Chaplin and Agee

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 Chaplin and Agee also features many previously unpublished letters and photographs.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.