Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Who was Charlie Chaplin? He was an actor, director, producer, composer and screenwriter,

  • he's famous for some of the greatest movies of all times like:

  • The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights, Modern Times, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight and A King in New York.

  • Before he made these great movies, he made many short movies for distribution companies, like:

  • ''Keystone Studios'', ''Essanay Studios'', ''Mutual Film Corp'', ''First National''.

  • In 1921, for the production First National,

  • he directed, produced, wrote and played the movie ''The Kid'', a great masterpiece with

  • the combination of drama and comedy, with a final that made everybody cry.

  • The actors starring are Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance and the child was played by Jackie Coogan...

  • Many years later in the 60's, he made Uncle Fester in the televisions series ''The Addams Family''.

  • After the movie ''The Kid'', he founded with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith the distribution company called ''United Artists''.

  • With the ''United Artists'' he made and produced all his movies,

  • the first one was ''A Woman of Paris''. In 1925, he wrote, produced, directed and

  • In 1925, he wrote, produced, directed and played the movie ''The Gold Rush'',

  • a great masterpiece with the topic of A Tramp who traveled throughout the Klondike, to search gold with an another man called ''Big Jim'',

  • played by Mark Swain, in order to became rich. The most famous scene in the movie is when

  • The most famous scene in the movie is when ''The Tramp'' and ''Big Jim" eat a shoe.

  • In 1928, he made ''The Circus'', another great masterpiece of realism and comedy,

  • in which we can see ''A Tramp'' escaped from a policeman and by chance he ends up in a circus and make the public laugh.

  • In the final scene, the circus leaves and ''The Tramp'' continues with his walk.

  • In 1931, he made ''City Lights'',

  • a movie with the topic of a man who tries to help a blind girl to see again with a medical intervention costing about $1,000.

  • In this movie the famous scene is, when The Tramp asks ''Can you see now?'' and ''The Girl'' answers ''Yes, I can see now'',

  • ''The Tramp'' smiles shyly at the girl.

  • At the premiere of City Lights Chaplin met Albert Einstein, and their dialogues was something like:

  • Albert Einstein- Oh, Mr. Chaplin the public was clapping so much for your movie;

  • Charlie Chaplin- Oh no, Mr. Einstein they didn't understand the movie, they clapped because of you.

  • In 1936, he made ''Modern Times'',

  • a really important movie with the topic of ''The Tramp'', trying to find a work.

  • In this time, in this conditions, when a man worked at the assembly line he becomes mad.

  • The movie had a famous scene in which ''The Tramp'' worked on a giant machine, and he and the giant machine become one machine.

  • This movie denounced the problem of flowing line work.

  • In 1940, he made ''The Great Dictator'',

  • in my opinion this is the best movie of Charlie Chaplin, maybe the greatest of all times. The film tell 2 stories, in the years 40's.

  • One is the dictator Adenoid Hynkel (Adolf Hitler), represented after in period before the conquest of Osterlich (Austria).

  • Chaplin played two roles: Adenoid Hynkel and the Jewish Barber.

  • The scene of Hynkel's speech, are all improvised by Charlie Chaplin in 1 day,

  • after he saw some of Hitler's speeches. This movie had the most famous and the greatest scene of the history of the cinema.

  • This scene is great, grotesque and crazy. He needed three days to act this scene!

  • I'm talking about Hynkel playing with the world.

  • Sadly, nobody wanted to produce the movie, because the most famous companies were distributing movies also in Germany.

  • Yeah, those were valorous people -.- in the 40's in Europe began the II War World,

  • at that point Charlie Chaplin produced the movie by himself, he paid everything personally.

  • This film was visionary for its time.

  • In 1947, he made Monsieur Verdoux,

  • a black comedy dealing with the economic crisis that took place between the 2 world wars. In France Monsieur Verdoux,

  • an employee who was fired by the bank, decides to earn money by killing rich women to be able to sustain his family,

  • but he finishes to be murdered by the guillotine.

  • This was the first movie in which he didn't play ''A tramp'', the idea of the story came from Orson Welles (you know, Citizen Kane and so on).

  • He started to make the film in 1941 and finished in 1946. The role of Monsieur

  • The role of Monsieur Verdoux is a reflection on the idea, that a person does everything to earn money and to become rich,

  • without a moral. Charlie Chaplin did this film, but he had many problems with the public opinion.

  • In 1952, he wrote, produced, directed and played the movie ''Limelight'',

  • a comedy drama with the following topic:

  • in 1914, Calvero was a famous clown but after a while many people ignore him and afterwards he begins to drink and become an alcoholic.

  • One day he saved a girl called Terry that wanted to commit a suicide.

  • The movie made me cry in the final scene:

  • before Calvero dies he wants to see Terry dancing and then the film ends.

  • His last movies were ''A King in New York'' and ''A Countess from Hong Kong'' produced by another production.

  • His movies criticized so strong the American way of life, that the boss' of the film productions told Charlie Chaplin to leave America.

  • So he lived the last years of his life and died in Corsier-Sur-Vevey in Switzerland.

  • In 1915, Chaplin participated in a competition of impersonators of himself, but he didn't win and he arrived third.

  • He received his Honorary Academy Award in 1928 and 1971 "for the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century".

  • In 1972 the movie ''Limelight'' won an academy award for the ''Best Original dramatic score'', this movie was originally screened in 1952,

  • but it was not showed in Los Angeles until 1972, at which point it became eligible for this nomination.

  • I think that Charlie Chaplin was the greatest director of all times, we can continue to remember him for both his dramatic and funny art.

  • To homage Chaplin, in Leicester Square in London there's ''The Statue of Chaplin''.

  • I'm SugarK I hope you enjoyed the video, and see you next time!

Who was Charlie Chaplin? He was an actor, director, producer, composer and screenwriter,

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it