The Professor
About The Professor
Professor Bosco, a broke flea-circus man, rents a bed in a flophouse. He lines his fleas up and shuts them in their box. He knocks the box off the bed. The fleas bite the other sleepers. Bosco gets them back with a whip. A stray dog then comes in, opens the box, and the fleas are loose again.
Cast & crew
More about The Professor
Chaplin wrote, directed, and edited the reel for First National in 1919. Roland Totheroh photographed it. He plays Professor Bosco, not the Tramp. He stopped after this one sequence. The film was never finished and never released at the time. Surviving prints run 6 or 7 minutes.
Themes
Making
Chaplin set the gag in one room: the box, the beds, and the whip. He did not shoot the rest of the story he had planned.
Look
Roland Totheroh shot the single flophouse reel.
Preservation
The unfinished reel survives. It is included in Unknown Chaplin and on the Criterion Limelight disc.
Notes
- Albert Austin, Henry Bergman, Loyal Underwood, and Tom Wilson are in the flophouse.
- Charles D. Hall is listed as a producer alongside Chaplin.
- The surviving reel is in the documentary series Unknown Chaplin.
- It is an extra on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray and DVD of Limelight.
Scenes
- Bosco settles the fleas in the box before he lies down.
- The box hits the floor and the other men start scratching.
- A dog noses the box open.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-professor)
- Criterion Collection (Limelight Blu-ray and DVD)
- Documentary series Unknown Chaplin
