he August 31, 1999, release, by Kino on Video, of the 16 two-reelers Chaplin made for Essanay studios in 1915 and 1916 are something of a cause ce6lbre for enthusiasts of silent cinema. For years the Essanays were available only in soft, murky prints, and many were missing scenes believed lost to decomposition. Film preservationist David Shepard spent three years carefully restoring these films, adding recently rediscovered footage, including newly recorded music, and cleaning up each frame so that we have, for the first time perhaps since their initial release, all of the Chaplin Essanays in pristine condition. The series has been accessible since the days when 8mm duping allowed condensed versions to be readily available for the toy movie-projector market. However, even respected distributors of 8mm and 16mm films such as Blackhawk never offered particularly good prints. The pre-print material itself was so lacking in quality that making good 8mm or 16mm prints was virtually impossible. Hence, over time, the Essanay period has been certainly the least discussed and most misunderstood of Chaplin's entire cinematic oeuvre. Historically, far more attention has been paid to his more primitive Keystone period, during which he created the Tramp character, directed his first films, and learned the basics of performing for the camera. The Essanay studios were formed by George Spoor and Max Aronson. When he joined them, Chaplin's salary went from the $150 per week he made at Keystone to $1,250 per week and a $10,000 bonus for signing with the company (Sennett had previously offered Chaplin $400 per week to remain at Keystone). Initially apprehensive about the cold, factory-like quality of the production facilities at the Essanay studios in Chicago and Niles, California, Chaplin took solace in the fact that he would now enjoy the greater creative freedom he'd sought in vain at Keystone. In his first movie at Essanay, appropriately titled His New Job, Chaplin immediately experiments with a more innocent presentation of his Tramp. In an early sequence, a woman bends over where is sitting, and he unwittingly leans towards her and rests his elbow on the woman's derriere. Had this been a Keystone gag, would have looked directly at the woman, and purposely leaned on her in an aggressive manner. But at Essanay it was presented as an accident, so when the woman gets up and scolds a slightly embarrassed Charlie, the audience responds with a certain sympathy as well as laughter. A simple throwaway gag like this is nevertheless rather important because it suggests-with some immediacy as it appears in the first scene of his first Essanay-that Chaplin wanted Charlie to be less of an aggressive knockabout clown and more of a substantial screen character prone to amusing situations. The first few Essanays were moderately refined reworkings of ideas Chaplin had done at Keystone. A Night Out, his second Essanay, recalls The Rounders, a Keystone one-reeler that paired him with Roscoe Arbuckle. In the Park was a reworking of Twenty Minutes of Love; The Champion recalls The Knockout, another Arbuckle film which had featured Chaplin in a supporting role. While none of these is remarkable in a critical sense, each has its share of brilliant, telling moments that allow us to better appreciate Chaplin's presentation of as a victim of society whose aggressions are only reactions to the actions of others around him. Sennett had insisted that his Keystone performers keep the comedy moving; at Essanay, Chaplin allows to stop, observe, and think before reacting. Film historians nearly always cite Chaplin's sixth Essanay, The Tramp, as the most important in terms of adding depth to his characterization and embarking on a distinctly different style. However, it was with his