Although some critics cite Chaplin for sentimentality in his films, they can't make the same accusations about his autobiography, though he is naturally attached closely to his mother, as his father was a brooding alcoholic vaudevillian who was never around and died at the young age of thirty-seven. His love for his mother permeates the early going, describing her gifts to him from their basement room as illuminations of "the kindliest light this world has ever known, which has endowed literature and the theatre with their greatest and richest themes: love, pity and humanity."

The biggest charms of Chaplin's lively autobiography lie in its richness of detail and intimacy. Detail-oriented throughout his career--note the many months it took to work out a single motif in City Lights--Chaplin shares minute observations even from childhood, including cruel words exchanged between an evangelist and his mother on the eve of his father's death. Doubtless, this episode added to other hypocrisies that convinced Chaplin that the church was no place for him.

Although Chaplin doesn't churn out lurid details, he doesn't shy away from admitting numerous sexual adventures, denoting sojourns with prostitutes and describing unrequited longings, sometimes with just the mere mention of a word like "unfortunately" when describing a romance that wasn't in the cards. Most of the incidents contained in the film Chaplin are fleshed out much more fully in the text, and additional items that are left out.

Naturally, Max Sennett gets a great deal of space, but Chaplin remarkably captures his amiable spirit and chronicles his early days at Keystone. Reading Chaplin's accounts of these days that began with a set camera, formula comedy, and improvisation are primary source material and required reading for anyone interested in the early silent era. To follow Chaplin's career is to illustrate the great movements of early film. Not only does he know all the legends, from Griffith to Arbuckle to Sennett, but he travels an independent path and later wrestles with the transition to the sound era.

Actually, historical insights go far beyond the film industry, since the essentially shy Chaplin became well connected with a variety of influential figures--including William Randolph Hearst, Nijinksy, Igor Stravinsky, and Albert Einstein. One tidbit that fascinated me was his incredibly perceptive description of seven-year-old chess champion Samuel Reshevsky, who visited Chaplin's studio while he filmed The Kid. Having heard about Reshevsky's child prodigy years of playing numerous simultaneous exhibitions and having seen him play in tournaments in his seventies, I find Chaplin's depiction extremely astute: "He had a thin, pale, intense little face with large eyes that stared belligerently when he met people. I had been warned that he was temperamental and that he seldom shook hands with anybody."

The richest parts of the book are still reserved for the people and ideas closest to Chaplin. And those definitely involve his philosophy about film. Chaplin would loathe today's flashy movies that rely on camera trickery and special effects. He likely wouldn't think highly of Hitchcock unless he radically changed his ideas on cinematic artistry. As Chaplin states,

"My own camera setup is based on facilitating choreography for the actor's movements. When a camera is placed on the floor or moves about the player's nostrils, it is the camera that is giving the performance and not the actor. The camera should not obtrude."

Filmography
	Keystone Studios (1914) The thirty-five films that Chaplin made under Max Sennet allowed him to learn the craft of filmmaking and his initial development of the Little Tramp character. This character first emerges in his second film Kid Auto Races at Venice: "I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born."
	Essanay (1915-16) The first films that freed Chaplin from Max Sennett, the Essanay films have the Little Tramp develop his character further as he knocks authority figures around and pursues (and fails to get) the woman of his dreams. Among highlights: The Tramp, By the Sea, and The Bank.
	Mutual Films (1916-17) Termed the happiest time of his career, Chaplin crafted a number of fine short films during this period: One A.M., The Rink, The Cure, The Immigrant, and eight others. Granted a great deal of freedom, Chaplin produced, directed, wrote, edited, and starred in each of these films.
	The Kid (1920) A dedicated teacher with a coke problem develops an unlikely friendship with one of his students in one of the year's most memorable and well acted dramas. Both Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps should take a number of acting awards.
	The Idle Class (1920) Chaplin plays dual roles with humorous mistaken identities when he ventures into a golf resort, where a wealthy wife mistakes the Little Tramp for her alcoholic husband. All goes well for the hero until the mix up is discovered, but this sets up the inevitable fight and chase scene.
	The Gold Rush (1925) The Little Tramp heads to the Klondike to search for fortune, only to eventually be forced to boil and eat his leather shoes. Once again Charlie pursues the woman of his dreams and humorously deals with a number of rough characters along the way. This is the second feature that Chaplin made under his United Film Artists distribution company that he co-founded with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith.
	The Circus (1928) Rarely screened, The Circus contains some of Chaplin's funniest moments despite the horrible off-screen drama during shooting--a messy divorce, a battle with the IRS over back taxes, and two set destructions (by fire and rain). The Tramp finds work at a circus and eventually ends up on a high wire with a few monkeys.
	City Lights (1931) Chaplin's most perfect film came just as talkies were emerging on the scene, yet he insisted on remaining a silent feature. Although this caused a tremendous delay when Chaplin fretted over how to silently communicate a tricky scene, the final result remains a cinema classic--so funny and poignant that no one can forget this film after viewing.
	Modern Times (1936) Considered by many to be his best film, Chaplin's farewell to silent film contains some of the funniest scenes ever created: the Red rally, the frenetic assembly line, the auto-feeding machine, getting caught in the factory cogs, taking a morning swim, etc. Satirizing the industrial age, this was welcome relief to the grim realities of the Great Depression.
	The Great Dictator (1940) Released before the U.S. entered WWII, this film was considered controversial in a number of circles for its relentless satire about Hitler and stormtrooping Nazis. Chaplin plays dual roles (a shopkeeper and the dictator) and talks fully and effectively with one of cinema's great speeches at the end: "The sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world, a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality."
	Monsieur Verdoux (1947) A radical departure for Chaplin, as he abandons his Little Tramp character completely to become a sociopath after being laid off by his bank. To make money, he marries wealthy widows and knocks them off. Thisleast appreciated Chaplin film uses a great deal of dark humor, and justice is meted out in the end (as required by the industry).
	Limelight (1952) Set immediately before WWI, a once famous stage clown Calvero (Chaplin), who is now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer. How autobiographical this film is is debatable, as it parallels his own father's career, but the poignancy of the final scenes is unmistakable with Buster Keaton appearing with Chaplin for the first time on film.