2. Henry’s Delicatessen was located on Hollywood Boulevard in California
and was Henry Bergman’s venture into the world of professional food
service as financed by Charlie Chaplin. It opened in the late 1920’s and
closed a few years later, even though it was a great success—and the
only restaurant of its kind while it was open. A postcard exists of
Henry’s, called here Henry’s Café and, being an interior view, shows
Mr. Bergman himself seated at a table right in the center of things.
As Chaplin was a frequent patron, one can’t help looking at each and
every other face in the place to see if one of them is his.
3. Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles is the location for the moment in The Kid in
which the truck with Jackie and Charlie in it finally stops and the driver runs off in
fear. The clear real photo postcard shows the building visible in the background of
that poignant scene and it is made more interesting because it is a postcard from
the 1920s.
4. Echo Park is a well-known location for many of the Keystone films such as Mabel’s
Married Life. Upwards of fifteen different views of the park exist, many with the
famous bridge or snack stand seen in this particular film as the center of focus.
5. The park just across Sunset Boulevard from the Beverly Hills Hotel in California is
the location for the park scene just before the tramp enters the fancy dress party in
The Idle Class. This postcard is taken from exactly the same spot at which the tramp
and another gentleman sit on a bench and the tramp is mistaken for a pickpocket.
6. At the Hotel Adlon in Berlin, Germany where Charlie Chaplin wanted to stay in 1921 but
wasn’t able until 1931, the following event occurred, as related in the book Hotel
Adlon: The Life and Death of a Great Hotel: "The news of [Chaplin’s] coming
had been spread abroad, and the pavement on Unter den Linden was covered by a
dense mass of people through which he had to fight his way from the car to the hotel
doors, shaking hands, signing albums, returning smiles and greetings and struggling
frantically not to be trodden underfoot.
7. On another leg of the 1931 European tour (no pun intended),
Chaplin tells of his adventure in San Sebastian, Spain at the
bullfights in "A Comedian Sees the World," "A most beautiful
yet revolting afternoon was spent at a bull fight in San
Sebastian... My friend, the Marquis de Sorreana, warned me
that I would probably have several bulls dedicated to me, so
I ordered four cigarette cases for the event….That afternoon
I saw a dramatic killing. Imagine a large arena, the silence of
thirty thousand people and standing in the bleak sunshine a
man and a bull facing each other, the bull in the throes of death."
Outside of these two types of material, the options are endless.
One might want to collect playbills from New York during periods
when Charlie was in the city, menus from restaurants contemporary
with times he might have frequented them, tourbooks and guides
from places he visited on his frequent travels, or symphony
programs—especially from the LA area. Charlie loved hearing
the symphony and even Lita mentions occasions of their attendance
at the Hollywood Bowl in her book My Life with Chaplin. What may
not be known and what I only discovered from my context collecting
is that Charlie was a supporting patron of the symphony when it
was still housed at The Auditorium in downtown LA. He relates
in MA only that "occasionally, a symphony at Clune’s Philharmonic
Auditorium" (200) was on his list of "routine pleasures" as
early as 1916. Upon my discovery of a Los Angeles Symphony
Program from 1919, I found listed inside "Mr. And Mrs. Charles
Spencer Chaplin" as such patrons. Interestingly, no other movie
personalities were listed.
Walter Benjamin, a literary critic of the Frankfurt School
that was active during the Weimar period in Germany, wrote
in his essay, "Unpacking My Library", "The most profound
enchantment for the collector is the locking of individual
items within a magic circle in which they are frozen as the
final thrill, the thrill of acquisition passes over them.
Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious,
becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his
property. The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the
former ownership—for a true collector, the whole background
of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence
is the fate of his object"(487). Therefore, in "collecting
Charlie Chaplin" in this manner, the collector can open his
or her "magic encyclopedia" of things and discover parts of
Charlie Chaplin not written down in any book. |
