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 members to his stock company, Albert Austin and Eric Campbell, and produced a series of elaborate two-reelers: "The Floorwalker", "The Fireman", "The Vagabond", "One A.M.", and "The Count". For "The Pawnshop", he recruited the actor Henry Bergman, who was to work with Chaplin for 30 years. "Behind the Screen" and "The Rink" completed Chaplin's releases for 1916. The Mutual contract stipulated that he release a two-reel film every four weeks, which he had managed to achieve. With the new year, however, Chaplin began to demand more time. He made only four more films for Mutual over the first ten months