Carmen
R: Cecil B. DeMille. B: Prosper Mérimée (novel). K: Alvin Wyckoff / Operator: Charles Rosher. Ba: Wilfred Buckland. M: S.L. Rothafel, based on the Bizet opera. D: Geraldine Farrar, Wallace Reid, Pedro de Cordoba, Horace B. Carpenter, William Elmer. P: Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. USA 1915

“The first of three 1915 adaptations of Prosper Mérimée’s novella Carmen, this Cecil B. DeMille film features Metropolitan Opera star Geraldine Farrar in her film debut (her second film production chronologically). The second 1915 adaptation, a head-to-head competing version by Fox Film Corporation starring Theda Bara that was released nationally on the same day as the DeMille film, is lost for modern audiences; the third 1915 film is Charles Chaplin’s spoof.
Producer Jesse L. Lasky convinced Farrar to follow so many other stage stars into motion pictures to expand her audience and increase her fame. After completing shooting on Maria Rosa (1916), Farrar was again paired with handsome leading man Wallace Reid and director DeMille to make one of the fiercest cinematic versions of Carmen. Farrar was noted for her fiery Carmen — both snakelike when slowly coiling around Don José, then rapidly lashing like a mountain cat when attacking someone in anger. Carmen was a sensation with critics and audiences, and the film was a success for star, studio and director.”
Carl Bennett
Silent Era

Charlie Chaplin’s Carmen parody (1915):

A Burlesque on Carmen
R: Charles Chaplin. B: Prosper Mérimée (novel). K: Roland Totheroh. D: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, John Rand. P: Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. USA 1915

“Charles Chaplin’s two-reel version of this film, his final release for the Essanay Company, premiered in December 1915. After Chaplin left the studio, Essanay expanded the film, adding new scenes with Ben Turpin and Wesley Ruggles as gypsies, reinserting outtakes Chaplin had discarded, and even splicing in multiple takes of scenes already included. Essanay’s four-reel ‘feature’ was released in April 1916. Chaplin was furious and filed a lawsuit against his former employers, but Essanay won the case in court. Prints of Essanay’s version circulated for decades.”
IMDb

The Essanay 1916 version:

A Burlesque on Carmen
R: Charles Chaplin. B: Prosper Mérimée (novel). K: Harry Ensign. D: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, John Rand. P: Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. USA 1915 / 1916

“The altered version of the film sent Chaplin to bed for two days. He later put forward an unprecedented claim of the moral rights of artists, suing Essanay on the grounds that the expanded version would damage his reputation with the public. Although Chaplin lost the court battle, 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.'”
Charlie Chaplin

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