Anything But Silent
CHAPLIN
ESSANAY SHORTS
Tuesday, December 6th at 7:30pm
$10 Members | $15 Public
An evening of classic Charlie Chaplin shorts, seen in brand new archival
digital restorations, sourced and scanned from multiple sources from all
over the world, that make these classic hilarious films look like new!
In late 1914, Charlie Chaplin was paid the
then-unprecedented salary of $1,250 per week (the equivalent of $30,000 in 2016
dollars) by the Essanay Company. The resulting films find Chaplin further
experimenting with new cinematic techniques, while continuing to add complexity into his celebrated Little Tramp character, soon
to become immortalized as the face, hat, and mustache of modern screen comedy.
A
NIGHT IN THE SHOW
(1915, 30 min.) Chaplin is at the top of his
form in A Night at the Show. He plays two roles in this
hilarious comedy: the drunk dandy that was his music hall specialty, and a
working class rube with a droopy mustache, as they jointly wreak havoc at a
vaudeville show.
THE
BANK
(1915, 25 min.) One of his best Essanay
shorts, The Bank stars Charlie as an ineffectual janitor whose unrequited love
for the bank’s pretty typist seems suddenly possible when he has an opportunity
to foil an attempted robbery. Chaplin smoothly combines poignancy and slapstick
in the first of his Essanay films to approach the level of his later Mutual
classics.
THE
TRAMP
(1915, 26 min.) The Tramp saves a girl from
three ruffians and is rewarded with a job from her father (he proceeds to wreak
havoc on their family farm), but stays only because he’s fallen in love with
the farmer’s daughter. In this iconic film, Chaplin introduces the
undercurrents of emotion, successfully integrating pathos with comedy, which will become central to his later films.
Ben
Model
is one of America’s leading silent film accompanists, and has been playing
piano and organ for silent films at the New York MoMA since 1984, and the CAC
since 2006.
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