with each other.

Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, Oscar Peterson and Lester Young. Guys who played with their own groups, but still enjoyed the challenge and stimulation of interplay.

What does this have to do with Charlie Chaplin? A lot, I believe. Charlie retained control of his films for most of his life. His final film here, in 1952, was Limelight. It was then, at the age of 63, that he decided to work with Buster Keaton. And that's what I can't understand. Why did it take so long for these two giants of silent film to get together in a movie? Surely someone must have had such an idea.

During the last weekend of September (about a week from now), fans of Keaton will convene in Kansas for the annual Buster Keaton Celebration. Buster Keaton Celebration in Iola, KS    

This year the focus is on Keaton and Chaplin. I'll be there, as I was last year when I learned to appreciate Keaton even more than I had before. Relatives of Keaton, friends, academics (or is it academicians?), an actor who worked with him, the head of the Association Chaplin in Bologna, Italy... they'll be there. I look forward to what they have to say about Buster and Charlie.

In the meantime:

Life Magazine ran an 11-page spread on "Chaplin at Work" in its March 17, 1952 issue. It contained a lot of photographs of the Limelight production, but only a couple show Buster. Here's a short paragraph from that article.

     "Chaplin had carefully planned what to do in his dramatic scenes. But the comedy routines often had to be developed through trial and error and patient improvisation. The scene below with Buster Keaton, himself a star of the silent comedies, began with only the meager idea of a nearsighted pianist and an acrobatic violinist. The two, who had never appeared together before, spent a day of preparation in shirtsleeves organizing the piece of business which would form their act. With utter disregard of their ages (Keaton, 56, Chaplin, 63), they danced and tumbled, experimented, repeated. Over and over Chaplin twirled, tripped, rolled across the footlights into the orchestra pit where worried grips stood by to catch him. Time and time again Keaton staggered from the wings, crashed awkwardly into the piano and fell to the floor in a flutter of music sheets. Stagehands, dancers, musicians sat in bemused groups breaking into laughter, applauding as they watched a show no one else would ever see."

When I've watched Limelight, I'm struck by the number of single shots in what was essentially a duo performance. I prefer the shots where you see both of them on stage.  Instead of including both Buster and Charlie in the shot, Charlie frequently went to the single shots. I think that's a shame, considering that the appeal of this sequence is watching two of the greatest film artists working together.

David Robinson, in "Chaplin: His Life and Art," explains.

     "Keaton worked on the film for three weeks.... It was a sweet gesture of Chaplin's to employ him: Keaton had not worked in comedy for years and was all but forgotten. He arrived, Jerry Epstein recalls, with the little flat hat he had worn in his own films, and had to be gently told that Chaplin already had a costume and business worked out for him. The whole unit was enchanted to see, however, that once on stage, Chaplin and Keaton became two old comedy pros, each determined to upstage the other.... Claire Bloom felt that 'some of his gags may even have been a little too incandescent for Chaplin because, laugh as he did at the rushes in the screening room, Chaplin didn't see fit to allow them all into the final version of the film.'"

Of all the Chaplin out-takes and alternate scenes that have been uncovered and discovered, mainly by Kevin Brownlow, none - as far as I know - show all the magic and inventiveness that certainly occurred between Charlie and Buster during those three weeks. I wonder about Charlie's motives, especially since he did not see fit to mention Buster in his autobiography. But I shouldn't complain. At least he brought Buster in for these few glorious moments. Rather than wonder about what's been left unseen, better to fully appreciate the two greatest comic stars of the silent era.

The applause and laughter will ring forever.

HOW CHARLIE WORKED WITH HIS ACTORS

On March 17, 1952, about a month before Charlie’s 63rd birthday, Life Magazine ran a feature called “Chaplin at Work.” Subhead: “He reveals his movie-making secrets.” It was basically a photo essay showing him at work on Limelight. His secret seemed to lie in the method he employed working with his actors, along with his complete involvement in every aspect of making the film.

Ironically, this would be the last film that Chaplin made as a resident of the U.S. Just six months later, on Sept. 18, 1952, Charlie left the U. S., headed for London and the world premiere of “Limelight.” The following day U.S. Attorney General James McGranery revoked his  re-entry permit. Although Charlie could have fought it on solid legal grounds, he decided he would rather live in Europe.

