Charlie Chaplin hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best-known figures in the world. In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length film was "The Kid" (1921), followed by "A Woman of Paris" (1923), "The Gold Rush" (1925), and "The Circus" (1928). He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing "City Lights" (1931) and "Modern Times" (1936) without dialogue. He became increasingly political, and his next film "The Great Dictator" (1940) satirized
Charlie Chaplin filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion. Little was known about his working process throughout his lifetime, but research from film historians – particularly the findings of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill that were presented in the three-part documentary "Unknown Chaplin" (1983) – has since revealed his unique working method. Until he began making spoken dialogue films with "The Great Dictator", Chaplin never shot from a completed script. Many of his early films began with only a vague premise – for example "Charlie enters a health spa" or "Charlie works in