Charlie Chaplin (1951)

Essanay — the transitional period 47 At Essanay 's main studio in Chicago, at 1333 Argylc Street, Chaplin made but one film, "His New Job." Then, because of the cold climate, he moved to the firm's California studio at Niles near San Francisco. (A glimpse of its little glass-covered stage may be seen in "The Champion.") Five comedies were made at Niles. After finishing "The Tramp," Chaplin moved farther south to Los Angeles, arriving on April 8, 1915. For a few weeks he worked at the Bradbury mansion studio, at 147 North Hill Street, whose exterior was used in "Work." In the middle of May, he moved to a larger studio, the old Majestic on Fairview Avenue, just outside the downtown Los Angeles business center. The fourteen Chaplin-Essanay films, made during 1915, were a transition from the Keystone charades to the polished Mutual series of 1916-1917. Though Chaplin has never forgotten, nor entirely abandoned, the lessons in slapstick and cinematic comedy he learned from Sennett, by 1915 he was creatively pretty much on his own. His earlier films had been shot in a day or two, or a week at most, and improvised on the spot; now he took more time and care. Three weeks were spent on "The Tramp" alone. And though Chaplin never used a shooting script until the sound era, preferring to improvise from a rough outline, the Essanays are well constructed over a more developed plot and show more restraint than his previous efforts. In his acting Chaplin slowed his pace a bit, depending more on subtle pantomime. He experimented with new effects or renovated his old tricks by original twists. The two-reelers of this period cost from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred dollars each. In the Keystones, in keeping with the Sennett style, much of the comedy depended on fantastic practical jokes, incongruities, collapses of dignity, the furious chase, and the varied properties of slapstick. In his Es