Archive for November 7th, 2009

Charlie Chaplin as the lovable Tramp

A British antique collector named Morace Park bought an old film can off of eBay several months ago, and little did he know that what was inside was a lost 6-minute short starring Charlie Chaplin titled Zepped. The short – which has no credits of any kind attached to it – was apparently used as a propaganda piece for British troops during World War I (the title being in reference to German Zeppelins, which the British eventually were able to conquer).

Park and his friend John Dyer have decided to have a film crew document their efforts to find out the origins of the footage, as well as everything else about it they can find. When the two men took the film to the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, Calif., they surmised that the short is a compilation of outtakes from several different Chaplin films, but how or why those clips were strung together in a narrative fashion is still anyone’s guess.

To read more about this amazing story, click here.

Source: Variety