The Search for Charlie Chaplin [Paperback]

Kevin Brownlow (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1905796242 | ISBN-13: 978-1905796243 | Publication Date: April 13, 2010

In the world of film collecting, the claim "find of the century" may sound an unpardonable exaggeration. But what discovery can equal it?1 Collectors had hailed the discovery of the occasional lost Keystone comedy in which Chaplin played, but nobody had the slightest idea that somewhere in England, somewhere in France, and somewhere in the United States lay three separate treasure troves of silent film which would, for the first time, reveal the working methods of the greatest single figure of the cinema. It was a treasure hunt involving innocence and guile, accident and coincidence. A treasure hunt which took us to Switzerland, France and the United States. The treasure, when it was uncovered, revealed information as precious as the film itself. From the material, we compiled a television series called Unknown Chaplin, three hour-long documentaries produced for Thames Television. Apart from the experience of making the series, we learned so much about Chaplin we could not squeeze into the commentary we decided to preserve it in the form of a book.

Product Details

• Paperback: 222 pages
• Publisher: UKA Press (April 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1905796242
• ISBN-13: 978-1905796243
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,040,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Silent Film Archeology at its Finest, September 1, 2010

By 

Lon Davis "Author" (Eugene, OR) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Search for Charlie Chaplin (Paperback)

The Search for Charlie Chaplin tells the story behind the brilliant, award-winning three-part documentary, Unknown Chaplin (Photoplay Productions, Ltd., 1983). Comprised entirely of never-before-screened footage from Chaplin's silent films (1916 to 1931), the program is a revelation--especially for a seasoned film collector like myself. One iconic scene from the Mutual two-reeler, The Pawnshop, wherein Chaplin exercises his improvisational genius using several everyday props, including a hammer, is as familiar to me as anything I have ever seen on a screen. So when Chaplin dropped that same hammer in one outtake, I almost jumped--the effect was that startling. Now, with the DVD of Unknown Chaplin readily available, I have viewed that episode so many times that when I see the original version of The Pawnshop, it almost seems wrong when he doesn't drop it.

Just how the documtentarians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill came upon that amazing footage, and what metaphorical hoops they had to jump through in order to get their living subjects to tell their Chaplin-related memories on camera, is nothing short of incredible. Kevin Brownlow's first-hand narrative (which is as honest as it is compelling) has only heightened my appreciation of the completed documentary. Accompanying the text are some rare photographs and razor-sharp frame blow-ups. The slim, 209-page volume does not waste the reader's time with endless details of Chaplin's life and career, all of which have been exhaustively covered in over 300 previous books. Instead, the material is fresh, candid--and fascinating.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable, Lots of Great Information, But Could Have Been Better, November 18, 2010

By 

Paul Carpenter "Paul C." (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Search for Charlie Chaplin (Paperback)

The story behind the quest of Kevin Brownlow and the late David Gill to do service to the incredible unseen Chaplin material which came to their attention in the late 1970's is one of the more remarkable tales of cinema scholarship. The 1981 "Unknown Chaplin" series that resulted from this effort is also completely remarkable, one of the essential documentaries ever made on films, and a milestone in rehabilitating Chaplin's tarnished post-1960's artistic reputation.

Brownlow's book does fine service to recounting this effort - the difficulties over copyrights, the rich personalities involved in the story (particularly Chaplin's fierce secretary, Rachel Ford), and the considerable, sometimes comical obstacles overcome in the process. The story of Chaplin's near-obsessive attention to a single pivotal scene in his 1931 film "City Lights", which is retold in both the documentary and this book, is a great parallel to Brownlow and Gill's total devotion to getting the series right.

Brownlow gave an excellent but abbreviated on-camera account of the back story in the 2003 DVD release of "Unknown Chaplin", and this book (which appears to have been mostly written in 1983) fills in most of the details. Being a fan of his seminal books on silent cinema, I couldn't help but be slightly disappointed in the lack of similar polish. It is also hampered by a few narrative gaps, and lacks a truly satisfying conclusion. For example, Brownlow makes the reader genuinely care about the former Chaplin associates and co-stars sought out for interviews (and laudably prints their complete interviews for the first time), but never gives even a simple followup to their lives and deaths after the series was complete. Rachel Ford and Raymond Rohauer come across as quite amazing and colorful, but their lives and fates after the series is never mentioned.

For Chaplin, Brownlow, and silent film scholarship fans, it is without question an essential book. It's just too bad it didn't get Brownlow's full attention or a good editorial reworking - it could have been great.

Congratulations to Brownlow on his 2010 Honorary Oscar. I hope he has many, many years of fruitful preservation and scholarship work ahead.