Name: The Funniest Man in the World
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1969
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks

Cast & Crew

Film Details

Genre

Documentary

Release Date

Jan 1969

Premiere Information

New York opening: 17 Dec 1969

Production Company

Funnyman, Inc.; Polara Organization, Inc.

Distribution Company

Grove Press

Country

United States

Synopsis

A survey of Charles Chaplin's early career, from his impoverished childhood in London, from his beginnings as a child stage actor, through his arrival in the United States in 1910 as a vaudeville performer in Fred Karno's troupe, his discovery in 1913 by Mack Sennett, his film work for Sennett's Keystone Films and later for the Essanay and Mutual companies, his Liberty Bond campaign during World War I with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Jack Dempsey, to the founding of United Artists Corp. in 1919 by Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith, prompting a studio head to remark that "the lunatics are now running the asylum." Included are clips from: Making a Living (1914), Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), Mabel at the Wheel (1914), Caught in a Cabaret (1914), The Masquerader (1914), Dough and Dynamite (1914), His Trysting Place (1914), the feature-length Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), His Prehistoric Past (1914), His New Job (1915), A Night Out (1915), The Tramp (1915), Police (1916), The Count (outtakes, 1916), The Rink (1916), Easy Street (1917), The Immigrant (1917), The Bond (1918), and Triple Trouble (1918), which includes shots from Police , Work (1915), and Life , a never-completed feature begun in 1915. Filmed imitations of Chaplin as well as Chaplin cartoons, comic strips, and song books attest to his universal popularity. [Foreign sources reviewing a shorter version include among the extracted films Between Showers and The Rounders , both released in 1914.]