Made by Keystone Studios and directed by Henry Lehrman, the movie portrays Chaplin as a spectator at a “baby-cart race” inVenice, Los Angeles. The spectator keeps getting in the way of the camera and interferes with the race, causing great frustration to the public and participants. The film was shot during the Junior Vanderbilt Cup, an actual race with Chaplin and Lehrman improvising gags in front of real-life spectators.[1]
Unusually the camera breaks the fourth wall to show a second camera filming (as though it were the first), to better explain the joke. At this stage Chaplin only gets in the way of the visible camera on screen, not the actual filming camera. In so doing it takes on a spectator’s viewpoint and becomes one of the first public films to show a film camera and camera person in operation.
Release date: February 7, 1914 (USA) Director: Henry Lehrman Initial DVD release: March 25, 2008 (Czech Republic) Screenplay: Henry Lehrman Producer: Mack SennettWatch below or download or download here
https://archive.org/download/CC_1914_02_07_KidsAutoRaceAtVenice/CC_1914_02_07_KidsAutoRaceAtVenice_512kb.mp4 Tags: Charlie Chaplin
