Charlie Chaplin take in "The Kid". For "The Immigrant", a 20 minute-short, Chaplin shot 40,000 feet of film – enough for a feature-length. Describing his working method as "sheer perseverance to the point of madness", Chaplin would be completely consumed by the production of a picture. Robinson writes that even in Chaplin's later years, his work continued "to take precedence over everything and everyone else." The combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism – which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense – often proved taxing for Chaplin who, in frustration, would
The Chaplin Revue often used scenes featuring The Tramp, such as The Tramp's final appearance in "Modern Times", as a vehicle for expressing his ideas. Critic and friend James Agee wrote a script placing Chaplin's trademark character, the Tramp, in apocalyptic New York City. Chaplin decided the best way to bring the tramp into the new era was by re-releasing three silent films he made with First National as a feature-length film. Released in 1959, "The Chaplin Revue" consisted of "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms" and "The Pilgrim" – each of which was introduced by Chaplin and juxtaposed with behind the scenes footage