Edna Purviance Movies

A video compilation of cutting-room-floor footage from the works of Charles Chaplin. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. narrates. ~ Rovi

This film is comprised of extracts from several Charlie Chaplin silent shorts made around 1915, including The Bank, His New Job, The Tramp, The Champion, and A Night in the Show. The clips are edited together into a loose storyline. Michael Howard narrates. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In the final film of his First National contract (an early working title was The Tail End), Charlie Chaplin spoofs small-town life and morality. Chaplin is an escaped convict who steals the clothes of a swimming minister. At the railroad station he nearly gives himself away by guiltily running away from an eloping couple who want him to perform an impromptu wedding. He boards a train and travels to a small town, Devil's Gulch, Texas, where he is welcomed by his congregation, who have never met the new reverend they've been expecting. He meets the townsfolk and is enchanted by Edna Purviance, in whose house he will be boarding. Chaplin arrives just in time for church services and on the way he picks a liquor bottle from the pocket of a large Deacon, only to have it break when they both slip on a banana peel. The Deacon thinks that the spilled whisky has come from his pocket. The plucky fugitive goes along with the ruse and after seeing to the church collection, pitting one side of the congregation against the other in competition to see who contributes the most, he gives a wonderful sermon in pantomime -- the story of David and Goliath. His story is so effective that a young boy breaks into wild applause which Chaplin acknowledges with the aplomb of a seasoned theatrical.

At the home of Purviance and her Mother, his impersonation is severely tested by a visit from a couple with a mischievous child, Dinky Dean Riesner. (In later recollections Riesner tells of how he had to be cajoled into punching and slapping his "Uncles" Charlie and Syd, something abhorrent to him in real life). A stroll with Purviance through town brings him face to face with a former cellmate, who is invited home for tea by the unsuspecting Purviance. During the visit he observes the hiding place of Mother's mortgage money and Chaplin valiantly but unsuccessfully tries to prevent the crook from stealing it. When the thief escapes, Chaplin gives chase, but the sheriff, by now aware of Chaplin's identity as an escapee, causes everyone to believe that the two are in league. Chaplin however, overpowers the crook and returns the money to Purviance. When the Pilgrim's true intentions are revealed, rather than arresting him, the sheriff escorts him to the Mexican border. He orders the fugitive to pick a bouquet of flowers. When Chaplin obeys, the sheriff boots him across the border and takes off, leaving him stranded between warring bandit factions on one side, and arrest as a fugitive on the other, slowly walking into the sunset with one foot in Mexico and the other in the USA. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

The Kid was Charles Chaplin's first self-produced and directed feature film; 1914's 6-reel Tillie's Punctured Romance was a Mack Sennett production in which Chaplin merely co-starred.

The story "with a smile and perhaps a tear," begins with unwed mother Edna Purviance leaving the Charity Hospital, babe in arms. Her burden is illustrated with a title card showing Christ bearing the cross. The father of the child is a poor artist who cares little for of his former lover, carelessly knocking her photo into his garret fireplace and cooly returning it there when he sees it is too badly damaged to keep. The mother sorrowfully leaves her baby in the back seat of a millionaire's limousine, with a note imploring whoever finds it to care for and love the child. But thieves steal the limo, and, upon discovering the baby, ditch the tot in an alleyway trash can. Enter Chaplin, out for his morning stroll, carefully selecting a choice cigarette butt from his well used tin. He stumbles upon the squalling infant and, after trying to palm it off on a lady with another baby in a carriage, decides to adopt the kid himself. Meanwhile Purviance has relented, but when she returns to the mansion and is told that the car has been stolen, she collapses in despair. Chaplin outfits his flat for the baby as best he can, using an old coffee pot with a nipple on the spout as a baby bottle and a cane chair with the seat cut out as a potty seat. Chaplin's attic apartment is a representation of the garret he had shared with his mother and brother in London, just as the slum neighborhood is a recreation of the ones he knew as a boy.

