On 4 December Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg present a triple-bill of Carl Davis’ music for the Chaplin ‘Mutual’ comedies, conducted by Christian Köhler at the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam: Easy Street, The Immigrant, and The Vagabond.
In The Immigrant (1917) the penniless but ingenious titular hero falls fall for a girl on a boat headed to America; they are separated on arrival but reunite in a café and manage to outwit a malicious waiter. Easy Street (1917) sees Chaplin’s Tramp join the police and try to bring order to a rough slum; The Vagabond (1916) also sees Chaplin adopt the mantle of the Tramp, playing his violin to try and enchant the beautiful Gypsy girl Edna. Davis’ scores for all three film – all lasting between 24-26 minutes - are for a small orchestra with percussion, piano, harp, and single strings – click here to see the scores for The Immigrant, The Vagabond, and Easy Street.
Davis’ inspiration in scoring Chaplin’s Mutuals was drawn from his meticulous study of Chaplin’s upbringing and early career. Chaplin’s parents were both performing vocalists working out of London’s many theatres and music halls; when working in the theatre as a Variety act himself Chaplin would have been himself surrounded by musicians, singers, dancers and every kind of novelty act every day.
Davis draws on Chaplin’s musical tastes, which included his parent’s repertoire of Victorian parlour ballads and somewhat broader music hall marches, polkas and waltzes for comedy and other dance routines, as well as popular operatic arias and excerpts from ballet which would’ve also been heard in the Variety houses. Accordingly, in Easy Street Davis borrows the Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘A Policeman’s Lot is not a Happy One’ from The Pirates of Penzance, as the cop patrols the disorderly streets of a slum. The scores also make playful use of diegetic musical events within the narrative too – in The Immigrant a violin and piano duo provide a musical backdrop to the restaurant scene; in The Vagabond a small marching confronts Chaplin’s street violinist.
The orchestra have been championing Davis’ silent movie scores for over two decades, giving over forty performances of his work. Whilst the Mutuals have been a mainstay of their repertoire, they have also championed his scores for Buster Keaton’s The General and Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, as well as silent epic Ben-Hur – which they performed last in January 2025 – and Rupert Julien’s The Phantom of the Opera, the 1925 masterpiece starring Lon Chaney.
Staatstheater Kassel returned to their complete season-long focus on the Chaplin Mutual comedies, accompanied by Davis’ scores, on 3 December with screenings of The Vagabond, The Count and The Rink; they continue on 6 February with Behind the Screen, Easy Street, and The Adventurer.