A Woman Clippings 41/72
Charles J. McGuirk, Motion Picture, New York, August 1915.
The Jitney Bus
Words by Edith Maida Lessing, Music by Roy Ingram
Chicago, 1915, Margaret Herrick Library,
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Part 5
„Plucking three feathers from a lady-chicken“
Editorial content. „Chaplinitis
By Charles J. McGuirk
(Continued from July Number)
We left Charles Chaplin in the July number, taking a few,
vigorous dance-steps prior to getting to work on his first
photo-comedy for the Essanay Company. He did it so seriously
that everybody wondered if he was out of his mind,
because it seemed entirely uncalled for. Francis X. Bushman
was among the interested bystanders – just a wee-bit
peeved, perhaps, to see this great bidder for world-popularity
stepping into the Essanay studio, where he had been
monarch o‘er all he surveyed – and he inquired the cause
of Chaplin‘s peculiar antics.
,Ah!‘ he said, sotto voce. ,Got to limber up. A little pep,
everybody; a little pep. Come on, boys. Shoot your
set. I‘m ready.‘ The last sentence was shouted. Charlie went
thru a few other steps, and then sized up the situation.
He examined his set and then his actors. He gave them their
instructions as to just what they should do and just
when they should do it. He looked down on those $50,000 feet
of his, picked up one of them and stood like a stork
as he examined the shoe, put it down again, straightened up
and started to shoot a rapid-fire of directions, musings
and comments on the world of today. When any actor went
thru a piece of ,business‘ that appealed Charlie, he was
quick to step out, pat him on the back and tell him: ,You‘re a bear.
Good stuff. You‘re goin‘ along right, old top. Keep it up –
keep it up.‘
It took a little while, but Chaplin finally injected enough
enthusiasm into his people to make them work hours
without thought of time. The proof of it came at the noon hour.
Nobody knew it was twelve o‘clock. The first inkling
Chaplin had of it was when he noticed the augmented crowd
that eyed his efforts with all sorts of expressions on their
faces. ,What‘s the idea? Why the party?‘ Charlie exclaimed,
during a lull in the work. ,By George! I‘ll bet it‘s twelve
o‘clock, ain‘t it, boys? Twelve o‘clock, sure as you live. That‘s all
for a while. Get out and get your lunches.‘
The actors filed out, tired but very happy. Every one
who had worked with Chaplin that morning had the warm spot
in the heart that comes with the praise of work well done.
When they came back and again took their places on the floor,
there was hardly any holding them they got a piece
of ,business‘ to do. And it was hard to work with Chaplin.
His ideas and methods call for strenuous work.
There are many rough falls and hard tumbles in store for
the actor or actress who works with him and does
his or her role properly. That is why a player will work with
him for a while and then will gently hint that he would
like a rest. Under the spell of Chaplin‘s personality he will wade
thru water, sit in a fire or fall from the third story onto
an asphalt pavement. Away from the little, human dynamo,
he reviews the chances he took, shudders and begins
to feel sorry for himself. Thus it goes in Chaplin‘s life. His work
is an elimination of the unfit and picking of the fit.
Chaplin‘s company right now is a perfect working unit. It is filled
with his personality. That is why his comedy and his
effects are improving all the time. Chaplin‘s gift, like every other
genius‘s, is the making the most of his opportunities
and the welding of his backgrounds into a perfect series
of pictures.
Chaplin is a paradox. He is a character, an ,original.‘
The methods he uses are heavy with the age of centuries, yet
his effects are spectacular and brand new. He is an
Englishman, born in a country which is popularly supposed to be
bereft of humor. While this is a fallacy, nethertheless
Chaplin is not an exponent of British humor. His type is more
the Latin type, and in Anglo-Saxon only in the horseplay
that is inevitable in his plots. There is Celtic subtlety in the Chaplin
comedies that reminds one of the wit of Lever or Swift;
sometimes there is even a hint of Boccaccio or De Maupassant.
The subtleties you do not notice. But they are the things
that tickle you and make your mirth uproarious. When you recall
his pictures, you remember a man being hit by a plate
or a sledge-hammer, or sitting involuntarily in a very active
bonfire. What you don‘t remember is the trick of
expression – the emotions that chase themselves across
the face of the victim – the nonchalance of a pigmy
,giant‘ executing a Herculean feat which you know on the face
of it is absurd and out of the question. That is Chaplin
– subtlety, horseplay, a fringe of pathos, all mixed up in a
bewildering hodge-podge of film that moves you to
unrestrained laughter.
Chaplin‘s beginning was quite humble. There wasn‘t
much apparent chance for his raw talents when he first went
on the stage, as a dancer and as an actor, with William
Gillette. His first appearance in America was a typically English
skit. Thinking it over dispassionately, one wonders how
it ever became so successful. That is, one wonders until one
remembers that Chaplin was in it. It was called A Night
in an English Music Hall, and it portrayed the adventures of a ,drunk‘
who went to a music hall in a hilarious condition and gave
frank and original expressions of opinions on each act he saw.
There was no plot to the sketch. It was merely a rather
crudely constructed vehicle of laughter. Chaplin was ,the funny
drunk.‘ That was the sobriquet he got from enthusiastic
people who remembered him gratefully for the prolonged laughter
he gave them.
An all-wise Moving Picture director came and saw and
was conquered by ,the funny drunk.‘ He offered him a contract.