Five years later, Chaplin has become a glazier, while his adopted son (the remarkable Jackie Coogan) drums up business for his old man by cheerfully breaking windows in the neighborhood. Purviance meanwhile has become a world famous opera singer, still haunted by the memory of her child, who does charity work in the very slums in which he now lives. Ironically, she gives a toy dog to little Coogan. Chaplin and Coogan's close calls with the law and fights with street toughs are easily overcome, but when Coogan falls ill, the attending doctor learns of the illegal adoption and summons the Orphan Asylum social workers who try to separate Chaplin from his foster son. In one of the most moving scenes in all of Chaplin's films, Chaplin and Coogan try to fight the officials, but Chaplin is subdued by the cop they have summoned. Coogan is roughly thrown into the back of the Asylum van, pleading to the welfare official and to God not to be separated from his father. Chaplin, freeing himself from the cop, pursues the orphanage van over the rooftops and, descending into the back of the truck, dispatches the official and tearfully reunites with his "son". Returning to check on the sick boy, Purviance encounters the doctor and is shown the note which she had attached to her baby five years earlier. Chaplin and Coogan, not daring to return home, settle in a flophouse for the night. The proprietor sees a newspaper ad offering a reward for Coogan's return and kidnaps the sleeping boy. After hunting fruitlessly, a grieving Chaplin falls asleep on his tenement doorstep and dreams that he has been reunited with the boy in Heaven (that "flirtatious angel" is Lita Grey, later Chaplin's second wife). Woken from his dream by the cop, he is taken via limousine to Purviance's mansion where he is welcomed by Coogan and Purviance, presumably to stay.

Chaplin had difficulties getting The Kid produced. His inspiration, it is suggested was the death of his own first son, Norman Spencer Chaplin a few days after birth in 1919. His determination to make a serio-comic feature was challenged by First National who preferred two reel films, which were more quickly produced and released. Chaplin wisely gained his distributors' approval by inviting them to the studio, where he trotted out the delightful Coogan to entertain them. Chaplin's divorce case from his first wife Mildred Harris also played a part; fearing seizure of the negatives Chaplin and crew escaped to Salt Lake City and later to New York to complete the editing of the film. Chaplin's excellent and moving score for The Kid was composed in 1971 for a theatrical re-release, but used themes that Chaplin had composed in 1921. Chaplin re-edited the film somewhat for the re-release, cutting scenes that he felt were overly sentimental, such as Purviance's observing of a May-December wedding and her portrayal as a saint, outlined by a church's stained glass window. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

Charlie Chaplin's third film in his First National contract is a simple story of country life, an idyll, which contains two separate dream sequences, a characteristic Chaplin story device. Charlie is a farm hand and general factotum at a combination farm, general store and hotel. His boss, Tom Wilson, drives him hard, waking him early to prepare breakfast while he sleeps in. Charlie has devised some labor-saving techniques, such as sitting a chicken on the frying pan so she can lay an egg in it, or milking the cow directly into the coffee cups. After Sunday breakfast, the boss goes off to church along with most of the town, while Charlie must tend to the cows. Charlie, reading the Bible, loses the herd as they stroll peacefully up a country road. He finds them in town and must shoo them out of various buildings. When the whole parish comes running out of the church, Charlie enters heroically and comes out riding the bull, which eventually dumps him in a stream below a wooden bridge.

Unconscious, Charlie dreams of dancing through the meadows with four lovely wood nymphs, in a scene of balletic grace and humor. Awakened at the bottom of the stream, he's pulled out by four men including his boss, who kicks him all the way home. Sunday afternoon is Charlie's time for visiting his girl, Edna Purviance, bringing her flowers and a ring. Their romantic tryst is hampered by her mischievous teenage brother, until Charlie sends him out to play blindman's bluff in traffic. Then Edna's father (Henry Bergman) interrupts their musical interlude at the pump organ, ordering Charlie away. Back at the store/hotel Charlie is again scolded for being late. A traffic accident outside brings a new visitor, a "city slicker" who is injured and must stay at the hotel. He's attended to by a horse doctor and shown to his room by Charlie, who later sits down to rest. Later, the slicker is preparing to leave when Edna enters the store and attracts the handsome visitor who follows her out of the store.

