Chaplin Comedy Begins a Second Hundred Years

Here's a Posed Still From The Films Of Charlie Chaplin Book. My Query Then ...
How Many Actual Stills Were Taken For This Short, and How Many Survive? 

Charlie's First Film Released A Century Ago

I once had Civil War pajamas issued for the centennial of that 1860's hostility, and now comes 100th year since Chaplin began nickel route to mythic place in movies. Is there nightwear to commemorate that? Thing is, it's now nearly half that century since I got hold of 1965-published The Films Of Charlie Chaplin, then scrounged $6.28 so I could have Making A Living on Blackhawk 8mm a few years after. This was Chaplin's debut short where he played "the nervy and very nifty sharper," to quote a February 1914 review that appeared in Moving Picture World. For time I spent hovered over that book, I'm sure this was my first exposure to the words "nervy" and "sharper." Does anyone use either anymore? It was worth cutting grass to have CC's very first, images in McDonald, Conway, and Ricci's book having branded my consciousness. I'd like knowing how many 8 and 16mm prints of Making A Living Blackhawk sold in the 60's, as it might indicate the number of hardcore Chaplin fans not around forLiving's 2/2/1914 release, but eager to relive it on home movie screens.

I sat watching at age fifteen and thought, This man is still alive! It had been over fifty years since Making A Living was made, and that, of course, seemed impossibly long to me. And consider how movies had changedbetween 1914 and the late sixties. A Keystone to my adolescent eyes might as well have been shot in ancient Egypt. I was curious how Chaplin would register before (as in mere days) he introduced the Tramp character. Would he be as funny? That answer came in the affirmative both then and just yesterday when I watched Making A Living again. I'm with the Moving Picture World critic for dubbing Charlie "a comedian of the first water, who acts like one of nature's own naturals." He does an opening pantomime of borrowing money from Henry Lehrman, who was also Making A Living's director (and offscreen nemesis to Chaplin). It's a minute and a half continuous take, CC greeting, cajoling, finally begging Lehrman for coin without resort to titles. The business was filmed in front of a residence just behind the Sennett studio on or about 1/5/1914, a site that is now a Jack In The Box restaurant, according to John Bengtson's amazing reconstruction of the century-old event.

Note The Curious Pair Looking On From a Window
 Behind Charlie and Cast of Making A Living

There's a scene later on that Bengtson places in front of the Los Angeles Times building. Charlie encounters a bum on the street and pushes a doorway kid in the face before going in to seek a job. Thanks to splendid DVD clean-up of Making A Living by Flicker Alley and restoring partners, I was able for a first time to spot two guys in a background window observing the comics with great interest. This has become a favorite sport of Keystones for me, what with so many put visually right and disc-available. It's at last possible to see curious faces distracted from routine by clowns suddenly intruding into daily life. These workers at the window, presumably L.A. Times employees stealing moments from work to observe a mad movie crew, may have been the very first civilians to witness a Chaplin performance before cameras. Would either realize in years to come what history was playing out before them?

UPDATE: 2/6/14 --- 5:00 PM: Noted historian Michael Hayde, author of the outstanding recent book, Chaplin's Vintage Year, sent along the above 1914 ad for Making A Living as it played in Buffalo, NY. As the photo demonstrates, the one-time Frontier Theatre, later the Senate, still stands, though many years have passed since it served as a picture-house. Thanks to Michael for this fascinating bit of history.