It's hard to believe, especially amongst us movie lovers, but once upon a time in America, silent films were considered to be worthless as entertainment, useless as history, and of little or no interest to film fans. Nitrate stock is highly flammable and expensive to store safely, and studios felt they were worth more for the silver in their nitrate then they were for theatrical (or later television) sales.

As early as 1931, studios were already destroying prints, including negatives, of many of their silent classics. At best, they stored them in unsafe receptacles and spent no money converting them to safety stock; a vault fire at Fox's warehouse in New Jersey in 1937 -- where the studio stored both negatives and prints together -- wiped out the negatives of nearly all Fox films made prior to 1935. An RKO fire in the 1950s wiped out the negative to Citizen Kane. MGM's vault fire in the mid-1960s destroyed several Lon Chaney films, including London After Midnight.

Sometimes, the destruction was deliberate: in 1948, Universal simply scrapped their remaining silent films and a wealth of other material from their vaults. Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd had foresight enough to own their films, and keep them well-stored, safe and converted to safety stock. Virtually all of Chaplin's films survive; only a handful of early Lloyds are lost.

With the advent of talking pictures, the term 'old-time' was immediately affixed to silent comedy; audiences wanted the wisecracking Marx Bros. and W.C. Fields, the affable slapstick of Laurel & Hardy, and (later) the non-stop quips of Bob Hope and Abbott & Costello. Silent comedy? That was 'Keystone Kops' stuff, okay in its day, but nothing of interest to modern audiences.

On September 5, 1949, that all changed.

Life magazine was one of the most popular newsweeklies in the world, selling more than 3,000,000 copies per issue at the time. The cover of that week's issue showcased not a world leader or famous current celebrity; it was a cross-eyed comic with a derby and a well-chewed stogie, Mr. Ben Turpin, whose heyday had been in the 1920s and who had been dead for a decade.

James Agee, one of the most noted film critics in the country (Time, The Nation) had written a retrospective of silent film comedy, spotlighting what he called the 'four master clowns' of the era, rekindling overnight America's love and appreciation for the films our parents had laughed at a generation earlier. 'Anyone who has watched screen comedy over the past 10 or 15 years is bound to realize it has quietly but steadily deteriorated,' he wrote.

Agee declared that 'a good comedian of silent films combined the talents of a dancer, acrobat, clown and mime' and proclaimed four Master Clowns as the highest practitioners of those arts. In this series, we're going to revisit the Four Clowns and their best work. All four clowns have something special in common: more than eight decades after movies found a voice, their voiceless comedy is still side-splittingly hilarious.

The First Clown: Charlie Chaplin

To say Charles Spencer Chaplin (1889-1977) was raised in poverty scarcely begins to cover it; his father deserted him and his brother Syd while they were still infants; by the age of eight, Charlie was toiling in a workhouse; his mother was committed to a mental institution soon after. Vaudeville, or Music Hall as it was called in England, was popular and cheap, and young Charlie snuck into the theatre when he could. A regular backstage, he picked up small assignments as an actor, comic, or dancer, and soon he was landing key roles in touring shows. By 1910, he was appearing in the Fred Karno traveling show, England's best and most popular, and the troupe made a visit to America. Charlie stayed, and by 1914 he was appearing in films for Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios, the pinnacle of screen slapstick.

One of Chaplin's first assignments: Go make a pest of himself at the Kid Auto Races in Venice California, and capture the whole thing on film (that was how Sennett worked in those days). Chaplin dressed himself as a tramp, interjected himself into the proceedings with a variety of annoying interruptions, and went home. But the Tramp character stuck, and would be Charlie's on-screen persona for the next quarter-century. 'The Tramp is as centrally representative of humanity, as many-sided and as mysterious, as Hamlet,' Agee wrote, 'and it seems unlikely that any dancer or actor can ever have excelled him in eloquence, variety or poignancy of motion.'