Worried by the competition, Charlie eventually arrives at Edna's, observing through a window his rival's fashionable ways -- the spats on his shoes, the handkerchief up his sleeve and the cigarette lighter in the handle of his walking stick. Seeing that he's losing Edna, Charlie returns home and tries to emulate his rival by putting old socks over the tops of his shoes and rigging a match to the end of a stick. When he visits Edna she rejects him, giving back his ring. Despondent, Charlie walks out to the street and stands in the way of an approaching car. The impact he feels, however, is from the boot of his boss as he awakens Charlie from his second reverie. The guest is really leaving this time, and when Edna enters the store, she gives the slicker's advances the cold shoulder as Charlie proclaims his devotion to her. He helps the slicker load his baggage into the car and receives a tip. Charlie and Edna celebrate his departure with a loving hug, as the camera irises in. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

This short promotional film Charlie Chaplin made for the U.S. Liberty Loan bond campaign was shot in a few days during the shooting of Shoulder Arms. Using rather stark, expressionistic sets and props, it tells the story of the various types of bonds between people. The bond of friendship, shows Chaplin meeting friend Albert Austin who tells him jokes, borrows money, then invites him for a drink with the money he's borrowed. The bond of love is represented by Charlie and Edna, who are struck by cupid's arrows and soon enter into the bond of matrimony. But the "most important of all" is the Liberty Bond. Edna is Miss Liberty, threatened by the Kaiser who has subdued a soldier in uniform. Charlie is seen buying bonds from Uncle Sam who gives the money in turn to a worker, who gives guns to a soldier and sailor. Finally, Charlie KOs the Kaiser with a mallet inscribed "Liberty Bonds" and extorts the audience to help the cause. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

A Dog's Life was Charlie Chaplin's initial release for First National Studios, and also his first three-reeler. Chaplin plays a tramp (duh!), who shambles around the cold, cruel world with his dog Scraps. Unable to land a job, Charlie and Scraps cadge a meal from lunchwagon proprietor Syd Chaplin (Charlie's brother). Things take a turn for the better when Charlie befriends down-and-out singer Edna Purviance. After routing a gang of crooks, Charlie and Edna head down the road "Where Dreams Come True" for a deliberately improbable happy ending. Together with Shoulder Arms and The Idle Class, A Dog's Life is one of the best examples of Chaplin's wildly uneven First National output. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Adventurer was Charlie Chaplin's last film in his contract for Lone Star/Mutual, and it is the fastest paced, with its opening and closing chases which are the apotheosis of the Keystone-style rally. It begins with a manhunt filmed on the coast near Santa Monica, California. (During the filming Chaplin rescued a seven-year-old girl from drowning after she had been swept into the waters from a rock as she watched). The police are after an escaped convict (Chaplin) who appears out of the sand beside a resting prison guard (Frank J. Coleman). Soon five guards are chasing Charlie over and through the hills and crags of the rough seacoast. The chase ends with Charlie taking to the ocean where he steals a swimsuit from a boater.

Meanwhile Edna Purviance and her suitor Eric Campbell are lunching at a seaside cafe and hear the cries of Edna's mother who has fallen off the pier into the ocean. Edna begs Eric to jump in and rescue her, but he refuses to risk his life and instead can only stand on the pier and cry for help. Edna bravely jumps in, but is no better a swimmer and is soon also yelling for rescue. As Eric yells from the pier, a swarthy seaman standing next to him yells along, and in the process breaks the railing, plunging them both in the drink. Charlie has meanwhile swum to shore but hearing the cries for help, he swims to the pier where mother, daughter and Eric are all treading water. The Little Fellow swims agilely between the three, deciding who to save first. He rescues Edna, who sends him down again for her mother and then for Eric, whom Charlie tows along to the pier by his beard. The ladies' chauffeur (played by Chaplin's own chauffeur, secretary and valet Toraichi Kono) aids in helping the ladies to their limousine, where Charlie explains that he heard their cries "from my yacht." When Eric is accidentally dumped back into the sea by Charlie, he foils Charlie's second rescue by kicking him off the ladder to the pier. At Edna's orders, Kono discovers the unconscious Charlie and carries him to the car.

