Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, John Ford, and many other forward-thinking film directors were held up in admiration while standard Hollywood films bound by traditional narrative flow were strongly criticized.

Chaplin disliked unconventional camera angles and only used close-ups to highlight an emotional scene, and usually preferred to employ a static, " stage-like " camera setting where the scenes were portrayed as if set on a stage.

Chaplin's stock company at Essanay included Ben Turpin, who disliked working with the meticulous Chaplin and only appeared with him in a couple of films ; ingenue Edna Purviance, who became his off-screen sweetheart as well ; Leo White, almost always playing a fussy continental villain ; and all-purpose authority figures Bud Jamison and John Rand.

Chaplin disliked the unpredictable weather of Chicago, and left after only one year for more money and more creative control elsewhere.

In fact Clark did not wish to record the song in English as she disliked the deliberately old fashioned lyrics which Chaplin refused to modify ; however after the translated versions of the song had been recorded there happened to be some time remaining on the session which Burke coaxed Clark to use to record Chaplin's lyrics.

Having satisfied his First National contract, Chaplin was free to make his first picture for United Artists.

Chaplin intended it as a star-making vehicle for Edna Purviance, and did not appear in the picture himself other than in a brief, uncredited cameo.

With Georgia Hale his new leading lady, Chaplin began filming the picture in February 1924.

Chaplin finished editing the picture in December 1930, by which time silent films were an anachronism.

City Lights had been a success, but Chaplin was unsure if he could make another picture without dialogue.

" To mollify Avedon, Chaplin assured the photographer of his authenticity and added the comment, " If you want to take my picture, you'd better do it now.

Chaplin decided to record the runthrough in case anything was usable, and " by dumb luck we had managed to catch every movement, and that was the first and only ' take ' made of the scene, the one used in the finished picture ".

D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin ( seated ) and Douglas Fairbanks at the signing of the contract establishing United Artists motion picture studio in 1919.

In 1914 the motion picture Kid Auto Races at Venice starring Charlie Chaplin was shown in the cinemas.

Normand is played by actress Marisa Tomei in the 1992 film Chaplin, by Morganne Picard in the motion picture Return to Babylon ( 2008 ), and by Penelope Lagos in the first bio-pic about her life, a 35-minute dramatic short film entitled Madcap Mabel ( 2010 ).

This rare shot showed him surrounded by fellow band members including Bruce Johnston ( in his final group picture ), but not with either Ricky Fataar or Blondie Chaplin, both of whom are credited on the final album cover.

Granlund was also first to introduce trailer material for an upcoming motion picture, using a slide technique to promote an upcoming film featuring Charlie Chaplin at Loew's Seventh Avenue Theatre in Harlem in 1914.

Kid Auto Races At Venice is a 1914 American-made motion picture starring Charlie Chaplin in which his " Little Tramp " character makes his first appearance.

Even contemporary critics were muted in their enthusiasm, as evidenced by this mixed review from the December 8, 1919 New York Times :" Charlie Chaplin is screamingly funny in his latest picture, A Day's Pleasure, at the Strand, when he tries in vain to solve the mysteries of a collapsible deck chair.

A few of the notable earlier residents of Wilshire Park include popular star of the silent movie era Mildred Harris ( who became notorious as the 16-year-old child bride of Charles Chaplin ), headline-making Ziegfeld beauty and screen actress Helen Lee Worthing who appeared with John Barrymore in the film Don Juan, motion picture star Tom Mix, an executive secretary to 29th U. S. President Warren G. Harding, a CEO of finance for the City of Los Angeles, the director of the Los Angeles County Hospital, the performer Ziegfeld Follies, RKO Studios dance director / choreographer Pearl Eaton, and motion picture director and an Academy Awards co-founder, Henry King.

`` Behind that Charlie Chaplin moustache and that truant lock of hair that always covered his forehead, behind the tirades and the sulky silences, the passionate orations and the occasional dull evasive stare, behind the prejudices, the cynicism, the total amorality of behavior, behind even the tendency to great strategic mistakes, there lay a statesman of no mean qualities: Shrewd, calculating, in many ways realistic, endowed -- like Stalin -- with considerable powers of dissimulation, capable of playing his cards very close to his chest when he so desired, yet bold and resolute in his decisions, and possessing one gift Stalin did not possess: The ability to rouse men to fever pitch of personal devotion and enthusiasm by the power of the spoken word ''.

Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era.

Chaplin proceeded to direct every short film in which he appeared for Keystone, approximately one per week, which he remembered as the most exciting time of his career.

Chaplin was unimpressed with the conditions there, and after making one film ( His New Job, released 1 February 1915 ), moved to the company's small studio in Niles, California.

A contract was negotiated with Mutual that amounted to $ 670, 000 a year, making Chaplin — at 26 years old — one of the highest paid people in the world.

" Following its completion, Chaplin embarked on the Third Liberty Bond campaign, touring the United States for one month to raise money for the Allies of World War One.

This is one reason why Chaplin took so much longer to complete his films than most other filmmakers at the time.

Due to his complete independence as a filmmaker, Chaplin has been identified by Andrew Sarris as one of the first auteur filmmakers.

Chaplin is also one of the central characters in Glen David Gold's novel Sunnyside, which is set in the World War I period.

Chaplin also received three Academy Awards, one competitive award for Best Original Score, and two Honorary Awards, and was nominated for three more:

The comedian Charlie Chaplin was one of the last silent film hold-outs, and his films during the 1930s were devoid of dialogue, although they did employ sound effects.

Considered to be one of the most important actors in American cinema, Brando was one of only three professional actors, along with Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe, named by Time magazine as one of its 100 Persons of the Century in 1999.

" Isou was upset with this, his own attitude being that Chaplin deserved respect as one of the great creators of the cinematic art.

She appeared as Mistress Quickly in Orson Welles ' film Chimes at Midnight ( 1965 ) and was directed by Charlie Chaplin in A Countess from Hong Kong ( 1967 ), starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, which was one of her final films.

Chaplin prepared the story throughout 1938 and 1939, and began filming in September 1939, one week after the beginning of World War II.

During the filming of one scene Cherrill asked Chaplin if she could leave early so that she could go to a hair appointment.

In July and August Chaplin finished up six weeks of smaller scenes for the film, including the two scenes of the Tramp being harrassed by newsboys, one of which was played by a young

In a Charlie Chaplin documentary, Allen admitted he was inspired by the ending in which the blind girl has regained her sight after an operation and finds out that the Tramp is the one who has been helping her and the poignant smile he flashed as his response.

The reference to drugs seen in the prison sequence is somewhat daring for the time ( since the production code, established in 1930, forbade the depiction of illegal drug use in films ); Chaplin had made drug references before in one of his most famous short films, Easy Street, released in 1917.

Set designer Danny Hall sketched out Chaplin's early ideas for the film, with Chaplin returning to one of his older films, The Vagabond ( 1916 ), and drawing upon similar story ideas and themes for The Circus.

Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era.