Ad for BURLESQUE ON CARMEN, 1917

Originally intended as a two-reel comedy, Essanay padded Carmen to four reels after Chaplin left the company. This new version upset Charlie so much that it sent him to bed for two days. He sued Essanay on the grounds that the new film would damage his reputation, but eventually lost the case. He later wrote that Essanay’s dishonest act “rendered a service, for thereafter I had it stipulated in every contract that there should be no mutilating, extending or interfering with my finished work.”