Trailer of How to Make Movies

How to Make Movies

In January 1918 Chaplin moved into his own new studio, built in the grounds of an old mansion on the corner of Le Brea and De Longpré, and then still surrounded by orange groves. His cameraman Roland Totheroh had recorded the construction of the studio, filming at intervals from the same position so that the film could subsequently be assembled to give an illusion of speeded-up action. Chaplin had the idea of combining this material with documentary shots of the studio at work, to make a film to be called How to Make Movies. It was never finished or released, presumably because the distributors, First National, did not think that such a casual documentary of this kind would be an adequate replacement for one of the comedies with which Chaplin was contracted to supply them. Although Chaplin used some of the material in The Chaplin Revue in 1959, it was not seen in its entirety until 1982, when Kevin Brownlow and David Gill edited the whole film together as originally intended, following the continuity provided by a surviving title list.

Upcoming Film Concerts for How to Make Movies