Waking in a strange bed with bars on the headboard and dressed in someone else's striped pajamas, Charlie thinks he's back in prison until the butler enters with clothes for him. A party is under way in the household. The hero of the day introduces himself as Commodore Slick and meets Edna's father, Judge Brown, who eyes him suspiciously. Charlie is very interested in Edna, but also in all the free drinks. His rivalry with Eric soon escalates into covert kicking and seltzer squirting, until Eric finds Charlie's picture in a newspaper article about his escape. Before Eric can bring the article to Judge Brown's attention, Charlie cleverly draws Campbell's beard on the photo, allaying the judge's suspicions. Not to be denied, Campbell calls the authorities. Meanwhile Charlie samples the pleasures of the house, dancing with Edna and eating ice cream on a veranda. In a classic bit of pantomime, when Charlie accidentally drops his lump of ice cream down his pants front, we can trace the exact position of the freezing lump just by watching Chaplin's face. When the guards arrive, a marvellous chase sequence begins, upstairs and down, during which Charlie eludes capture. Jumping down from the balcony, one of the guards grabs Charlie who has paused to apologize to Edna for his deception. When the guard loosens his hold to shake hands with Edna, Charlie takes to his heels again as the picture ends.

This last of Chaplin's 12 short masterpieces marked the end of Chaplin's most intensively creative period. "Fulfilling the Mutual Contract, I suppose, was the happiest period of my career, he wrote. "I was light and unencumbered, 27-years old, with fabulous prospects and a friendly, glamorous world before me. Within a short time I would be a millionaire. It all seemed slightly mad." Eric Campbell, who holds a special place in the Chaplin lexicon, appeared in only 11 Chaplin films. He was tragically killed in an auto accident in December, 1917 at age 37. Chaplin tried and failed to replace Campbell. He instead changed his approach to the villain in his films, later to be supplanted by aspects of society at large. Chaplin's David was never the same without his true Goliath. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

In Charlie Chaplin's 10th film in his series for Lone Star/Mutual, and one of the funniest, he plays a gentleman of means who is at a health spa to take the cure, presumably for his alcoholism. His costume is somewhat different from that of his classic Tramp's: he wears a light-colored jacket and a straw boater. The baggy pants and oversize shoes are there and his derby is in evidence in his trunk. The main feature of the sanatorium is the health-spring well, around which the rich guests sit and take the waters. Charlie is pushed onto the scene in a wheelchair and soon gets caught up in a revolving door, where he traps and incurs the anger of a large, gouty patient, Eric Campbell. Shown to his room by an attendant, he is present when his trunk is delivered and he checks the contents for damage -- bottle upon bottle of liquor, which astonishes the elderly bellhop who delivers it.

Taken down to the well again he's cajoled by another attendant (Albert Austin) and a pretty nurse to try the waters, resulting in his immediate departure to his room for a drink. The bellhop has obviously been into the trunk, and Charlie ejects the old fellow. He makes his way downstairs where he encounters a beautiful fellow visitor (Edna Purviance), rescuing her from the advances of the amorous Campbell, almost getting himself thrown off the premises. Edna steps in to rescue him, refuting Campbell's protestations to the manager. Charlie is brought to the steam room/gymnasium, where a huge masseur, Henry Bergman, terrifies him as he works on a rubbery fellow-patient (actually a contortionist Chaplin hired for the part). He escapes damage himself as he mock-wrestles with the burly masseur and his assistant and pushes everyone, including Campbell, into the pool.

Meanwhile the manager searches Charlie's room, and, finding the trunk full of liquor and the drunk bellhop in the bed, orders all the liquor thrown away. This is done by the now equally drunk Austin who has obviously been partaking of Charlie's stash. He throws the bottles out the window and into the health spa well. Now sober, Charlie departs the gym, but in the lobby there's a party going on -- the waters have had "a strange effect" and everyone but Charlie and Edna are drunk. Charlie rescues Edna again from the clutches of two aggressive drunks, and the two repair to the well to escape the festivities. Edna urges Charlie to drink from the spring to keep sober for her sake. Eagerly downing jug after glass of the spiked waters transforms Charlie, and he begins to chase Edna too, but he gets caught up in the revolving door and ends up revolving his way all the way to the gym and into the pool. The next morning the hangover reigns supreme over all the guests. Edna apologizes to Charlie for making him drink the water that was full of liquor, and at her entreaty, Charlie promises not to sample the waters again. The two walk off confidently, arm in arm, until Charlie steps into the well, bobbing up and down as the film fades out. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

