Thomas Blaich

Prof. Dwight Watson

Theater 209

14 April 2014

Charlie Chaplin – Superstar

Charlie Chaplin is the original superstar. He was one of the first actors that could sell a

movie that he had been in simply with his name. Over the course of his career, up until the

point in which he was no longer allowed to enter the country during the McCarthy-era witch-

hunts of the 1950's, he could sell a movie to audiences all over the country simply by putting

his name on the board. And using his influence, and the funds gained by making all of these

different movies over the years, he instigated a revolution in the way in which films were

made. In 1931, Chaplin wrote, produced, directed, and starred in City Lights, a film which has

been estimated to have cost between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000 to produce. And while this

might not seem like much, especially now with budgets that reach up into the hundreds of

millions of dollars, the exceptional thing about this movie is that this movie released at the

height of the Great Depression, which had started on “Black Thursday” October 29 th, 1929.

458 days after the start of the Great Depression, this film was released. And what a release it

had. Even in an era where silent film had ceased to be relevant, City Lights managed to come

in second in the box office for the entire year, with millions of people watching it in theaters

worldwide. But why did all of these people come watch this movie when they had no money

with which to take care of themselves?

When “films” were first created at the end of the 19th century, if they could even be

called that, the several second long clip of a horse running was amazing. But for people at

that time, the innovations that we have made at this point, with 3D movies and IMAX, would

seem so far flung that they could not even be considered. To get to this point took over one

hundred years of filmmaking all around the globe, but in the early 20th century, a young man

came to America from England who would change the face of filmmaking forever. Over the

course of his more than 75 year career, he produced over one hundred films either by acting

in them, directing them, writing them, or producing them, all at one of the most turbulent times

in both our filmmaking history and our countries history.

In 1914, six months after Charlie Chaplin entered the country for the second time, he

was invited to join the New York Motion Picture Company to make films. This was the official

start of his career in “Hollywood” even before Hollywood existed. In this first year, he was in

35 different films before moving to the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, where he

would make an additional 15 movies over the course of three years. From there he moved to

First National, and after five years working with them, he helped to found United Artists in

1923, a company which still exists as a subisdiary of MGM. While working here, he made

eight films, including the most popular films of his career. For over 29 years he made films

with UA until he was not allowed to reenter the country, but the first 17 years of this run were

his most fruitful. In this time he made Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights, Modern Times, and

The Great Dictator. In these five films alone, he spent an estimated 7 million dollars (roughly

108 million dollars now) while making over 13 million dollars (almost 200 million dollars).

Which is even more impressive, considering the change in ticket prices over the last eighty

years. While currently, hearing news of a movie making hundreds of millions of dollars at the

box office is not that strange, this is in an age where ticket prices range from five all they way

up to twenty dollars, for the many different types of shows like IMAX or 3D. But when this

movie was first released, ticket prices were at an average of just thirty-five cents1, much lower

than what they are now, making this achievement all the more impressive.

The most interesting film in this series is without a doubt, City Lights. Made during the

Great Depression and released at one of the darkest times in American history, this self

funded film, made with money directly out of Chaplin's pocket went on to make 5 million

dollars in the United States. The reason for this is the character of the “Tramp”, the

quintessential Chaplin character, is someone that much of the country could relate to at the

time. The Tramp is possibly one of the most interesting and longest running characters within

film, first being seen on screen in February of 1914 in the movie Kid Auto Races at the

Venice, but it was created by accident several days prior during the filming of Mabel's Strange

Predicament. Auto Races was made following Strange Predicament, but it was premiered first

in theaters.

This character of the Tramp went on to be in films for over two decades, finally being

retired at the end of Modern Times, which was released in 1936, and ended appropriately

enough with the Tramp walking down a long highway towards the horizon. The interesting

part about this character is that throughout this twenty-two year stretch of his life, he never

once appeared in a “talkie”, a movie in which the characters talk. The closest he got was

Modern Times, the last silent film that Chaplin made, where there are a few spoken lines,

none of them by the tramp.

This fact, tied in with the fact that City Lights was released and managed to be

successful at the height leads us to an interesting theory as to why this movie was so

successful. In 1931, City Lights was the second most profitable movie released, second

behind only Boris Karloffs' Frankenstein.2 Why is it then, that this movie managed to be so

successful? It is fairly obvious to an observer as to why Frankenstein did so well worldwide,

as horror films had been rather unrepresented, and the Mary Shelley work was so popular

throughout the world that it gave it an advantage coming into theaters.

To truly discuss this idea, we need to look at several different factors, one of the most

important being Chaplin's Tramp. Looking back at this character now, we see something of a

bumbling idiot, a man that isn't too good at anything that he does, and frequently gets himself

embroiled in situations that take him in way over his head. And while this might be true at the

surface layer, if we dig deeper into the character of the Tramp, we can discover something

that made him so appealing to audience members during his twenty year run as a character.

Let's begin simply by looking at the way he dresses.

The Tramp, at first glance, does not appear to be the man who we have characterized

him as. He wears a black suit with a tie and bowler hat, frequently being seen with a cane in

his hand. All of these clothes are clothes of the proverbial elite, the rich who have enough

money to dress for “success” to use an old phrase. Upon closer inspection, you can see that

this facade has some cracks in it. The suit does not fit the Tramp very well, it is a size or two

too large for his small body, engulfing him in the clothes. But yet the way that the Tramp

dresses gives us a great insight into his personality. The Tramp aspires to be better than

those around him, in only the most humble of ways. Even when he can be seen rubbing

elbows with the elite, he is the most mannered and dignified person in the room. He is kind to

those around him, no matter who they are or where they are from. He always attempts to do

the right thing, which does lead to some moral dilemmas when he must steal to feed either

himself or another. But no matter what he does, he does his best to never hurt anyone around

him, instead trying to improve their lives.

