Charlie Chaplin Standups, Lifesize Cardboards, Cutouts: Charlie Chaplin with his Stick - Sephia Tones Black & White

All the comedians, however gifted, grew dim in comparison to a new star, Charlie Chaplin. Both in Europe and in America he rapidly earned an unprecedented degree of popularity and fame.

Western Import and its representative, M. Jacques Haik, launched the Keystone comedies with Mabel, Fatty, and Charlie in Europe in 1915; other comedies of theirs not distributed by this house were suppressed. In a very few months Chaplin had replaced Linder as king of comedy, and cinemas had to book A Night at the Show weeks ahead. Western Import was even compelled to place photographs of Mabel and Charlie on sale so as to make their appearance widely familiar and to discourage imitators. For there were imitators galore. The firm of Bonaz had brought over the films of Billie Ritchie, who wore the same mustache, the same pants, the same hat as Chaplin's, and carefully copied his movements. He shared Chaplin's success for several months. There were other doubles, not to mention Lloyd, who also sported the little mustache. There was a Jack and, after the war, even a Charley; then this Charley and Billie Ritchie went to law, accusing each other of plagiarism. Both of them lost. All of this merely added to the fabulous prestige of Chaplin.

Naturally enough, so great a success as his was bound to annoy some of the producers. In 1916 there was quite a lot of feeling against American importations in the film world. Le Cinéma published an article signed by Jean Yvel which violently attacked Chaplin. His Tillie's Punctured Romance had just appeared, an insane comedy with Marie Dressler and Mabel Normand. "His art, if we may call it so without profaning the word, is more simian than human. . . . Charlot is not a comedian, he is a twopennyha'penny jumping jack." After calling on the sacred names of la belle France and of education, this writer concluded: "What a far cry is this from the artistry displayed by Prince in the Rigadin films!"

And though not in his sense, it was a far cry from Rigadin. Chaplin's first films for Essanay, with whom he worked during 1915, were infinitely more developed than the rather clumsy clowning of the Keystone films like Mabel's Busy Day or Between Showers. There were fifteen or more that he made for Essanay: His New Job, A Night Out, The Champion, The Tramp, The Woman, Shanghaied, The Jitney Elopement, A Night at the Show, Work, By the Sea, The Bank, In the Park, Police, Carmen.

Some of these are still mere clowning, like A Night at the Show, which is simply a series of mishaps. Yet his technique here is already more developed; it is well-nigh faultless, and if some of the comic effects miss fire, they are never Chaplin's. As these are all short films, the plots are extremely simple--Charlie gets the best of some given situation. He is a boxer, with a horseshoe concealed in his glove, or he is forced to turn sailor much against his wish and reveals all the horrors of being forced into a job for which one has no vocation. Edna Purviance was now his partner, and Ben Turpin also appears. Among these early Chaplins are two which suggest future possibilities and hitherto unsuspected traits--The Woman and Carmen.

The Woman is a rather disturbing piece of broad comedy in which Charlie disguises himself as a woman and cuts off his mustache, in order to circumvent the opposition of his sweetheart's uncle. Of course the uncle at once begins to flirt with the supposed girl; and there is something about Chaplin's face when one sees it clean-shaven which is unexpected and utterly unfamiliar. One catches a glimpse of one aspect of the man about which volumes could be written, an almost equivocal and feminine quality born of humiliation, which can be detected in later films. That is why The Woman is so important, as a sort of curiosity. Otherwise, it is still a prentice piece with few first-rate inventions in it, but exhibiting a curious sureness of touch at least as impressive as the slightly dubious quality of some of the humor and some of the incidents.

As for Carmen, one might dismiss this parody entirely were it not that the comedian's gift for pantomime is revealed here (something not of the cinema, but much more ancient, which was to blossom forth anew in The Pilgrim). Moreover, it contains one extraordinary scene, the death of Don José, when, suddenly, Chaplin's expression becomes tragic, with a hint of bitterness, and extremely moving. From that time on, Chaplin wanted to make a dramatic film. Essanay would not consent, but the wish was an indication.

