James L. Neibaur is a film historian and educator who has written several books on film, including Arbuckle and Keaton: Their 14 Film Collaborations (2005), Chaplin at Essanay: A Film Artist in Transition, 1915-1916 (2008), and The Fall of Buster Keaton (Scarecrow, 2010).
The cottage industry of publishing books on Charlie Chaplin
continues to prosper with this book, which is a worthy and
enjoyable addition. Going back to Chaplin's roots, before his work
at the Essanay Studios, film historian James Neibaur catalogs more
than three dozen early silent films the master comedian and
director did for studio producer Mack Sennett. Though he does not
unearth any new information or insights, the author does correct
stubbornly persistent errors, and he scripts his own fresh,
readable, and helpful chronicle of Chaplin's evolution as a film
artist. Beginning with Chaplin's cameo as a wily city slicker in
Making a Living, the work covers Chaplin's films in chronological
order through the six-reel comedy with Marie Dressler, Tillie's
Punctured Romance, noting credits, cast, general plot outlines,
comic scenes, slapstick gags, and some contemporaneous reviews.
This book offers an honest, homespun, and pleasurable tour through
the novice era of an amazing film comedian. Summing Up:
Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; technical
students; professionals; general readers.
*CHOICE*
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