Chaplin and Agee: The Untold Story of the Tramp, the Writer, and the Lost Screenplay

Chaplin and Agee charts the friendship between James Agee, author of Pulitzer Prize-winning novels Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and A Death in the Family and screenwriter for American classics including African Queen, and Charlie Chaplin, who starred in a staggering number of films from 1914 to 1967. This friendship emerged in the midst of the tumult of the 1940s and 50s: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, McCarthyism and blacklisting. Interspersed throughout is Agee's first screenplay, lost until recently, The Scientist and the Tramp. The striking screenplay - a comedy 'so dark it was without precedent' - was written for Chaplin's tramp character and set in post-apocalyptic New York. Chaplin and Agee also features many previously unpublished letters and photographs. As the story weaves from Hollywood to Paris to Greenwich Village, these two figures come to life, revealing the untold story of the great bond between two immeasurably influential 20th century artists.

Table of Contents:
The Story The Screenplay

About the Author :
JOHN WRANOVICS is a copywriter who has written for The Boston Book Review and Doubletake, he lives in California, USA.

Review :
The unlikely relationship between Charlie Chaplin and the novelist, screenwriter, poet and critic James Agee, who died 50 years ago, is the subject of John Wranovics's Chaplin and Agee). It began with Agee publicly defending the besieged director when America chose to interest itself in his political allegiances, and culminated in a script that Agee composed for Chaplin's tramp character, envisioning him as the sole survivor of a nuclear strike on New York. It ranks as one of the great might-have-beens of cinema history - Chris Wood, The Times 'A fascinating account of Agee and Chapli"s friendship...important recent publications have brought Agee into new critical prominence and Wranovic's compelling narrative fills in an essential part of the writer's artistic trajectory.' - Professor Dana Polan, Times Higher Education Supplement 'In his first book he writes with a breathless enthusiasm that's both winning and suitable to his subjects' frenetic lives. The spirit of James Agee comes through these pages beautifully, as do his passions - against nuclear war, HUAC and Hollywood fluff in general, and for his friends and his work. The intensity of his letters, memos, story ideas and notes alone makes for fascinating and often moving reading.' - William Georgiades, The New York Times 'Chaplin and Agee is a real addition to film culture (and the culture of the Cold War), complete with the treatment for an unmade movie so vivid that it practically sears the mind's eye.' - J. Hoberman, Film Critic, Village Voice 'The untold story of a collaborative medium's least likely collaboration: James Agee, the Ivy League poet who lived like a mountain man, and Charles Chaplin, the slum kid who became a sophisticated artist. In bringing these men's friendship to life, Wranovics revives a whole lost age, full of emigre intellectuals, hard-drinking Greenwich Village authors and a number of quite surprising villains.' - Stephen Whitty, Senior Film Critic, Star-Ledger and Newhouse Newspapers