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Check out the Google homepage today, which features a Charlie Chaplin tribute video in honor of Chaplin's birthday tomorrow...

ha, ya beat me to the posting, but I like and it's his 122 birthday.

I like the idea, but I find the short film boring. It's hard for a film crew of today to understand what it is that makes these films work. For one thing, you have to practice. Do about ten of these and you get a better sense of timing, etc. That was even true in 1918.

But these guys do it once, and it's off to some other project.

I wonder if they filmed it in Niles? I'm impressed by the creativity, time, and effort that went into this production, which, in theory, will only be posted for one day (possibly two).

John

It was filmed in Niles, which is great news.

Here is a blogpost by the creator of the clip.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/ ... oodle.html

It's nice to see him being remembered, but this is not very good. Apart form the fact, that this guy looks nothing, and acts nothing like Chaplin. He's to big and fat for one thing. About as graceful as a Walrus. There used to be much better Chaplin mimics back in the 70's and 80's than this.

Jeez, guys, get a grip. Yes, it would be best if the world at large just ignored silent films and left them to the experts.

I enjoyed it, and thought they did a nice job capturing the essential physicality of Chaplin. And the best thing: no unnecessary intertitles (of the "Oh no!" or "Thank you!" variety), that so often appear in modern "homages" to silent films.

~Roger

rogerskarsten wrote:I enjoyed it, and thought they did a nice job capturing the essential physicality of Chaplin. And the best thing: no unnecessary intertitles (of the "Oh no!" or "Thank you!" variety), that so often appear in modern "homages" to silent films.

~Roger

Indeed, this was cute.

I'm one of the few who really don't like Chaplin. Watching Chaplin (especially the Keystones that I'm currently going through) is like studying a historical artifact. I don't find throwing bricks very amusing but people of the time did and he was an enormous influence on the business and the culture.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/15/ ... 1&iref=NS1

Charlie Chaplin gets birthday 'doodle' from Google
Doug Gross

By Doug Gross, CNN
April 15, 2011 3:54 p.m. EDT | Filed under: Web

(CNN) -- He's a comedy and cinema legend, a man still cited as an inspiration decades after his death.

And now, in honor of what would have been his 122nd birthday, Charlie Chaplin has inspired one of the most ambitious Google "doodles" ever.

On Friday, the space on Google's homepage that usually contains its multicolored logo instead featured a black-and-white YouTube tribute to Chaplin, whose birthday is Saturday.

The short "silent" film is Google's first-ever video doodle and was created with the help of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum.

"True pieces of art, Chaplin's films still feel fresh today even though some of them are nearly a century old," Ryan Germick, a member of Google's Doodle team, wrote on the company's official blog. "We hope that our homepage gets people talking about his work and the many virtues of silent film."

The project is the work of the Google Doodle team, which is devoted to sprucing up Google's plain search page with colorful images to commemorate holidays or other noteworthy dates or events.

For Google, doodles are oodles of fun
The art of the Google doodle

The video was shot in Niles, California, the site of several of Chaplin's iconic silent films, including "The Tramp," and features the entire Google Doodle team.

Team member Mike Dutton mimics Chaplin, who, in the two-minute video, attempts to make money by drawing his own doodle before tricking a mean police officer into buying him breakfast.

The video will remain on Google's page through Saturday, according to the blog post.

In a recent interview, Doodle team creative leader Ryan Germick told CNN that the drawings started out as a way to humanize the search page, but became more elaborate as time went on.

"It's definitely something we try to mix up and keep surprising," said Germick (who doubles as the aforementioned mean cop in the video). "Our hope is you come to the Google homepage, and we're really thankful for that. We want to give back and try something fun."

See some behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot.

Some other notable doodles in recent months have honored novelist Jules Verne, Google's 12th anniversary, the emergence of coding language HTML5 and, perhaps most notably, the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man, the '80s arcade game.

Chaplin is arguably the most iconic and recognizable star of early silent films, including such classics as "City Lights" and "Modern Times." Born in London in 1889, he was most known for his Little Tramp character, who sported a bowler hat, moustache, cane and baggy pants.

Chaplin died in Vevey, Switzerland, on December 25, 1977, at the age of 88.

CNN's Dan Simon in San Francisco contributed to this report.

It's cute and the superficial details are attractive. Problem is that no one is doing anything particularly funny or memorable. I smiled, but after a moment I realized I was smiling at the music (It's "Funny Folks" by W. C. Powell)

As The Man of Steel said: "No thing as bad publicity."

But - as the news post says-this was done by the Noodle team. With the money they put into this little bit (and we know it was more than a little) it would have been nice to have someone who really had some experience in pantomime. The story is boring, and the only attribute the man playing Chaplin had was that he probably has seen more than one Chaplin movie. This has the feel of a home-movie youtube video, which is what it basically is.

There are no viewing statistics provided on YouTube for the film, but Google gets an estimated 620 million visits every day. Even if only a small proportion of that number clicked on the video, it would still have been viewed by tens of millions. So might this end up being one of the most watched silent films of all time?

rogerskarsten wrote:I enjoyed it, and thought they did a nice job capturing the essential physicality of Chaplin. And the best thing: no unnecessary intertitles (of the "Oh no!" or "Thank you!" variety), that so often appear in modern "homages" to silent films.

~Roger

I agree, I think they did a very nice job. Unlike most modern silent film parodies, it appears to have been done by someone who'd actually seen a silent film rather than relying on all of the received cliches. Bravo. Who cares if the fellow doesn't look like Chaplin. I don't either, and I've gotten along fine.

