Charlie Chaplin’s First Taking Film – New Documents Revealed

Fascinating documents have been discovered about a secret project from the English comic actor Charlie Chaplin that would have been his first talking film. These documents made public today, give a fascinating insight into one of the pioneers of early cinema. For students of the English language and culture, these documents show how Chaplin had problems with the changing nature of the cinema industry.

In the silent era, Charlie Chaplin was one of the Hollywood’s most famous stars, known for his comic skills and the character he created, a loveable little tramp with a walking cane, hat, moustache and large boots. Chaplin’s character was seen as a victim of society and to this day is still a universal icon, a symbol of the silent era.

However Chaplin according to these documents struggled with how he was going to make the transition to the new medium, from music hall style pantomime performances to cinematic sound. He was so worried about his ability to continue as an actor that Chaplin even considered becoming a politician back in Britain.

Chaplin was still committed to the silent form, long after the era was seen as part of cinematic history by the big studios, commenting: "Action is more generally understood than words.”

In fact Chaplin continued to make silent films long after talking films were introduced. The first talking film was The Jazz Singer in 1927 and Charlie last silent film was released in 1936. After completing the film Circus in 1928, studios in Hollywood had fully embraced the new and exciting talking movie era.

It would seem that there would be no support within Hollywood for Chaplin to continue making silent films. Being his own producer and being one of the founders and owners of the distributor United Artists, Chaplin was able to put into production two more silent films, the first being City Lights. This was a big gamble as by the time of its release in 1931 audiences were now used to a new medium and had different expectations after three to four years of being entertained by actors talking on the big screen. Chaplin accommodated some of the new technology, and so technically City Lights was a crossover film with synchronized music, sound effects, and some unintelligible sounds that copied speech patterns.

Despite the changing tastes, City Light’smixture of comedy and sentimentality,proved to be a huge success on its release in 1931, when America was in the grip of the depression. It is now seen as the highlight of Chaplin’s career and has been praised by other well-known directors including Orson Welles who said it was his favourite film and Stanley Kubrick who rated it as fifth among his top ten films.

His second film Modern Times (1936) again a non-talkie, made a few more concessions to the change in times with sounds coming from inanimate objects such as a radio or TV. This was the first time that audiences were to hear his voice when Chaplin sung a song of made up words, after losing the original words written on his cuffs; “Je La Tu La Ti La Twah, La Spinash O La Bouchon, Cigaretto Portobello, Si Rakish Spaghaletto.”

These newly discovered documents from the Chaplin family archive show how he considered making his first talking film in the early 1930s set on the Dutch colonial island of Bali, now Indonesia, inspired after his own visit in 1932. This project was to make fun of European arrogance towards the population and the harm they were doing to their lives.

During his time on the island Chaplin was inspired by the people’s dedication to culture, spending only a few months every year working in the rice fields, “From these people one gleans the true meaning of life – to work and play – play being as important as work to man’s existence. That is why they are happy.”

The project wanted to poke fun at the Dutch colonial master’s interference with their way of life, insisting on building roads and taxing the locals to use them, when they had no need for them.

Why this project was never made into a film is not clear. However Chaplin’s next film was a talking movie, The Great Dictator released in 1940 and poked fun at Hitler, 13 years after Hollywood first introduced the medium.

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