One Of Motion Pictures Great Early Geniuses - Tossed Out Of America
He has been called the single most influential artist in the
history of motion pictures; certainly no other movie star enjoyed the
international, iconographic status he attained early in the silent era and
maintained well past the coming of sound. And certainly no other creative talent
did as much as he to elevate screen comedy to a high art. Perhaps most
significant, though, is the fact that he helped make the motion picture a medium
of emotional expression, taking it forever out of the category of a mere
flickering novelty.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born to British music-hall entertainers who had
skirted around the edges of prosperity without ever achieving it. His parents
separated when he was only a year old, and he stayed with his mother, whose
stage career dissipated as he got older. Chaplin's father died a hopeless
alcoholic, and his mother's increasingly fragile health and tenuous mental state
forced him and older half-brother Sydney to work for their suppers. Already
steeped in show-business traditions, he did some childhood hoofing and
occasionally acted on the legitimate stage. At the age of 17 he joined the music
hall troupe of impresario Fred Karno, with whom he honed his pantomimic skills.
While touring with Karno in America in 1912, Chaplin-whose comic drunk was the
highlight of the troupe's show-was seen by Mack Sennett, the godfather of movie
comedy, who hired him away to appear in moving pictures. He debuted on screen in
Making a Living (1914), all but unrecognizable in top hat, frock coat, and
mustache. Kid Auto Races at Venice (also 1914) saw him wearing a derby hat and
droopy trousers, and brandishing a cane; it was the first appearance of what
would come to be known as "the Little Tramp," a character Chaplin continued to
refine in his short-subject appearances during a year-long tenure with Sennett's
Keystone company.
He began directing with his 13th film, Caught in the Rain (also
1914), and gradually moved away from the simple slapstick frenetics of the
Keystones. Already a familiar face to moviegoers, and an increasingly valuable
property to Sennett, Chaplin felt he was worth more than the $175 a week he was
getting paid, and in 1915 signed with Essanay (another pioneering film company)
for $1,250 a week with bonuses. He maintained complete creative control over his
short subjects, and during the Essanay period evolved the Tramp character
further, adding the little subtleties and the touch of pathos for which he
became famous worldwide. The Tramp was truly an Everyman for international
audiences, all of whom could easily identify with the downtrodden little fellow
whose eternal optimism in the face of adversity inspired them all. It was The
Tramp (1915) that gave audiences their first glimpse of a Chaplin trademark: the
final shot of the little fellow, alone, shuffling away from the camera down a
long, barren stretch of road.
In 1916 Chaplin moved operations to Mutual. By now he commanded a weekly salary
of $10,000 (with bonuses adding up to $150,000), enjoyed creative autonomy, and
was given a month to produce each of his two-reel comedies-in an era when most
were cranked out in a few days. With his characterization set, he applied
himself to crafting his films with painstaking precision, often improvising and
rehearsing for days to get a sequence that might last only a minute or less. His
skill at pantomime and his athletic flair for expressive physical comedy
manifested themselves in set pieces that were choreographed like dance routines
with split-second timing. Easy Street, The Rink, The Cure and The Immigrant are
just a few of the brilliant comedies Chaplin made during his stay at Mutual in
1916-17.
First National beckoned him with a million-dollar contract in 1918, demanding
only a minimal output (initially eight two-reelers per year) but anticipating
the same huge worldwide profits that had come to be expected of his films. A
Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms (both 1918), and The Kid (1921, his first feature
film) are among his best efforts for First National. As well compensated as he
was, though, Chaplin longed for the total freedom and security of his own
company. In 1919 he co-founded, along with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and
D. W. Griffith, the United Artists Corporation, through which the four cinematic
giants would release their subsequent product. When Chaplin's contract with
First National ran out, he made films exclusively for UA distribution, never
again returning to the shackles of a studio contract.
He directed his first United Artists release, the sophisticated A Woman of Paris
(1923), which starred his former leading lady Edna Purviance and Adolphe Menjou;
Chaplin himself took only a brief cameo. The film flopped badly, and a chastened
Chaplin returned to the security of his Little Tramp for The Gold Rush (1925),
one of his enduring masterpieces, still an often-revived favorite from the
silent era. It exuded the great attention to detail, both in setting and
performance, that would become a Chaplin hallmark even as it reduced his output.
Fully three years elapsed between it and The Circus (1928), another fine comedy,
for which he was awarded a special Oscar at the first Academy Awards ceremony in
1928.
Charlie Gets Thrown Out Of America, Essentially
Chaplin had by this time already been the recipient of unwanted controversy.
Although he campaigned vigorously for the sale of U.S. War Bonds during World
War 1, he was castigated for not returning to his homeland to join the Armed
Forces (actually, a medical problem kept him out of uniform). His penchant for
younger women found him marrying two 16-year-olds, Mildred Harris (an actress
from whom he was divorced after two years) and Lita Grey (who bore him two sons
and won a million-dollar divorce settlement after three years), a 19-year-old
starlet, Paulette Goddard (from whom he was divorced in 1942), and finally,
18-year-old Oona O'Neill (the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill). All these
liaisons generated reams of unwelcome publicity.
In 1928, the talking-picture revolution threw the entire movie industry into
turmoil, but Chaplin dealt with sound in his own unique way: He simply ignored
it. He reckoned, correctly, that sound would ruin the simple appeal of his Tramp
character, and hurl the pathetic little figure into a world more real (and
certainly more coarse) than the stylized fantasy milieu he then inhabited. City
Lights (1931), his next and arguably greatest picture, made certain concessions:
It sported a fully orchestrated musical score-composed, for the most part, by
Chaplin himself-and used sound effects sparingly, and to clever effect. The
story itself concerned the Tramp's efforts to help the blind girl he loved
hopelessly, and the final scene-in which, having had her sight restored through
his efforts, the girl first sees that her benefactor is a shabby little wretch
still brings sobs to the throats of audiences with its exquisite poignancy.
Modern Times (1936) saw Chaplin flouting convention yet again by delivering to
moviegoers another silent film. Another masterwork, it co-starred Paulette
Goddard, the former chorus girl whom he married in 1933. A brilliant commentary
on the insanity of a rapid-paced, highly industrialized (and, in Chaplin's view,
dehumanized) society, it delighted audiences with richly orchestrated comic set
pieces. Unfortunately, its apparent anticapitalist overtones would come back to
haunt the filmmaker years later.
The Great Dictator (1940) earned Chaplin several Oscar nominations - - for his
acting, the script, and Best Picture - - and saw him tackle dialogue for the
first time. It offered a relentlessly ridiculous caricature of Hitler and
Nazism, and gave movie fans their last look at the Little Tramp, incarnated for
this picture only as a Jewish barber whose resemblance to a fascist dictator
gets him into trouble.
Chaplin was off the screen for seven years, during which time the motion picture
matured to the point where his next contribution didn't seem nearly as important
as his previous efforts. Monsieur Verdoux (1947), a bitter, cynical black
comedy, cast him as a murderous Bluebeard, a characterization not appreciated by
film fans of the day. (It did, however, get nominated for a Best Screenplay
Oscar.) The story's pacifist leanings ran him afoul of political conservatives
in America, then marshaling their forces for the Cold War against Communism.
They pointed to Verdoux and also to Modern Times and its implied distaste for
capitalism, and set Chaplin up to be knocked down by the House Un-American
Activities Committee, which suspected him of being a Communist. He denied the
charges while testifying before the committee, but public outcry for his
deportation continued.
Chaplin, for all his years in America, never bothered to become a citizen, and
when he went to London in 1952 with fourth wife Oona, he was informed that he
would not get a reentry visa to America. Ironically, he was on his way to the
British premiere of Limelight his nostalgic tale of a once-great music-hall
performer fallen on hard times. Although the film had several wonderful
sequences including one that teamed him with another legendary film comic,
Buster Keaton - - it impressed many as overlong and indulgent. With the U.S.,
his most important market, sour on him, Chaplin found himself the producer of
another flop. (Because it was never "officially" released in Los Angeles in
1952, Limelight was eligible for an Academy Award twenty years later, and in
fact won one, for Best Score, in 1972!)
A profoundly bitter Chaplin resolved never to return to America. He settled in
Switzerland with Oona and their children (one of whom, Geraldine, became an
actress in film), lampooning with considerable bitterness American manners and
mores in A King in New York (1957, unreleased in the U.S. until 1976), and
gamely attempting a directorial comeback with A Countess From Hong Kong (1967),
a totally anachronistic, poorly realized romantic comedy starring Marlon Brando
and Sophia Loren.
In 1972 Chaplin consented to return to America for the Academy Awards ceremony,
where he was presented a special Oscar for career achievement to a tumultuous
ovation from the assembled crowd of Hollywood dignitaries. He was similarly
feted later at New York's Philharmonic Hall, and was knighted by the Queen in
1975. His "My Autobiography" was published in 1964. A biographical film,
Chaplin, was released in 1992.
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