Regardless of the good intentions, I can envision a potential lawsuit by the estate.

Yesterday Google updated their "app" on the iPhone. One of the new things it handles are "doodles." So anyone who updated their app and used it right away saw the Chaplin doodle. More exposure to silents.

Rick

I didn't like it - it's not funny and it's superficial and it is a wasted opportunity for something great - but I enjoyed that it features a cop, a pretty girl, and a park bench (somebody did their research). Most of all, though, last night (our weekly movie night) EVERYBODY, including teenagers, was talking about it; we actually accessed it on the TV and showed it for those who hadn't seen it yet (right after chapter 5 of UNDERSEA KINGDOM!)

I thought the Chaplin homage was quite charming. It was filmed ten miles or so from Google headquarters in Niles California, literally across the street from where the former Essanay Studio used to be, and includes the same hillside backgrounds appearing in some scenes from Chaplin's original The Tramp (1915), filmed in Niles. The Tramp is the film that concludes with Charlie walking off down the lonely road for the first time. The train station appearing in the Doodle film appears briefly behind Edna Purviance during a scene in The Champion (1915).

The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum helped with its production. The museum screens silent films every Saturday in the same small theater that originally showed Chaplin films in 1915. The Essanay Studio was only half a block further west. Can you imagine watching a Chaplin film in a theater Chaplin visited, and that is located just 200 feet away from where the film was made? Frederick Hodges, who plays at the museum frequently, played the score. The newspaper Chaplin reads at the beginning of the film includes a full mock-up of stories, including a large photo of David Kiehn. His photo did not appear because of the tight shot.

Some have complained that it was not enough "like" Chaplin – to which I say, Billy West, and several other imitators of their day, had a difficult time being "like" Chaplin as well. Being inimitable is part of Chaplin's appeal. The Chaplin imitator used here was simply one of the Google Doodle crew, not some actor hired for the role.

The film is imperfect, but to my thinking the fact that a mega corporation like Google actually encouraged a dozen or so creative people to work hard producing a sincere tribute is quite remarkable. And they actually cared enough to film it where Chaplin once filmed. How many other corporate-sponsored silent film tributes will be produced this year? Moreover, this project will have just a brief day in the sun. I suspect they posted it a day early in order to give it a bit longer play time.

So I say bravo, warts and all.

And .... Happy Birthday Charlie!

John Bengtson

Man, tough crowd! This was amateur in the best sense-- done for love and with affection for the era and, clearly some study of the real thing. No, it was not as good as the best film of the late teens made by a genius who had been working steadily for a decade or more refining his comedy chops, you are correct on that. But it's no worse than Captain Celluloid Vs. The Film Pirates...

The counter is turned off on the YouTube page for this video, but as of this afternoon it had "15,247 likes, 1,004 dislikes".

Mike Gebert wrote: But it's no worse than Captain Celluloid Vs. The Film Pirates...

Or The lost forehead of the screaming skeleton returns again.

Battra92 wrote:I'm one of the few who really don't like Chaplin. Watching Chaplin (especially the Keystones that I'm currently going through) is like studying a historical artifact. I don't find throwing bricks very amusing but people of the time did and he was an enormous influence on the business and the culture.

There's just a bit more to Charlie than brick-throwing. Really. Try watching THE KID, THE GOLD RUSH, THE CIRCUS, CITY LIGHTS or MODERN TIMES sometime. (OK, the latter film does have one brief bit of brick-catapulting, but hey, nobody's perfect.)

Mike Gebert wrote:Man, tough crowd! This was amateur in the best sense-- done for love and with affection for the era and, clearly some study of the real thing. No, it was not as good as the best film of the late teens made by a genius who had been working steadily for a decade or more refining his comedy chops, you are correct on that. But it's no worse than Captain Celluloid Vs. The Film Pirates...

Yes it is, CAPTAIN CELLULOID is a lot of fun, apart from William K Everson's performance (he's a FILM HISTORIAN, not an ACTOR!).


RICHARD M ROBERTS

WaverBoy wrote:

Battra92 wrote:I'm one of the few who really don't like Chaplin. Watching Chaplin (especially the Keystones that I'm currently going through) is like studying a historical artifact. I don't find throwing bricks very amusing but people of the time did and he was an enormous influence on the business and the culture.

There's just a bit more to Charlie than brick-throwing. Really. Try watching THE KID, THE GOLD RUSH, THE CIRCUS, CITY LIGHTS or MODERN TIMES sometime. (OK, the latter film does have one brief bit of brick-catapulting, but hey, nobody's perfect.)

I've seen them all. My opinion still stands but I'll add "there's also a lot of 'oh look at the poor guy that even though he's an asshole we should feel sorry for him' added in to tug at the heartstrings."

Battra92 wrote:

WaverBoy wrote:

Battra92 wrote:I'm one of the few who really don't like Chaplin. Watching Chaplin (especially the Keystones that I'm currently going through) is like studying a historical artifact. I don't find throwing bricks very amusing but people of the time did and he was an enormous influence on the business and the culture.

There's just a bit more to Charlie than brick-throwing. Really. Try watching THE KID, THE GOLD RUSH, THE CIRCUS, CITY LIGHTS or MODERN TIMES sometime. (OK, the latter film does have one brief bit of brick-catapulting, but hey, nobody's perfect.)

I've seen them all. My opinion still stands but I'll add "there's also a lot of 'oh look at the poor guy that even though he's an asshole we should feel sorry for him' added in to tug at the heartstrings."

If that's all there was to Charlie's character, he wouldn't have been an enormous influence on the business and the culture.