With this in mind, picture this scenario. It is the middle of the Great Depression, and

you have lost your job, your house, everything. You have been reduced to living in one of the

many shanty towns, “Hoovervilles”, that have sprung up across the United States to

accommodate people like you. To put it simply, you have become a vagrant. So when you can

go to the theater and see a person who is in the same situation as you are, it can give you

hope. Because the Tramp does not despair his situation, he always attempts to make the best

of it. In this way, he could have become an ideal for people in this situation to look up to, a

man who has lost everything that he has yet still remains more kind and just than everyone

else. A man who has lost everything but kept his dignity, and wears it proudly upon his sleeve.

While this is just a theory, it does hold some water when you look at it next to the facts

of the era. Hundreds of thousands of people were without homes, living in these shanty

towns. 25% of the workforce was unemployed, with another 25% of the remaining workers

being forced to take wage cuts or work part time3. Over 30 million Americans lived in a home

where one provider was without work.4 So it seems likely that in this time, a positive, relatable

role model drove people to spend some of what little they had to see Chaplin perform.

While this is one thought as to why the movie made so much money, there are many

other theories. As I mentioned before, Charlie Chaplin was the first real American superstar, in

more ways than one. When he first started to make movies in America, Chaplin quickly rose

to become an audience favorite, with hundreds of thousands of people across the globe

streaming into theaters to see whatever movie he had made that week. And by 1931, Chaplin

had been putting audience members into seats for around 17 years, an impressively long

career by any standards, but even more so at that point. Chaplin was there when Hollywood

was basically conceived, so at this point there were really no other stars who had been

around for as long as Chaplin had. In 1931, Chaplin had reached the literal peak of his career.

With over fifty films already made, millions of dollars earned, and tens of millions of fans

entertained, Chaplin had risen to the top. The past eight years were the best eight years of his

career, earning both critical and public acclaim for his movies, and raking in the profits at the

box office. So when he made City Lights, standards were high.

The movie had begun its life as a script in early 1928, written by both Chaplin and

Henry Carr, a reporter/editor/columnist for the Los Angeles Times.5 Several months later, in

May, pre-production began, but in the midst of this all Chaplin's mother had died. Years

earlier, he had brought her to the United States from England, purchasing a house for her in

California so that she might be happy, and her death struck him hard. Her legacy can be seen

in the film with some theorizing that the blind girl symbolizes his mother, while the drunken

millionaire symbolizes his father who died when he was just 11 years old. In December of the

same year, filming began, which would not end for 9 months, after which editing took place.

All told, over the three years from writing to premier, the film is estimated to have cost 1.5 and

2 million dollars, much of which came out of the pocket of Chaplin. Even more interesting was

the exhaustive amount of shooting that was done for the movie. Over 318,000 feet of film

were shot for a movie that ended up with a little over 8,000 feet of film on premier.6 This

exhaustive process was done almost entirely by Chaplin himself and he waited for the

premier with nervous anticipation. When it came out, it rocked the world. After being released

for twelve weeks in the states, generating 2 million dollars in revenue, Chaplin would take it

on a 16 date world tour that would generate an additional 3 million dollars for the movie.7 After

its release, it was critically and publicly lauded, now being listed on the AFI's list of top 100

films of all time at number 11. Reviewers at the time loved it, and when it was rereleased in

1950, it enjoyed much of the same reception.

So maybe it wasn't hope or some other idealistic notion that drove people to the

theaters when this movie came out, but a more calculating choice being made by the viewers,

thinking they would get more value for their money going to see a movie that they know that

they would enjoy because of the name behind it rather than attempting to take a risk on

something new or unproven. This was a movie that they knew that Chaplin had spent three

years of his life on, and as an immensely creative man, this was like a lifetime. The entire

world was hotly anticipating the release of the movie, and while the Great Depression put a

damper on their spirits, they knew that they could still go to the movies and simply enjoy it for

what it was, a great movie.

Really, it could have been any one of a number of factors that drove people to watch

this movie when by al rights they should not have. And looking back on it from where we are

now, all we can really do is speculate as to why or how it happened because we can't really

know. Was it the captivating performance by Chaplin giving viewers something to look up to?

Or was it simply people knowing that they would enjoy a Chaplin movie and choosing to go

see something that they could be sure they would like? Maybe it's both. We don't know, and

we never will.

Bibliography

1 "The Great Depression and Its Effects on the Movie Theatres of West Chester,

Pennsylvania." The Great Depression and Its Effects on the Movie Theatres of West

Chester, Pennsylvania. Ed. Michael Pasquarello and Jim Jones. N.p., Jan. 2007. Web.

05 May 2014.

2 "WorldwideBoxoffice (in Millions of U.S. Dollars)."WorldwideBoxoffice.com. N.p., n.d. Web.

05 May 2014.

3 Smiley, Gene. "Great Depression." : The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. N.p., n.d.

Web. 03 May 2014.

4 File Deleted from server, info found through Wikipedia

5 Robinson, David. Chaplin, His Life and Art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985. Print.

6 Maland, Charles J. City Lights. London: British Film Institute, 2007. Print.

7 Flom, Eric L. Chaplin in the Sound Era: An Analysis of the Seven Talkies. Jefferson, NC:

McFarland, 1997. 73-74. Print.