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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1952.
The Chaplin Story 3: He Joins The Keystone Kops
WOD
SUCCESS, MARRIAGE, AND A MILLION DOLLAR
By COLIN
M
FRAME
hod Chaplin and the camera clicked. In a year his now re- cruit had starred in about úlms,
40
ACK SENNETT, It appeared to Sennett that
Chief Constable of the Keystone Kops who made a teen-age century roll with Fred laughter was, like Karno before him, not im- mediately impressed by his new recruit, Charles Spencer Chaplin.
For one thing, the strangeness of his new life. the fear that he had to battle all over again to make a success had pushed temperamental Chaplin down to the depths of despair.
He was friendless and alone armung people who talked the new language of flims, not the old farmiling one of the stage. He was in one of his moods.
And another reason Sennett thought a little ruefully that he had made a mistake was that somehow the Chaplin that made the music halls resound, with laughter could hardly raise a cameraman's smile.
First of those historic pieces is reckoned to be "Making a Living" although some
claim that the first was a one-reeler called "The Film Johnnie" in which Chaplin did nothing but persistently waddle across thio- front of a camera just as the photographer Was trying lake a picture,
to
Chaplin's own memory of his first film suggests that "Making a Living" was the title.
Fred
He wrote excitedly to Karno to describe how he spent an entire morning going up a grensed Indder with a bucket of coal. He was supposed to feign a limp. By the time he had fallen off the ladder a few times he had a genuine one.
It usually took only a day Later it was to take anything. to make a Chaplin alm in 1914. from four to six years.
Craftsman
For the rest of the time the Keystone company, actors and It was some weeks before technicians alike, would work Sennett realised
was developing, cutting and shaping what wrong. His cast relied chiefly the finished product. on make-up for their funny effects. But Chaplin WILN
him naturally funny within self.
in this It was
way that Chaplin first learnt the techni- que of Alming so that, in later years, he hot only produced, directed and acted, but could do any other job in or out of the studio 25 well as
the specialist.
or genlus.
- Were
again a little staggered, for she was only sixteen and he expected, if he married anyone, to marry Edan Purviance.
Mildred Harris, a railway- man's daughter, had appeared in Hollywood films since sho
was thirteen.
CONTRACT
Ridiculing Charlie
Hitler Chaplin
in
in
inimitable caricature "The Great
There was some
Dictator."
criticism stayed faithful ever glace-the
She was usuni- ly the little sister in D. W. Grimur dramus. She was
appealing but in-
tensely child-like.
Many years
afterwards sho sald that the break-up of this marriage was her own fault because she was too young to understand the moody, brillant man who was her husband.
They had a boy in 1910 but he lived only a few days and then it became clear the marriage had broken up. It ended in the divorce court the next year.
Chaplin made her a property settlement of £30,000. "Well, such is life in the great West" was his comment when he heard the divorce had been granted.
Mildred Harris married twice more. She died eight years ago.
Among the films the million- dollar contract produced was
the laughter-maker of
the
1014-18 war-Shoulder Arms.'
It had all the best
Chaplin
of the time made funnier by the dreary contrast of muddy trenches and with that touch ot
sadness 05 the forlorn
Chaplinesque Tommy, with no food parcel from home, ato cheese from a mousetrap with every sign of enjoyment.
But
True Artist
a
comparison between "Shoulder Armis" and "The Great Dictator" shows clearly how far Chaplin travelled and how his genius blossomed be- tween the two wars.
By the Armat was
Ume "Shoulder made Hollywood
that he had not returned
to from sublime-to-ridiculous finally recognised they had a take up arms against the Ger- opening and the pathetic mans, There was a story that hopeful end. he had gone to the British E-
With Essanay. he continued to make short one or two reel
Bimas,
•
£2,500 A Week
be
genius on their hands, an New Immortal
but sens
actor, true, but also a natural lms creator of
and Alm “Strange wigs, oddly painted faces, padding to make people.
bassy to volunteer but had · He appeared, in one, to
stories. to his, the head of an enormous bank off the cuff with unerring
Chaplin began to shoot enormously fat these tricks
to return He became a master of the been told
scores sildet the real comedian in the intricacies of a craft into which laughter-making job.