Chaplin thought it over for about three minutes and
signed up. A week later he had made his début in the ,detestable
slapstick comedy that is rendering coarse the youth
of the country,‘ according to some self-appointed moral
watchmen of a couple of years ago.
In those benighted days, Chaplin comedy was denounced
as wicked, immoral slapstick. His pictures suffered from
the slashing of censors, who figured that this brand of humor
was dangerous. Moral policemen thundered from pulpit,
rostrum and editorial chair that the buffoonery of the Englishman
was silly, inane and perverted. This it distinctly was
not. There was a point to every movement, every situation.
The self-appointed saviors clandestinely saw his
pictures and doubled themselves up in unholy mirth. But, when
they left the theater, they reasoned that, while they could
digest the humor, the poor uneducated masses were likely
to be swayed by the situations instead of the thought
behind them.
But there came a change, gradual and almost unnoticed.
People watched for Chaplin and packed the house
in which he appeared. His star was mounting, altho his name
was scarcely known.
Essanay, realizing the genius of the man, made him
a dazzling offer that was at once accepted. Chaplin enrolled
himself under the banner of that firm. And then the
world went mad. From New York to San Francisco, from Maine
to California, came the staccato tapping of the telegraph
key. ,Who is this man Chaplin? What are his ambitions? What‘s his
theory of humor? Is he married, or single? How does he like
American life? Does he eat eggs for breakfast? Is he conceited?‘
The newspapers wanted to know; the country had risen
and demanded informations.
And in the wake of this demand came the deluge
of requests for the exclusive use of Chaplin‘s figure, or his name,
on a new toy, a song, a novelty in which an image of Chaplin
gravely performed one of his funny stunts. In the theatres, on the
vaudeville stage, comedians stalked gravely on the boards
in crude imitation of the inimitable Englishman. And they were
applauded and appreciated in direct proportion to the
correctness of their imitations. The dignified stage reaching
shame-facedly into the despised Moving Pictures
to lift its comedies into its own audiences. And the ,Chaplin
Waddl,‘ the ,Charlie Strut‘ and the ,Chaplin Wiggle‘
banged and sputtered out of overworked pianos in the song
factories, that have their own methods of showing which
way the wind of popular favor is blowing. Then appeared the
image of the quiet Englishman on the lapels of the
coats of the younger set. Chaplin pins and Chaplin souvenir
spoons were rushed in response to frantic demands
for ,Chaplin favors.‘ The mystic high sign of universal brotherhood
was:,Are you a Chaplinite?‘ And every one knows the
countersign.
Meanwhile, out in the Essanay Western studio, in Niles,
Cal., there was produced a comedy called The Tramp.
It was written and produced by Chaplin, as a vehicle for his
own work. The story was old as the hills; the situations
would have been pronounced crude if they had been worked
by any other than Charlie Chaplin. But there was
something new in the picture. The tramp, after many adventures
characteristic of a city man‘s ignorance of farm life,
fell in love with the farmer‘s daughter, who was nursing
him thru an illness resulting from a wound he got in
defending her home from an attack of thieves.
Down in the projection-room of the Essanay studio,
the men who passed on the picture felt a chill across their backs
as the tramp discarded his humor and became pathetic.
The chill was of fear. Chaplin was stepping out of his province.
The girl‘s real sweetheart appeared on the scene and
was taken into her arms. The tramp saw his air-castles crumbling
into dust. He wrote a note – the crude note of an uneducated
man. He left it on the table, tied up his red bandanna
handkerchief and put it on his cane. He shyly took his leave
of the girl o‘ dreams and started on his journey to world‘s
end. The men in the projecting-room felt the chill give way
to a lump in the throat. The tramp had built too high and
his foolish dream was being shattered. A rather funny situation,
you think? Well, there were tears in the men‘s eyes.
Chaplin had crossed the border into pathos, and had expressed
it solidly and surely. While he was walking down the road,
there was dejection in every movement. But the light-heartedness
of the nomad again gained the ascendancy. Chaplin shook
himself, gave a characteristic flirt of his coat, and wandered jauntily
out of the picture. And the audience smiled, with tears
in its eyes.
What will he do next? Surely not, like Eddie Foy,
will he yearn for the unattainable and attempt to do Hamlet.
His is a genius that bends everything in his touch,
however, and, like David Warfield, who came into public favor
as second fiddle to Weber and Fields, his versatility
may carry him into the field of straight comedy, or comedy-drama,
in such grand characterizations as Warfield‘s Music
Master, which was one of the milestones of theatrical success.
Give Chaplin a great photoplay, a strong, virile, lovable
part, and the brainy little man with the far-away look in his eyes
will astonish and hold us yet with his breadth of a genius
that has just begun to try its first fight of fancy. Out in Niles, Charlie
was informed that another story was being written about
him. Then some showed him his likeness on the cover of a famous
magazine devoted to Moving Pictures, and a third informed
him that a chorus of show-girls, each one costumed à la Chaplin,
was the latest hit on Broadway. Charlie shrugged his
shoulders and looked into space.
,Say,‘ he said. ,Did you see The Tramp? I know I took
an awful chance. But did it get across?‘ Finally he unbosomed
himself to the interviewer. ,Oh, go as far as you like. You‘ll
write what you please, anyway. I‘m trying to figure whether or not plucking three feathers from a lady-chicken will get
by the Censors.‘“
Four photos.
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