Charlie Chaplin's sixth film for the Mutual Film Corporation is a marvel of sight gags, comic transformations and brilliant pantomime. Charlie plays an assistant in a pawnshop, where he arrives late for work and is scolded by the portly Pawnbroker, played by Henry Bergman in his first role in a Chaplin film. Bergman was to go on to play in most of the Chaplin films through Modern Times, also filling the roles of Assistant Director, gagman and confidant. Charlie annoys his rival employee (John Rand) with his dusting and a series of conflicts between them arise. They must go outside and clean the store front, and Charlie, trapping Rand between the rungs of a ladder, performs a ballet-like boxing scene, striking his helpless opponent until a cop arrives on the scene, whereupon Charlie's movements become the most graceful of dances. Back inside the shop, their fight escalates until the Pawnbroker enters and angrily discharges Charlie. The little fellow's heart-breaking pleas for forgiveness, during which he mimes that he has many children ranging in height from about two to seven feet, cause the boss to relent. Alone again, Charlie renews his attack on Rand with vigor, but just as he's about to deliver the coup de grace, Edna Purviance, the boss' daughter, enters from the back room curious as to the commotion. Charlie swiftly lays down on the floor and Edna scolds the near-unconscious Rand for striking "a mere child," patting Charlie's cheek as he admires her figure. She takes him into the kitchen and gives him a doughnut, which Chaplin's wonderful pantomime ability makes us believe weighs 20 pounds, as he exercises with it as if it were a dumbbell. When Rand enters, the fight resumes, but hearing the racket the boss comes in and Charlie quickly resumes his role as baker then goes to the safe to retrieve his lunch. Manning the shop Charlie encounters three customers, the first an old actor wanting to pawn his late wife's ring for five dollars. His histrionics touch Charlie deeply. He gives the bereaved man 10 dollars from the till and the ring back as well. When the man offers to gives Charlie change and pulls out huge wad of bills, Charlie knows he's been had. Meanwhile, another customer arrives wishing to pawn an alarm clock. In a long, brilliant scene of comic transformations, better seen than described, Charlie becomes surgeon, jeweller, ribbon clerk and mechanic as he dismantles and destroys the clock to the total amazement of the customer, Albert Austin. Gathering the detritus of the ruined timepiece and sweeping them into Austin's derby, Charlie rejects the item, sending the protesting customer packing with a blow from a rubber hammer. His next customer is a lady with a bowl of goldfish, which Charlie tests for authenticity by pouring muriatic acid (the famous "acid test") into the bowl. The boss emerges and he sends the lady away. Meanwhile Charlie and Rand are at it again, and a flying wad of dough catches both boss and crook in the face. The boss chases Charlie from the kitchen, whereupon Charlie hides in a trunk to avoid punishment. Just then the crook emerges from the safe, gun drawn, stolen diamonds under his arm and holds the others at bay. Charlie heroically emerges from the trunk, and in balletic movements, smashes the crook over the head, embraces Edna, receives a pat on the back from the boss and delivers one final back kick to his rival. ~ Phil Posner, Rovi

Charlie Chaplin's 2-reel laugh parade The Rink was based on "Skating," a sketch Chaplin had previously performed while a member of the Fred Karno stage troupe. Chaplin plays a waiter who determines what his customers have had for dinner by checking the food spots on their clothes. After quitting time, Chaplin repairs to the ice skating rink, where his skill and grace catches the eye of pretty socialite Edna Purviance. She invites him to a soiree, where he runs afoul of massive Eric Campbell for the third time that day. A melee results, whereupon Chaplin hooks a passing auto with his cane and makes his escape. The Rink was the eighth of Chaplin's "golden dozen" short subjects filmed during his stay at Mutual Studios. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The second of Charles Chaplin's Mutual two-reelers, The Fireman is virtually wall-to-wall slapstick. Chaplin is an earnest but inept member of a ramshackle small town fire department. His boss, Eric Campbell, has entered into an unhanded deal with the wealthy father of heroine Edna Purviance; the father plans to burn down his house for the insurance and split the settlement with Campbell, provided that the latter does not attempt to extinguish the blaze. Chaplin, of course, knows nothing about this set-up, and when the house catches fire, he rushes to the rescue. And a darn good thing too: Purviance, also unaware of her dad's machinations, is in the house at the time it is torched. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi