Chuck Riesner

Charles Reisner (also frequently billed as 'Riesner') started his professional life as a prizefighter. He then performed in vaudeville for ten years and eventually wound up writing lyrics for musical comedy on Broadway. After a spell under the auspices of impresario Charles B. Dillingham, Reisner moved to California in 1915, finding a job as an actor in one-reel short comedies at Universal. He added further credentials to his resume at Vitagraph, before his arrival at Keystone, where he made the acquaintance of Charles Chaplin. Before long, his innate ability to devise intricate visual sight gags got him involved as gag writer (as well as occasional bit part actor) in classic Chaplin comedies at First National, including A Dog's Life (1918) and The Kid (1921). His collaboration with the famous comic ended with The Gold Rush (1925), for which Reisner was credited as assistant director.

Moving on to Warner Brothers, he directed Charles's brother Syd Chaplin in The Man on the Box (1925), Oh What a Nurse! (1926) and The Better 'Ole (1926). Reisner also worked on the frenetic and Buster Keaton comedy Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), using many of the old sight gags from bygone days of vaudeville comedy. Alas, it failed at the box office and proved to be Keaton's last film for his own production company. During the 1930's, Reisner made occasional forays into mystery and crime drama with minor entries like Sophie Lang Goes West (1937), but was always more comfortable directing the screen's zaniest comedians, from Jack Benny's It's in the Air (1935) to The Marx Brothers in their hilarious, underrated The Big Store (1941); from Bud Abbott and Lou Costello who were Lost in a Harem (1944) to Joan Davis in one of the screen's last full-on slapstick farces, The Traveling Saleswoman (1950).

- IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis