Charlie Chaplin

[2dimes]

They added some of his movies to Netflix Canader.

Never managed to watch any.

Kind of watching the circus right now.

Off to a great start. The ring master just pushed his daughter to the ground and told her she isn't going to eat that night because she botched a trick missing the rings. Then he emotionally abused the clowns. Now this is British comedy at it's highest point.

Edit:

show

[2dimes]

So nobody wants to discuss this?

I started watching Gold Rush but I fell asleep. Missed a bunch I'll have to try again later.

[Dukasaur]

My grandmother loved Charlie Chaplin. We used to borrow his movies from the library and watch them at home.

Mostly the silent stuff, though. I found he didn't make the transition to voice very well.

[2dimes]

The circus was silent but had a soundtrack. Gold Rush was silent but narrated by Charlie. It was pretty good.

How many talkies did he make. I know the dictator is one and it's on there. I guess the others were so bad they are not really talked about?

[Dukasaur]

The circus was silent but had a soundtrack. Gold Rush was silent but narrated by Charlie. It was pretty good.

How many talkies did he make. I know the dictator is one and it's on there. I guess the others were so bad they are not really talked about?

I only remembered Limelight and the Great Dictator, so I googled. It seems he only made five true talkies, plus three others that were made as silent films and had soundtracks added later like Gold Rush. He hated talkies as much as they hated him, so he made few and far between.

Yeah, definitely the big bulk of the work was in the silent films.

[2dimes]

Interesting, the only one that gets much attention is usually a the Dictator, and partially it is a discussion about it not being very good.

I have read and heard other silent film greats had difficulty transitioning also.

I feel like once you get in the rhythm to be good at the art of silent film acting, it would be tough to stop doing things needed there, that would be a detriment to regular film or stage.

Some of them apparently just did not have good voices.

Have you watched the biography with Robert Downy Jr as Chaplin. I quite rnjoyed that on DVD like 18 years ago or so.

[Dukasaur]

No, haven't seen it.

One reason Charlie gave for hating talkies is that you lose the universality. The things that go on in the films are understood by anyone in any culture, any nation, any language.

I suppose that's directly relevant to me. I watched them with various people, but most especially with my grandparents. My grandmother didn't speak a word of English, of course. My command of Czech is tolerable but error-prone. My grandfather could speak eight languages, but he couldn't hear in any of them. Silent films were something we could all agree on.

[2dimes]

It's sort of a different thing too. There is definately things that work better in one but possibly not at all in the other. Almost like different cultures.

Humans have a love hate relationship with change too. If I was making some of the best silent films and then those other studios ruined my ability to work with their sound tracks, I would be cranky.

Now the silent films seem simple but they would have been increadible at the time.

Have you ever watched those moving picture things which were in a wood cabinet that contains actual pictures that you crank past the viewer after putting a penny into a machine. I think I have watched one or two in a museum but the last one I remember for certain was at Disneyland.

I'm sure for many at the time it was like the first Star Wars movie. Tough to explain to people born after that came out, but we had never seen anything like that before.

Before that stereo graphs would have been a big improvement over a regular photograph.

They were probably almost like watching magic at the time. Now people can't sit still long enough without getting bored. Even though the silent films are mostly a third shorter than the typical length of today's movies.

Possibly movies with sound were the same, tough to go back after they improve though. You can show a silent movie or even have a festival with a live pianist.

Some of us will enjoy it but it's pretty unlikely we will see silent film theatres making a comeback. Most folks can't stay off their phone during a giant loud stadium concert anymore. Silent movies would be pretty noisy.

[2dimes]

They just added several of the films with sound. A few he is not playing the tramp in. Maybe almost all of them?

I wonder if part of the problem with the non-silent films was a certain guy that became prominent in World War II ruined the tramp's mustache?

[2dimes]

I'm watching A KING IN NEW YORK.
Almost five mminutes in it's terrific.

11 minutes:
Awesome bit making fun of how crappy a lot of movies are. Probably annoyed everyone else who was guilty of making them.

An hour and 20 in:
He is befriending a child of a former communist party member who won't roll over on anyone.

The sight gags are of course fantastic.

Even though he made it to complain about what was going on in Hollywood, this movie is excellent. You might have to be old to enjoy it though.

The child was played by Michael Chaplin. I'm guessing it's one of his.

[The ram]

The reason Charlie never transitioned to talkies was that he was actually humongously obese and had to be shoe horned into an extremely tight corset before every act. This lead to him releasing flatulence with even the slightest of movement. Here he is explaining his demise

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=232774

[2dimes]

OK boomer.

Dukasaur is gone so I guess the thread is dead probably no point mentioning I watched The Kid. It was reasonably good.

[eyeblister]

So nobody wants to discuss this? https://anabolicmuscles.com/sustanon-cycles/

I started watching Gold Rush but I fell asleep. Missed a bunch I'll have to try again later.

exactly the same. lots of people say this is a legendary movie that we should appreciate but i always fall asleep... it seems like is not my type?
to be honest i'm kind of ashamed bcuz of this...

[2dimes]

I suspect that is a legendary spammer post that we should appreciate.

eyeblister FTW.

[betiko]

When I lived in spain as a kid in the 80s, on sunday afternoon after lunch you always had a vintage humour film. So they were basically airing all the charlie chaplin, marx brothers, laurel and hardy, and buster keaton films and I grew up watching them.. also my dad used to record them on VHS and I would watch them over and over again.
I m surprised that an older guy like you had never seen any of these.
My favorites were definitely the marx brothers films... buster keaton was awesome too. There was this poetry in chaplin's films that did touch me as a kid.

I don't know, maybe you're too thick to get these films and you should watch transformers.

[2dimes]

Ok boomer.

I fell asleep during Gold Rush because I was tired. That's why I wrote about trying again later. Unless you were writing to eyeblister, in which case, sorry for responding.