FILM 1479: THE KID

TRIVIA: For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse.

The production company tried to cheat Charles Chaplin by paying him for this six-reel film what they would ordinarily pay him for a two-reel film, which was about $500,000. Chaplin took the unassembled film out of state until the company agreed to the $1.5 million he was supposed to be paid, plus half the surplus profits on rentals, along with reversion of the film to him after five years on the rental market.

Jackie Coogan, who plays the adorable "Kid," grew up to be the extremely weird "Uncle Fester" on the beloved '60s sitcom The Addams Family (1964).

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second, or third, generation (or more) copies of the film.

FILM 1290: THE GOLD RUSH

TRIVIA: The "dancing rolls" sequence was so popular with audiences that, in some cases (such as the film's Berlin premiere), projectionists stopped the film and replayed the scene.

The scene where The Lone Prospector and Big Jim have a boot for supper took three days and 63 takes to suit director Charles Chaplin. The boot was made of licorice, and Chaplin was later rushed to a hospital suffering insulin shock. The boot was made by the firm of Hillaby's in Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England; Pontefract is famous for growing licorice and making it into "Pomfret [Pontefract] Cakes".

The movie's poster was as #13 of "The 25 Best Movie Posters Ever" by Premiere.

Originally a stagehand wore the chicken suit from Jim's hallucination. But when he couldn't mime Charles Chaplin's walk and manners, Chaplin himself donned the suit.

FILM 1272: CITY LIGHTS

TRIVIA: Orson Welles said that this was his favorite movie of all time.

At the beginning of the film, a town official and a woman dedicating the statue can be heard uttering nondescript words by way of a paper reed mouth instrument. The sounds were made by Charles Chaplin and this was the first time that his voice was heard on film.

When the film opened on 31 January 1931, Albert Einstein joined Charles Chaplin at the theater. When the film opened in England, George Bernard Shaw joined him.

FILM 1199: THE GREAT DICTATOR

TRIVIA: Adolf Hitler banned the film in Germany and in all countries occupied by the Nazis. Curiosity got the best of him, and he had a print brought in through Portugal. History records that he screened it twice, in private, but history did not record his reaction to the film. Charles Chaplin said, "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it." For political reasons in Germany, the ban stayed after the end of WWII until 1958.

Adolf Hitler considered Charles Chaplin to be one of the greatest actors he had ever seen, while Hitler assumed that Chaplin was a Jew.

Charles Chaplin said that had he known the true extent of Nazi atrocities, he "could not have made fun of their homicidal insanity".

Although this movie was banned in all occupied countries by the Nazis, it was screened once to a German audience. In the occupied Balkans, members of a resistance group switched the reels in a military cinema and replaced a comedic opera with a copy of this film, which they had smuggled in from Greece. So a group of German soldiers enjoyed a screening of this film until they realized what it was. Some left the cinema and some were reported to have fired shots at the screen.

Released 13 years after the end of the silent era, this was Charles Chaplin's first all-talking, all-sound film.