Tuesday, June 8, 2010

The diminutive figure emerges from the underbrush wearing a Keystone Cop uniform about four sizes too large. He screws up his courage by giving a very familiar wiggle of his butt, followed by a very familiar wriggle of his shoulders.

He’s wearing a little moustache that would soon become world famous, carrying only a nightstick and the possibility of greatness.

It’s Charlie Chaplin, making a cameo appearance in a Keystone comedy called A Thief Catcher in January 1914, just about a month after he started working at the Edendale, California, studio. It’s the 36th film he made in a frantic year’s activity before he left for more green, not to mention greener, pastures.

Until a few months ago, nobody knew it existed.

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