If you have not read Louis Menand’s massive, 857-page study of the arts in America from 1945 to 1965, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, you are missing, not an intellectual treat but an intellectual feast of the highest order. A more accurate title might be New York in the Fifties,…
Tag: Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin and the Mutuals: Third Time’s the Charm!
In 1914 Charlie Chaplin was hired by Mack Sennett to replace outgoing star Ford Sterling at Sennett’s Keystone Pictures for $7500 a year. Two years later, Charlie was making $600,000 a year at Mutual Pictures. The fruits of that $600,000—12 two-reel comedies traditionally known as “the Mutuals”—have been stunningly restored to what is probably “beyond…
New at Bright Lights
I have two reviews in the new edition of the Bright Lights Film Journal—a non-exhaustive survey of films based on the plays of Noël Coward and the last of my reviews of the films of Charlie Chaplin, A King in New York. The issue itself, NSFW as always, is here. My previous reviews of Chaplin’s…
New at Bright Lights
My take on Charlie Chaplin’s penultimate (and second-worst) film, Limelight, is available at the Brightlights Film Journal, along wtih a brief guide to Mozart’s operas on Blu-ray. The whole BL issue, NSFW as always, is here.My earlier reviews of Chaplin…
Charlie in Full, Pretty Much
The second part of my two-part review of Flicker Alley’s monumental release of all of Charlie Chaplin’s extant films for Keystone is now up on the still not safe for work Bright Light Film Journal. I’ve now reviewed all of Chaplin’s films except the two weakest, Limelight and A King in New York. The link…
New at Bright Lights: Chaplin at Keystone, Part 1
The new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal has another of my pieces on the films of Charlie Chaplin. Flicker Alley recently released virtually all of Chaplin’s 33 odd films made in one year, 1914, at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios in Los Angeles. I take a look at the first 18 films Chaplin made. The…