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The Gold Rush Clippings 262/363

Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Cal., September 6, 1925.

Robert Nichols, Writer, 1915, photo

& The Poor Quality of Hollywood

      Scenario Writers

      AS SEEN BY A BRITISH CRITIC

      By Robert Nichols

      (Reprinted from the London Times)

(...) Film Mercury, Hollywood, Cal., Dec. 17, 1926

„Where the words leave off, gesture begins“

Editorial content. „PHILOSOPHY OF CHAPLIN EXPRESSED

      Easy to Judge, Not Easy to Understand, His Summery

      of Hollywood Code (...)

      LONDON, Sept. 5. – Charlie Chaplin summarized his

moving-picture philosophy of Hollywood the other

day. He did it to a British interviewer in these words:

      ,It is easy to judge; it is not easy to understand.‘

Amplifying this conception, he said:

      ,If I have the villain in a story I try to give him good

action – to make a sort of doubt steal into folks‘

mind as to whether, after all, a fellow who is a cad under

one set of circumstances may not be quite a decent

sort of fellow under another set.‘

      Chaplin explained this – and much more – to Robert

Nichols, a British writer, who went to America

seeking an answer to the question, ,Why don‘t we get better

movies?‘ Nichols is now writing the result of his

investigation in a series of articles, which are appearing

in the London Times and attracting widespread

attention. He gives this description of Charlie Chaplin:

      ,If you are an artist it is marvelous fun to be

with him, for he gives an impression the peculiar potentialities

of the film medium more fully than any other man

in Hollywood. Heine called Berlioz ,a gigantic nightingale,

whose voice is the orchestra,‘ and the same might

be said of Chaplin, substituting cinematograph for orchestra.‘

      Speaking of the screen, Chaplin told the Englishman:

      ,The more I work in it the more astonished I am at its

possibilities and the surer I am that at present we know next

to nothing about it – except a few don‘ts. The movies

– what a medium!‘

      Chaplin here grabbed the Englishman‘s elbow in sudden

excitement. Upon him was a craving to show what

he meant in motion, ,because,‘ remarks Nichols, ,motion

is the medium natural to the man.‘ Then, calming

himself, Chaplin continued:

      ,I don‘t care much about the story, or plot, as they call

it. If you have the neatest-tailored plot in the world

and have not living characters you have nothing. Producers

assert that the public wants this, that, or the other –

battle, murder and sudden death in evening dress and

smoking jackets. That is the bunk. The public does

not know what it wants, except that it wants an evening‘s

entertainment. I try to give it that. Where the words

leave off, gesture begins.“ (...)

      The Gold Rush opens June 26, 1925

      at Grauman‘s Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Bld., Los Angeles.

      The Gold Rush opens August 15, 1925

      at Strand Theatre, B‘way at 47th St., New York.

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