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Vintage glossy 8 x 10 photo of Chaplin in horse-riding boots, jacket, and tweed cap, leaning against a brick wall, signed and inscribed in fountain pen “To Chuck from Charles.” A typed caption of provenance accompanying the photo reads: “In 1918, After the final cutting of ‘A Dog’s Life,’ Charlie was off the following day, with Mary Pickford and Doug Fairbanks, on the Greatest Liberty Loan Drive ever staged in this country. Chaplin left the titles for Chuck Riesner to write. Chuck said ‘All I want you to write, is your name on this picture.’ This [photo] is it.” Reisner was a close associate of Chaplin’s who worked as an assistant director and supporting player in such films as The Kid and The Pilgrim; he also played the role the employment agency clerk in the 1918 film A Dog’s Life, his first picture under an agreement with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit, a new organization specially formed to exploit his pictures. After this production, Chaplin turned his attention to a national tour on behalf of the war effort, following which he made a film, The Bond, used by the U.S. government to popularize the Liberty Loan Drive. In the following year, Chaplin cofounded the United Artists film distribution company with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, all of whom were seeking to escape the growing power consolidation of film distributors and financiers in the Hollywood studio system. Double matted and framed to an overall size of 12 x 14. Light bisecting horizontal fold through image, several other smaller creases, a couple of light spots, and light rippling to bottom edge, otherwise fine condition. A fabulous early image of one of the seminal geniuses in the history of film! RRAuction COA
