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Total Film: The Modern Guide to The Movies

Reviews

Watch Charlie learning on the job in his earliest films

Feb 10th 2011 By Philip Kemp

Such was Charlie Chaplin’s popularity that 34 out of the 35 films he made in the first year of his screen career (at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company) have survived.

And here they all are in this four-discer, lovingly restored and looking (bar the occasional glitch) like they were made yesterday.

True, the style of humour’s primitive to a degree – especially in the films made early in 1914, before Chaplin’s subtler approach begins to assert itself.

But that’s the fascination of this set – watching Charlie learning on the job, sussing out what works and what doesn’t.