The Keystones were simple, rudimentary slapstick, whose titles pretty much described the entire plot: The New Janitor, The Property Man, Recreation. Flicker Alley offers a beautiful collection of 35 Chaplin Keystones, featuring such famous co-stars as Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand. (There is a 36th film, a Mabel film with Chaplin, that is believed lost -- the one and only Chaplin film not available for viewing.)

Chaplin would stay with Keystone only through the end of 1915, but while there, he honed his character and created one of the first instantly-recognizable personalities in movie history. In that day of one- and two-reel comedies, 10 to 20 minutes each, he also starred in the first (highly successful) full-length feature comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance.

Essanay


By 1915, Chaplin was perhaps the most instantly-recognizable face in the world; a silly moustache, a bowler, too-short jacket and too-long pants, enormous shoes and a cane -- don those, and everyone knew who you were mimicking. The Essanay Film Company of Chicago offered Charlie ,250 a week, a 0,000 bonus, and a studio in Niles, CA to come work for them; the child of poverty jumped at the chance. Chaplin stayed with Essanay a year, writing, directing, and starring in 14 films (a 15th was composed of unused footage spliced together after Charlie left the studio). Still simple, but with a bit more depth and chance-taking than his Keystone films. Titles include His New Job, In the Park, and By the Sea. (Charlie once famously said, 'Give me a park bench, a pretty girl, and a cop and I'll give you a movie.')

Mutual

Charlie's stay at Essanay wasn't a particularly happy one; his films were as popular as ever, but he disliked the Niles studio and the big bosses in Chicago were penurious, despite his lucrative contract, and tried to force budget and script concessions on him. The Mutual Film Corporation offered Charlie an unprecedented (to say the least) contract to become a Mutual star: 0,000 per week and a signing bonus of 50,000 to make 12 comedies. That contract turned out to be a total of 70,000 so he'd better be funny.

And funny he was -- many people think his Mutual 2-reel comedies, including The Rink, One A.M., The Immigrant, and Easy Street -- are the best and funniest films he'd ever make. (Flicker Alley offers a fine collection of Chaplin Mutual Specials.)

First National

By 1918, Chaplin was an independent producer, fully in charge of his own career; his films were distributed by First National Pictures. The films he produced during this period were his most popular yet, and some of his best-loved pictures, including A Dog's Life, The Idle Class, Pay Day, The Pilgrim, and the feature-length masterpiece The Kid, with Jackie Coogan. If you're unfamiliar with the particular genius of Chaplin -- who wrote, directed, produced, starred in, and scored his own movies -- this is the best place to start. These would be the final Chaplin short subjects.

United Artists

Chaplin's most famous films; he was one of the four founders of United Artists (along with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks) in 1919, but couldn't begin producing for them until his First National Contract was over. He began with a drama tailored to his former leading lady, Edna Purviance, called A Woman of Paris (1923); Chaplin himself has only a very brief cameo as a dockhand. Charlie's first starring feature for UA was The Gold Rush (1925), and is considered one of his greatest works. Personally, I prefer his next, The Circus (1928), a non-stop laugh riot. This is a great film to introduce kids to the genius of Chaplin, the greatest of movie clowns.

The talkie era was upon us, but Chaplin -- alone -- had the clout to continue working in silent films, albeit with synchronized musical scores and sound effects. Two masterpieces followed in this period, City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936) before the rise of Hitler gave birth to The Great Dictator (1940). Chaplin decided to talk, and to retire the Tramp. He went on to other worthy films, but the silent era was officially over.

The first Academy Award nominations in 1929 had included nominations for Chaplin for Best Actor, Best Writer, and Best Director for The Circus; the Academy, worried that the event would turn into the Charlie Chaplin show, removed his nominations and instead gave him one of two Honorary statuettes awarded that year. The other? To Warner Bros., for bringing sound to the movies with The Jazz Singer Both the past and future of movies were thus recognized.

Chaplin's personal and political troubles are well documented, but so is his place in motion picture history as arguably its greatest and most popular star, and certainly its greatest auteur.

Clifford Weimer is a writer and film historian in Sacramento, CA. He can usually be found lurking about the dark corners of a movie theatre at inthebalcony.com.