Reconstructed version of Chaplin's THE PROFESSOR

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Richard M Roberts
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Reconstructed version of Chaplin's THE PROFESSOR

Postby Richard M Roberts » Tue Jul 17, 2018 4:31 am

This is somewhat interesting, though it wouldn't have been any Chaplin classic:

https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/306


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Rob Farr
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Re: Reconstructed version of Chaplin's THE PROFESSOR

Postby Rob Farr » Tue Jul 17, 2018 11:08 am

The most interesting part is that we always assumed that Prof. Bosco was meant to be a completely different character. Now we know it's an older Charlie beaten down by poverty. Kind of chilling.
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"If it's not comedy, I fall asleep" - Harpo Marx

Robert Moulton
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Re: Reconstructed version of Chaplin's THE PROFESSOR

Postby Robert Moulton » Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:38 pm

Rob Farr wrote:The most interesting part is that we always assumed that Prof. Bosco was meant to be a completely different character. Now we know it's an older Charlie beaten down by poverty. Kind of chilling.


I agree that's how the footage is used in the compiled film, but isn't it still a mystery as to why this was originally filmed a few years earlier and what the character was meant to be at that time? I wonder if The Professor was just going to be the working title of the planned film, given that that character is only in the last portion of the film, it doesn't seem like a fitting title for the overall picture.

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Reconstructed version of Chaplin's THE PROFESSOR

Postby Richard M Roberts » Wed Jul 18, 2018 2:46 pm

I wouldn't read or wonder anything about Chaplin's 'artistic" sensibilities in the assembly or plotline of THE PROFESSOR, this is Chaplin simply trying to get out of a contract, doing what other more unscrupulous distributors had been doing with his films for years, cutting and re-cutting them together to make "new" Chaplin films. Hey, at least he had all new footage, why not sweep these unused scraps together. figure out some subtitles to make some sort of a plot, and make something of them?

Chaplin had been trying to get First National to take both this and HOW TO MAKE MOVIES as short subjects in his contract for years, and First National wouldn't budge, he hated that deal and had stood his ground with them on THE KID, withholding it from them until they cut him a percentage deal on it as a feature rather than them paying him for it as three two-reelers, and then he ground out (well, ground out by his increasingly slow-poke fashion) two more two-reelers (THE IDLE CLASS and PAY DAY) when he was no longer interested in making shorts, then found himself more interested in THE PILGRIM than he thought he was going to be and filled it out to four reels, giving himself more difficulty in finishing his FN contract. This is why it took him four years to join the company he had formed, United Artists.


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