Hinkoys flashed arthe opened
for the best pletura. mon who held more laughter he was finally to pour 'his
vast doors and entered the Hich Instinct vault. But from it he took a He was everywhere In the In the lift of an eyebrow
buchet and mop. He was only studio, dancing from set to the curl of a little finger.
Moreover he began to make
the caretaker.
camera, from.camera to lights. So Chaplin chose his OWN friends. There
He pulled all the strings and 'pretty' rigbig boots, boggy
In 1917, when Chaplin was worked his Normand, trousers, 'Mabel
the fair
cast and himself black
battered heroine mousuche,
of most
Keystone
two important eventa ce until they were ready to drop. bowler and swagger cone-and comedies, and good-hearted
curred. He married. And ho Then he worked through the Now he had a new heroine, felt happier.
Marie Dressler, There
was offered A were Edna Purviance, of whom.
million-dollar night editing the fim. And the world had new Slim Summerville, Fatty
Д
Ar-
He was never contract.
casily satis- became extremely fond, Ho buckle, Edgar Kennedy, Ches took her with him to yet an
fed. Ho is said to have In this guise Charlie Chapter Conklin, Charley Chase and other company the Mutual paid Hollywood. The terms used only a tenth of it.
This staggered even highly posed 50,000 feet of alm and lin walked into the Keystone others whose names were pick- who paid him £2,500 a week. were, many thought, fantastic. comedies and walked away ed out in lights in later years,
But this was only a hint of with them.
Chaplin was practically-given-a-what-as-to-come. In three years the £4-2 free hand so long as he made good-for-nothing Outside the company he be- trump, but a tramp with a dif- came close friends with Mary week music hall comedian had eight nima in eighteen months. ference.
Pickford and Douglas Fair become the highest pold of all
film stars. banks.
Immortal.
He was a
in
He began to feel at home in Hollywood-and he has stayed there ever since.
As Mr Churchill has pointed out in his essays on Chaplin, his tramp, although superficial ly English was, in fact, more American
behaviour "poverty dellberately chosen rather than the bitter grinding destitution Charlie encountered In the London slums. The Chaplin tramp has a quality of and along
Vellance and disduln."
Crash f
1
Businessman
The year's contract
ended
0
came Essanay, new company which were pre- pared to offer him £250 week.
Chaplin insisted on £208. It At the some time, the Chap- seeffed such an odd figure that
Chaplin
bo
earth
His films girdled the and made it hold its bulging sides with laughter - Charlie mal- lighting his way into a evolent bed; Charlie, ragged and neglected, taking. out small clothes brush to main- tain appearances after yet an- a clock to pieces with all other turable; Charlie picking
gravity of an expert defusing a magnetic mine; Charlie in love; Charlie as a shopwalker; Char- lle as a fireman.
From these
war-time
the
Alms
lin tramp imporèd for the first the agent asked why and the time an English brand of ever-security-minded humour on American knock- pointed out ho could live en there began to emerge the true: Chaplin greatness inasmuch as
27
ex-
On the strength of it he bo-
·gan to build studios of his own NEXT SATURDAY: and in these he has worked -▲- Father's Grief-&-"Tho ever since.
His marriage was to Mildred Kid": Chaplin makes Jackie
Harris
and
Hollywood
was, Coogan a
star overnight.
TROUBLE CENTRE FOR NEGUIB
By J. L. HAYS
more
IVIDLY green, criss- 13,009 Egyntima owned
crossed by stinking irri- than 200 acres and 1,500,000 the odd £18 and bank the rest people began to realise he was gation ditches and canals, less than an acro,
12,500 square miles of them each out of a total area of 380,- hug both banks of
12,000 world, it1000-
about film comedy,
There were still the inevit-
And for millions of landless able custard ples but there, He Was apparcully still not merely funny; he was sad, Egypt's only farmlands
fellaheen nothing was loft but was also the supreme artistry looking over. his shoulder at too.
dawn-to-dusk labour in some- of pantonime.
began to draw his the spectre of Lambeth. And There was the crash of croc- like any Cockney kid, he could audiences.
body else's fields and mistry. kery but also the exquisite not believe that such luck evoning all over the
But now all is to bo changed. Estates of over 200 acres are to Uming and grace of the tradi- would last. But last it did, as was estimated to the verge the broad, brown Nile.
