About 1,500 people and I celebrated the centennial of Charlie Chaplin's first day on set as "the tramp" with a huge event at the Castro Theater. The San Francisco Silent Film Festival screened The Kid, Chaplin's moving comedy/drama co-starring little Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester/Addams Family). As arranged by contract with the Chaplin family, the film was screened with his own score and performed by the SF Chamber Orchestra with Timothy Brock. We were also treated to the first tramp-short, Kid Auto Races, which was filmed on January 11th, 2014. Chaplin historian Jeffrey Vance introduced the evening with hilarious insights, and put to rest a common myth that Charlie once secretly entered a look-alike contest- and lost. We held a competition yesterday with Chaplins of all ages and I lost my heart to a tramp named Susan. Although I had seen both movies before, the large-screen experience was like seeing them for the first time. So much of the human quality and emotional impact of a film is translated through the cinematography- and in this case, size really does matter. The print was lush and gorgeous, and Brock led the orchestra in a seamless performance with the images. I'm hoping we'll see The Kid appear on Criterion's list of upcoming Blu-ray editions. Chaplin fled the US during the McCarthy era and moved to Switzerland. He sold off his shares of United Artists (a company he co-founded), and spent the last 20 years of his life making new pictures, organizing his legacy for future distribution, and raising his large family with Oona O'Neill (daughter of Eugene O'Neill). He released a romantic comedy in the 1960s called A Countess From Hong Kong (1967/Sophia Loren, Marlon Brando, Tippi Hedren). It was his first technicolor widescreen movie and sadly a box-office disappointment. Chaplin visited the US in 1972 for an honorary Oscar, where he was moved to tears by a twelve-minute standing ovation. Below is a limited-edition Castro event poster designed by artist Wayne Shellabarger. If you want to see silent movies with a spy-vibe, check out Fantomas, Judex, and Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade and the excellent Spies by Fritz Lang.
Recent Spy Vibe posts: Batman 66 Stories, David Bowie at 67, Kevin Dart talks Ringo & Powerpuff Girls, Sherlock Exhibit, Fu Manchu history panel, Andy Warhol box set, Six-Million Dollar Man, Striped Light Nude, Buckminster Fuller, Dylan at Newport, Jane and Serge, The Goldfinger Variations, Mod Tales Interview, Pete Seeger nominated for Grammy,Kraftwerk returns to US, Beatles BBC on Fresh Air, Steranko S.H.I.E.L.D. Artist Editions, David Tennant's Ian Fleming audio books, Atomic Art, Modern Architecture LP, Julius Shulman, Shane Glines Batman, The Prisoner and Captain Scarlet, Diego Fortunato and Verner Panton, Saturday Morning Cartoons, Assassination Bureau on DVD, new Young Bond series, new Hercule Poirot novel, Early Beatles image archive, Julie Newmar, Erno Goldfinger, Hitchcock tribute.
Recent Ian Fleming posts on Spy Vibe: Ian Fleming Letters, Erno Goldfinger, Ian Fleming Music Series links: Noel Coward, Whispering Jack Smith, Hawaiian Guitar, Joe Fingers Carr, new Ian Fleming Catalog, Jon Gilbert interview, Double 007 Designs, Bond audio book reissues, discovery of one of Ian Fleming's WWII Commandos, James Bond book covers, Ian Fleming's Playboy interview for Kindle, Spy Vibe's discovery of a rare Ian Fleming serialization, rare View to a Kill, Fleming's Royal gold typewriter, Ian Fleming's memorial address, Spy Vibe's Ian Fleming image archive.