Charlie Chaplin's Carmen parody

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Movie
German title Charlie Chaplin's Carmen parody
Original title A Burlesque on Carmen
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1916
length 37 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Charles Chaplin
Leo White
production Jess Robbins
George K. Spoor
camera Roland Totheroh
occupation

Charlie Chaplin's Carmen parody (original title A Burlesque on Carmen ) is an American comedy film from 1915/1916. Alternative titles are Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen or Charlie Chaplin's Carmen parody . The film is a parody of the Carmen novella by Prosper Mérimée .

action

The film tells the story of the gypsy Carmen. It is preceded by a text that retells the story of Mérimées. A guard officer by the name of Darn Hosiery (loosely translated: “Whistle on stockings”, in the original “Don José”) falls in love with Carmen. His big rival for the favor of the beautiful is the guard officer Morales. In a duel, Darn Hosiery wins through his cleverness, yet he loses Carmen to the torero Escamillo. In jealousy, Darn Hosiery "kills" his Carmen and in the last shot of the film shows the audience his theater dagger, the blade of which can be inserted.

At the same time, the love story of little Don Remendado and the heavyweight Frasquita is told.

background

Burlesque on Carmen was Chaplin's last film for Essanay . The work parodies not only the novella Prosper Mérimées, but also two major Hollywood productions from 1915. First, Samuel Goldwyn and Jesse L. Lasky had produced a Carmen version with the opera star Geraldine Farrar in the title role. The director was Cecil B. DeMille . Shortly after this film premiered, another William Fox production of Carmen appeared with Theda Bara in the title role. It was directed by Raoul Walsh .

When Chaplin left Essanay to continue working with the production company Mutual , Essanay decided to turn the present two-act act into a four-act act. Supporting actor Leo White, who also appeared in the film, was hired to introduce another character, Ben Turpin as Don Remendado. White staged a parallel plot built around this character and added film scraps from Chaplin. This explains why the film appears extremely torn dramaturgically.

It wasn't until April 22, 1916, that Burlesque on Carmen was released in cinemas. The following month, Chaplin sued Essanay to prevent further screenings of the film, as it had nothing to do with his original work after doubling the length of the film. Chaplin did not succeed in his lawsuit, however. Today the film is available on DVD in both the long Essanay version and Chaplin's reconstructed original version.

After this success in court, Essanay brought out another film not approved by Chaplin in 1918: For Triple Trouble , Leo White shot scenes with himself as Chaplin, which were mixed with remnants from Chaplin's feature-length film fragment Life and scenes from Police and Work . After the defeat in the Carmen trial, Chaplin no longer took legal action against this film.

Web links

Commons : Burlesque on Carmen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Robinson: Chaplin. His life, his art (= Diogenes-Taschenbuch. 22571). Diogenes-Verlag, Zurich 1993, ISBN 3-257-22571-7 . Pp. 185-188.