Chaplin Speculation #5,879

I happened to see some issues of the old movie trade magazine
MOTOGRAPHY recently. Inside an issue from April 1915 is the usual
two-color full-page ad from Essanay, and in the center of that ad is an
announcement that Charlie Chaplin would soon begin appearing in 4-reel
and 5-reel films.

Evidently this was when he began working on his LIFE project. We've
all heard that Chaplin moved away from Niles in the spring of 1915
because he didn't like living up there. But maybe Essanay moved him
down to L.A., and rented him a studio of his own, to facilitate the
production of these features. Then, after he batted out BY THE SEA, the
studio must have felt it could make more money with half a dozen shorts
than it could with two or three features, and told him to keep doing
shorts exclusively.

Just guessing...



--Shush--

"Shush" (shushfilmseznospam@yahoo.com) writes:
> I happened to see some issues of the old movie trade magazine
> MOTOGRAPHY recently. Inside an issue from April 1915 is the usual
> two-color full-page ad from Essanay, and in the center of that ad is an
> announcement that Charlie Chaplin would soon begin appearing in 4-reel
> and 5-reel films.
>
> Evidently this was when he began working on his LIFE project. We've
> all heard that Chaplin moved away from Niles in the spring of 1915
> because he didn't like living up there. But maybe Essanay moved him
> down to L.A., and rented him a studio of his own, to facilitate the
> production of these features. Then, after he batted out BY THE SEA, the
> studio must have felt it could make more money with half a dozen shorts
> than it could with two or three features, and told him to keep doing
> shorts exclusively.
>
> Just guessing...
>
>
>
> --Shush--

The situation is complicated by the fact that they doubled the length of
_Burlesque on Carmine_. When I talked to Bo Berglund (sp?), he mused that
it was odd that Essanay would cut _Police_ down, since at that time they
seemed to be interested in releasing longer films.

It's too bad we don't have the records of that company, not only because
they might clarify what was done with _Police_, but also because they might
tell us what Essanay's plans were, if they changed, why they changed, etc.
The break between Spoor and Anderson suggests that there were internal
divisions which may never have been resolved.

Connie K.