ICFS & HMATOS present: Chaplin Shorts – The Mutual Years (Collection #2)

One of the most beloved actors of all time, Charlie Chaplin made many of his very best Shorts with Mutual Films from 1916-1917. Proctors is proud to celebrate these wonderful films with two different programs on one of the largest movie screens in the Northeast.

Though Chaplin wrote, directed, edited, produced and starred in all of his work for Mutual (as he did for most of the nearly 75 movies he made during his long, successful career), a dedicated troupe of talented performers formed around him to assist, including terrific leading lady, Edna Purviance, oft-villainous foil, Eric Campbell (who became nearly as famous as Chaplin) and the versatile Henry Bergman. Together their comic tales frequently focused on underdogs unlikely poised to take on authority, privilege or injustice in its various guises.

Providing musical accompaniment for these treasures is—a treasure himself—Carl Hackert, Program Director of the Hudson-Mohawk American Theatre Organ Society and one of New York’s most celebrated theater organists. Hackert’s performance partner for this event will be “George,” a magnificent digital recreation of George Wright’s famous Hollywood Philharmonic recording studio organ!

Not Rated. Each program runs approximately 75 minutes.

Program:

THE VAGABOND (1916; 25 minutes) 
The “Tramp” wanders into the vicinity of a gypsy caravan where he encounters a beautiful, though bedraggled woman (Edna Purviance) and entertains her with his violin. She has been abducted and abused by the gypsies, chief among them the merciless Eric Campbell. Charlie comes to her rescue, yet the intimacy that develops between them—as Charlie washes her face in a bowl and combs her hair—is soon complicated by the arrival of her parents and… a love rival!

THE ADVENTURER (1917; 25 minutes) 
Chaplin plays an escaped convict. He cleverly and athletically eludes recapture on a rocky ocean beach, where he also saves three wealthy people (including Edna Purviance) from drowning. Later, invited to a dinner party, a battle ensues between him and her jealous suitor (Eric Campbell).

BEHIND THE SCREEN (1916; 24 minutes) 
David, a new, inept movie studio stagehand has an abusive supervisor named Goliath (Eric Campbell). Slapstick comedy and pie fights ensue as other stagehands go on strike and a woman (Edna Purviance) who has been unable to find work as an actress, dresses like a man in an attempt to find work at the studio.