Le broken up, their owners com- Ilonal tumbler; the endless his fame grow and as a war- of tears, then blow the mood
For scores of mlies at a stretch pensated with bonds redeemable chasings round the houses—but worried Europe went to see
they form a also eloquent
strip only a few over 30 years at 34 percent In- expressions on his pictures to laugh and for- Chaplin's face.
hundred yards wide, thick palm terest, and the surplus land re- belts guarding them against the distributed among the fellaheen taway desert.
on "easy payment terms." But north of Calro they spread And it will be geol for "ob- widely, fen-shaped, to meet the structionists" and saboteurs, Mediterranean coss This is the
TAKE NO NOTICE OF WHAT
YOU'VE READ ABOUT THE LABOUR CONFERENCE
IT WASN'T LIKE
THAT AT ALL
got.
THE SHOW BEGAN WITH
· DEAKIN & LAWTHER, CELEBRATED PIPERS,IN. *CALLING THE TUNE"
NYS, INTERNATIONAL STAR; 'GOLICED PRESIDENT TRUMAN- WITH" WE DONT WANT YER CHRISTMAS 2 PUDN'
CLEM
DID A
BETTY MUTTON
JUST TO SCARE
A SECTION DE
THE AUDIENCE":
MORECAMBE DOINGS
away in a gale of laughter.
In those films, too, began to emerge tricks to which, he has
(A slight interruption fook plaka
Cubila a Fellows-trane stáraga, Infant was removed for
THEA WE
HAD THE
CELEBRATED
TRAHSIAMADOI
| GELERNISINO
-MISICA ÈPERSONS
not shutting its gab).
SIT, THE CURTAINS ARE PULFİA. AND PRICITO |-- IT MOLEST MAYE. BEEN TWO ODLER FELLÖVÉSZ
Nile Delto-cere of Gen. Mo“
12
was in the
hammed Neguib's vast land re- There is plenty of work-and form scheme. And an agricul plenty of problems ahead of the omcials tural slum," with, the highest ag- Gen. Neguib and ricultural popuk Uör density (I he is now appointing. 500 souls to every square mile in
start with, the Delta's places) in the world.
of maizotised Zori production Rich crops of ebiten, grain and the fellsheen's fat balad broad. sugar cane are harvested from 1s lower than it under the palma. But so are hu 1920s; and the value of Egypt's men, minories on a scele unknown wheat fimpor: Jumped last year
from £14,000,000 £4,000, elsewhere in the whole of the 900. Both are the remilts of Middle East outside the refugee the
the Inneowners policy of plant- camps in the Jordan Valley.ing collen instead grain
against an assurance
of high For, in the mud-hut villages prices being "Juggled" by their And over they share with their animals, political "friends. live millions of ragged, half 80 percent of Egypt's sugar starving families whose annual now has to imported--though Income does not exceed £253. 8.recently as 1949 local supply Two out of every three of there equalled local demand...
these are technical dim- fellaheen (peasants), suffer from hookworm, and malasia: nine out Fultles matters of long-term of ten have filthy eye troubles policy. Only the beginning of caused by bad water and male, Nequib's worries.
Mor, few people in the Middle nutrition.
onster mast pro more primitive, super- Until Gen. Neguin's" "blease) Milious--or plain Ignorant
to swept army movement"
than the “felinheem; 14 JAlready power, over 60-percent of that they are thinking that their delta lands were securely owned worries are ended. But i land by a handful of fabulously, rich
form behelite will inevitably familias representing precisely, accrue deviy--Indeed some ex- ano-tenth of and percent 7th peris, wonder if they will at all doostenith of one percent of plant opportamities for rumour. 20.000.000 Kgyptians. • Of the mosgang: agitators to exploit other 40 percent of the Delia, dinjilintonment will be plenty.
But
Pore 11
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