When he left Essanay, he contracted for twelve films to be made in twelve months for Mutual. They were produced in 1916 and 1917, and there is not a single one among them but contains at least one really remarkable scene. These are The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A. M., The Pawnshop, The Rink, The Adventurer, The Count, Behind the Screen, The Cure, The Immigrant, Easy Street. Some of them seem to be a development of the Keystone and Essanay comedies, like The Rink, based on a familiar theme dear to most of the movie comedians and previously utilized by Max Linder. Certain incidents in it are the vulgarest buffoonery, as when a whole cat is served on a dish to customers in the restaurant. But the chase on roller skates has a magnificent swing. As for One A. M., this was a peculiar affair in more ways than one. Adapted from a vaudeville turn, it has no plot whatsoever. We see a man coming home after a spree, in evening dress and high hat (not a trace here of Chaplin's usual costume), struggling to open the front door, attempting vainly to pass a clock whose pendulum keeps getting in his way, wrestling with a decanter and glass on a revolving table which continually skids under his grasp and then--as a finale--wrestling with a bed which collapses on top of him, rises up when he tries to sit down on it and has every appearance of being animated by an evil spirit. There is nothing that he does here which Linder might not have done; the film throughout recalls Linder and the primitive films as a whole by its use of trick photography and the importance of the roles played by inanimate objects. There is really nothing invented here at all, nothing original, and yet Chaplin's precision and restraint are such that one realizes how, out of this low farce and out of pantomime inherited from the circus, a really original screen technique and a new language are being evolved. The struggle with the bed predicts the struggle with the deck chair in A Day's Pleasure ( 1919) and the scene with the alarm clock in ThePawnshop Pawnshop. Eventually Chaplin will cease to struggle with inanimate things, no longer match his wits with them but draw comedy out of himself alone.

In 1918 Chaplin joined First National, with whom he remained until 1922, making eight films. The two earliest, released before the end of the war, were A Dog's Life and Shoulder Arms. At the time it was issued A Dog's Life seemed Chaplin's most complete and most typical film. His technique, patiently perfected during the two years with Mutual, now blossomed out in this wellconstructed and almost flawless piece. Charlie, the penniless tramp, has a dog. He discovers treasure and fights for it with some crooks. He falls in love. Hidden behind a curtain, he disposes of his enemies as they pass with a sharp tap on first one skull, then the next, from the little mallet of his Keystone days. Two substantial cronies are eating lunch. He knocks one of them unconscious and then, slipping his arms through the vest of his victim from behind, pantomimes some lively gestures to convince the other man that the unconscious (or dead) fellow is thoroughly alive: he raps on the table, pours out a drink and raises it to the victim's lips. This is an astonishingly brilliant bit of acting. At the conclusion of the film we see him in the country, with his pretty wife and several puppies, the proud owner of a small farm set in a vast field in which he is planting wheat by making holes with his fingers along the tops of the furrows.

Shoulder Arms, which appeared at the end of the war, is even better, and, indeed, one wonders whether Chaplin has ever done anything finer. Charlie is an awkward recruit; he has great difficulty in forming fours and standing in line because his feet always turn outwards. Then he is at the Front, in the trenches. Everybody else gets mail: Charlie gets none. Peeping over the shoulder of another soldier, he reads his letter and on his face are reflected a vicarious joy and dismay and amazement in turn. He opens bottles by holding them up over the parapet. He strikes a light by scratching a match on a passing bullet. When he is shooting at the Germans from his loophole, he chalks up every direct hit on a plank, as if he were playing billiards or trapshooting. But when one of the "dead" men returns his fire, he calmly rubs out the last chalk mark. There is an unconscious cruelty about this which is amazing. Now the wet weather comes and the dugout is flooded. A candle end stuck on a board floats by; a frog sits croaking on the big toe of a sleeping soldier. Charlie rearranges his blankets, sinks gently under water and manages to breathe peacefully through the small end of a phonograph trumpet. Next morning he is sent out to reconnoiter. We discover him in the heart of the woods disguised as a tree and quite "invisible." At this point events take an extraordinary turn--Charlie captures both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, and wins the war. In the original version the Allies give him a big banquet, M. Poincaré makes a speech, Charlie rises to reply and the King of England creeps up and sneaks a button off his uniform as a souvenir. Censorship banned this ending and in some places did not permit even the capture of the Kaiser to be shown for a long time.





Mail Us