In his autobiography, Charlie says:

"Whether I re-entered that unhappy country or not was of little consequence to me. I would like to have told them that the sooner I was rid of that hate-beleaguered atmosphere the better, that I was fed up of America's insults and moral pomposity.”

He would not return until 1972, to be honored at Lincoln Center in New York and at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

With old friends Harry Crocker (left) and Tim Durant,
who had bit parts in the film

 But about the article: The photos here reinforced what I had heard about Chaplin’s method of directing actors. Basically, it was to play their part for them, show them exactly what he wanted from them. For the first time in his career, Chaplin gave a photographer the freedom to spend 5 weeks on the set, shooting whatever he wanted.

Demonstrating to Melissa Hayden how he wants her to move

Jeffrey Vance, in his book, Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema, says:

“From his first film to his last, Chaplin remained a man of the theater, and his primary concern was to convey to the audience the action and the emotion of a scene through the performances of his actors, not through innovative or elaborate photography, lighting, or editing. By any standard, Chaplin’s directing style, perfected during the filming of the Mutuals and employed throughout the rest of his career, was unique in the cinema. He simply acted out the parts of all the actors as he wished them to be played, down to the slightest gesture of the hand or movement of the eyebrow. Chaplin and his cast would be in full costume and make-up while he rehearsed scenes and refined ideas over and over again on film. This directorial style was considered eccentric even in 1916, and the time he lavished on his films was the envy of every filmmaker. Yet for Chaplin, a laser-like concentration on performance and perfection to the exclusion of all else was his unyielding obsession, even until the end of his career.”"Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema"

Kevin Brownlow, in his exquisite 1986 “Unknown Chaplin” documentary, clearly reveals the concentration and obsession with perfection that was so much a part of Chaplin’s genius. Unknown Chaplin DVD

Charlie substitutes momentarily for Claire Bloom

I wondered what Charlie had to say about his directing style, so I revisited his autobiography. Here’s how he saw it:

“...Also a brief word about directing. In handling actors in a scene, psychology is most helpful. For instance, a member of the cast may join the company in the middle of a production. Although an excellent actor, he may be nervous in his new surroundings. This is where a director’s humility can be very helpful, as I have often found under these circumstances. Although knowing what I wanted, I would take the new member aside and confide in him that I was tired, worried and at a loss to know what to do with the scene. Very soon he would forget his own nervousness and try to help me and I would get a good performance out of him.

Charlie rolls on the ground to show extras what he
wants of them as an audience in the music hall

“....I do not believe acting can be taught. I have seen intelligent people fail at it and dullards act quite well. But acting essentially requires feeling.... In instructing a true actor or actress about a character, a word or a phrase will often suffice... I have found that orientation is the most important means of achieving this; that is, knowing where you are and what you’re doing every moment you’re on the stage....I have always insisted on this method of orientation with the cast when I’m directing my films.”

Showing Sophia how to play the scene

Fourteen years later, Chaplin would direct Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren in “The Countess from Hong Kong.” Though Chaplin thought the movie was among his best work, most critics did not agree. Here is what Charlie said about his actors, in a 1967 interview with Richard Merryman:

“Marlon Brando is an exceptionally good actor... There were a lot of things he did that I didn’t like - but, you know, they came off 100 percent. Very trifling things, but the sort that loom up to a director, especially for a person like me, I can act, you know, I can act.

“I don’t think either Brando or Loren understood the value of the script that it would work so well. I did. I’m an actor. I wrote it. When you’ve had fifty years experience, you know something about a script.”

Charlie the actor. Charlie the director. Charlie the writer. 

The various faces of Chaplin in "Limelight"

I can only wonder what more he might have accomplished if he had not been forced from the U.S., or if he had decided to fight it and remained here. I wonder where his creative force would have taken him, in an era when silent movies were historic curiosities, when television invaded every home, when the very nature of “what is funny” changed. Yet, looking back at that Life article 63 years later, I am not surprised that his movies are still held in high regard, are shown in theater and festivals and on TCM consistently. Whatever his relationship with actors was, he knew what he wanted. And he got it.