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Burlesque on Carmen Clippings 36/101
Ivan Gaddis, Motion Picture, New York, April 1916.
Charlie Chaplin‘s Burlesque on Carmen Scenes
„Art suffers and a crimp is put in his funniness“
Editorial content. „Secret Griefs and Cankers in the Bosom
Charlie Chaplin Claims That He Is Full of Them
By Ivan Gaddis
THE troubles of Charlie Chaplin, the merry vagabond of the
Moving Pictures, are becoming acute. He doesn‘t know
any more whether he is Charlie Chaplin or whether several
other fellows, who are daily getting kicked in various
uproarious ways, but always in the same anatomical place,
are ,him.‘ It makes him sore to see his other selves
getting all the kicks, for, like Byron, he feels: ,The worm, the canker,
and the grief are mine alone!‘
The little comedian has read the big billboard query,
at the entrance to a theater, ,Did You Ever Know That Charlie
Chaplin Played the Violin?‘
He saw another sign asking, ,Is He Really Charlie Chaplin?‘“
,Come In and See Charlie Chaplin Fight the Bull‘
was the call of red fudge type at another place. And to add to his
misery, there are the dozen or mere ,Original Charlie
Chaplins.‘
Several New York newspapers really found him out.
They compiled proofs from various sources to the effect that
he is an Irishman, a German, a Russian, an Englishman.
He was discovered to be Charles Fitzgerald, Otto Barger, Patrick
O‘Flaherty and Nicolai Lapidovitch.
He says he talked to a young woman journalist for five
minutes, and the story of his life soon began to appear. It ran as
a serial in several newspapers, and is still running. This
,biography‘ described piteously the neglect of a drunken father.
But these are the least of Charlie‘s troubles. He has
been accused of ,borrowing‘ what he thought he owned. The
season‘s large crop of ,Original Charlie Chaplins‘ each
comes forward and claims to have discovered the little pot hat,
the dinky cane, the baggy trousers, the ,tooth-brush‘
mustache, and those shabby but historical shoes.
,Is he deaf and dumb?‘ is the earnest query from one
magazine, which makes out a strong affirmative case in five
full pages.
„It seems that space writers go crazy trying to invent
a new fable about Charlie. He has read recently that he spent
some time in an asylum; that he is a dope fiend; that
he is married. Not that the last goes with the others, but
he happened to mention it in that way. Also, he has
been startled to hear that he had died; but with Mark Twain he
says that the report of his death is greatly exaggerated.
Sometimes C. Chaplin gets his maltreated back up for fair.
The occasions fully warrant it. He is about to bring an
injunction against the production of a picture play called
The Mix-up. He says that this is a patchwork of old
scenes which were used in different plays.
,There‘s going to be a decided mix-up on that,‘ he told
me. ,The film don‘t represent me at all. A fellow has
to work too hard for a reputation to have a thing like that try
to camp out on his trail.‘
There is also a matter of some ragged, spotty films,
taken eighteen months ago, and now being widely advertised,
to which Chaplin objects.
However, his biggest ,trouble‘ symptoms are of three
distinct kinds. One is biographies. Another is provided
by that host of men willing to sustain bumps and kicks for art‘s
sake, who do turns on the vaudeville stage and in shows
of various kinds under the guise of the original Charlie Chaplin.
The third big trouble emanates from the ,Originals.‘
,The Originals,‘ said Charlie, ,are always trying to pick
an argument with me in controversies about make-ups,
about who discovered the hat, who invented the walk, who
conceived the funny way to walk when kicked, and
who first learnt to flirt a cane my way, and all the rest of it.“
,What they really want,‘ he avowed with a far-away
look, ,is for me to come back, hot under the collar,
and denounce them. Then their stock will soar under
advertising. But no controversies for me. I get
enough in front of the camera.‘
,But where it hurts the hardest,‘ he went on, ,is that these
fellows bamboozle part of the public. The result
is this: If the audience see an actor, got up as I am, being
chased by a bull, and the bull is the only funny part
of the scene, the crowd goes away saying, ,Why, I thought
that fellow Charlie Chaplin was funny. With the bull
had got him.‘
Chaplin indicates that art suffers and a crimp is put
in his funniness when these pretenders get busy. They are
a real sorrow to him and to every one else.
Some of his public libelers take the view that he is
a boob, an ignoramus, a simp of the first water. He says he has
even read that Charlie Chaplin is so ignorant that
he can‘t sign a check. If this wasn‘t nonsense it would be a
serious misstatement, as Chaplin does know how
to do this so well that he signs checks on the back most
frequently. He confesses one of the neatest things
he does during a year is to endorse about $75,000 in checks.
Nobody as yet has tried to forge his signature, tho
several have offered to help him get rid of his salary. But
if Charlie didn‘t take the thorns with the roses,
he would most likely have been been suffering with an awful
and protracted case of ,swelled head‘ long ago.“
Redaktioneller Inhalt
Charlie Chaplin´s Burlesque on Carmen next previous
