This article was originally written about TCM programming in the TCM Now Playing newsletter in December 2002.
Charlie Chaplin at Essanay Studios II comprises of four of the Chaplin shorts filmed at Essanay, where the comic legend worked for more than a year beginning in 1915, between his stints at Keystone and Mutual studios. The Essanay period is significant in Chaplin's career in that it saw the early evolution of his style, and the fruition of his most noted screen character–the resilient "little tramp" whose big-hearted spirit allowed him to triumph against impossible odds. The shorts in Volume II of the Essanay collection are especially meaningful since they encompass Chaplin's first real masterpiece, The Tramp (1915). His leading lady in all four shorts is Edna Purviance, who also captured Chaplin's heart off-screen during this period, although their relationship would become strained a few years later. While they were working together at Essanay, Chaplin addressed Purviance as "My Own Darling Edna" in a note in which he told her that she was "the cause of my being the happiest person in the world."
All the following shorts were written and directed by Chaplin:
A Jitney Elopement (1915) has Charlie posing as Count Charlie de Lime, the man to whom heroine Purviance is engaged but has never seen, in order to thwart the arranged marriage. This short ends with a Keystone-like car chase, with the typically Chaplinesque touch that the cars, in long shot, appear to be waltzing with one another. Another classic gag has Chaplin slicing a French roll and turning it into a concertina.
Cast: Charles Chaplin (Suitor, the Fake Count), Edna Purviance (Girl), Fred Goodwins (Her Father), Leo White (Her Millionaire Suitor, Count de Ha-Ha), Paddy McGuire (Head Waiter).
The Tramp, shot in 10 days, crystallized Chaplin's unique blend of pathos and comedy and introduced the classic ending as he shuffles away with his back to the camera as the screen irises in on him. The story has the "little tramp" creating havoc on a farm after saving the farmer's daughter (Purviance) from three ruffians who plan to rob the farmer. Chaplin is quite believable in a scene where Charlie is accidentally shot and passes out from the pain. There's pain of a different sort when Charlie discovers that Purviance already has a boyfriend and writes her a note that reads, "i thout your kindness was love but it aint cause i seen him."
Cast: Charles Chaplin (Tramp), Fred Goodwins (Farmer), Edna Purviance (Farmer's Daughter), Paddy McGuire (Farmhand), Lloyd Bacon (Edna's Fiance).
By the Sea (1915) was shot in just one day, with nine camera set-ups, around Crystal Pier in Los Angeles. This short, Chaplin's next-to-last one-reeler, features an extended improvisation of a "flea" routine he would later extend for the feature film Limelight (1952). Purviance appears as a beauty with whom Charlie flirts, even though she already has a husband (Bud Jamison).
Cast: Charles Chaplin (Stroller), Billy Armstrong (Holidary-Maker), Margie Reiger (His Wife), Edna Purviance (Young Wife), Bud Jamison (Her Husband), Paddy McGuire (Refreshment Stand Proprietor).
In Work (1915), a chaotic comedy about a middle-class couple having their home papered by incompetent workers, Charlie plays a paper hanger's assistant. When we first see him, he is strapped to a harness and pulling a cart filled with wallpapering paraphernalia while his domineering boss (Charles E. Insley) flicks him with a whip as if he were a horse. The slapstick antics with the cart are described by David Robinson in his book “Chaplin: His Life and Art” as "a series of haunting, grotesque, horror-comedy images of slavery, with a degree of audacity and invention in the visualization that was hardly to be challenged until the Soviet avant-garde a decade later." Chaplin's comic inspiration continues as the two men arrive at the house they are to redecorate and explore every imaginable mishap with the ladders, boards and buckets of their trade. Purviance plays the household's maid, with whom Charlie shares confidences.
Cast: Charles Chaplin (Assistant), Billy Armstrong (The Husband), Marta Golden (The Wife), Charles E. Insley (Izzy A. Wake), Paddy McGuire (The Plasterbearer), Edna Purviance (The Maid).
BW-112m. (length of entire program)
