Sunday, June 16, 2019

The Chaplin Mutual Shorts Ranked


Charlie Chaplin was the first true international superstar.

Full stop. Period.

There have been a multitude of great performers before him. No doubt about that. We can still read reviews of the great Shakespearean actors and operatic singers from yesteryear. We cannot, however, see them. Neither could the bulk of the people of their own time. Unless you lived in a large cosmopolitan city, you couldn't dream of seeing or hearing one of those great performers.

Until the movies came along.

Movies gave people all around the world, regardless of class, economic status or religion, to view the same performance. Chaplin was not the first movie star, however, he connected with the audience in a way no one else ever had -- or ever would.

Why? I credit the simplicity of his main character. Chaplin developed his famous Tramp persona in his second film Kid Auto Races at Venice. The primitive, short film shows a tramp disrupting a documentary crew filming kiddie car races in Venice, California. In this film, Chaplin addresses the camera head on and builds a relationship with the audience that would last for the rest of his life.


The Tramp proved to be a truly universal character. Everyone could identify with a carefree drifter unwilling to submit to authority and who was only too happy to puncture pomposity whenever he saw it. Using only pantomime to express himself, no language barrier separated Chaplin from the global audience. His films played equally well in Polynesia as they did in America and Europe. He understood the power of silence. He successfully resisted making a true talking picture until 1940's takedown of Hitler,  The Great Dictator.

But, aside from his own personal success, Chaplin was a key innovator in the advancement of screen comedy in general. When Chaplin entered the movie business in 1913, screen comedy consisted primarily of the broadest possible knockabout slapstick humor. That's how he began, too. However, as each ensuing contract gave him more freedom to follow his muse, he expanded the boundaries of screen comedy, adding heart and tackling formerly taboo subjects.

To me, the most pivotal period of Chaplin's development as a filmmaker took place during his twelve film contract to Mutual between 1916 and 1917. Mutual gave him the resources to build his own studio and total freedom to do as he pleased. He also assembled a highly-talented troupe of actors. Most importantly, he hired the imposing Eric Campbell, who, in my opinion, would prove to be the best comic heavy in film history. Sadly, Campbell would die in a car accident at the age of thirty-seven in December 1917, two months after the final Mutual film was released. (To compound the tragedy, Campbell's wife had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in July 1917, and his only daughter was seriously injured in a car accident on her way to buy mourning clothes.)

Eric Campbell
Chaplin was also aided by Edna Purviance, 1895-1958, a delightful leading lady he had hired during his previous contract with Essanay. (She retired from acting in 1927, but Chaplin kept her on the studio pay roll for the rest of her life.) He was also assisted by Albert Austin, 1881-1953, who had come to America with him in the Karno troupe and Henry Bergman, 1868-1947, who would remain working with Chaplin both on and off screen until his death in 1947.

Edna Purviance
Now a little background on Chaplin, for the uninitiated.

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 in London, England. He endured a childhood with enough poverty and hardship to make Charles Dickens blush. His father disappeared and his mother would be sent to an insane asylum. Chaplin was sent to a work house twice before the age of nine. Both of his parents had theatrical backgrounds and he followed them on the stage. It proved to be his path out of poverty. At the age of nineteen, he joined the comic Fred Karno Company, which brought him to America.

In 1914, Chaplin was signed to Keystone Studios by Mack Sennett, the then king of silent comedy, for $150 a week. He made thirty-six films, mostly primitive one-and-two-reelers, during that year. By the time his contract was up, he had already achieved international stardom. Chaplin jumped ship to Essanay in 1915 for a salary of $1250 a week and a signing bonus of $10,000. Quite a raise. He made fifteen films for Essanay. These films showed growth from the Keystone period, as Chaplin attempted to tell more complicated stories and incorporate pathos. In 1916, he went to Mutual for $10,000 a week and a $150,000 signing bonus. The contract was ultimately worth $675,000, making him one of the most highly paid people in the world.

Chaplin called the Mutual period the happiest time of his life. The joy is evident in all of  the films, and so is the ambition. The technical quality of the film making progressed in all categories. He added more humanity to the Tramp, as well as the characters he interacted with. The Tramp began to subtly change. Originally, the character seemed to be a tramp by choice. A free spirit. Now, he began appearing as a victim of circumstance. This gave the persona more depth, and allowed Chaplin to deal with social issues never before dealt with in comedies.

I first became familiar with the films in my youth. I collected Super 8mm films and began buying the Mutuals from Blackhawk Films. They would put out a catalog every month and usually featured at least one of these films at half price. I still consider them the epitome of silent short comedy, along with some films by Keaton, Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy.

I always wanted to do a Robert Youngson-style documentary about Chaplin at Mutual, highlighting the little innovations throughout. I wrote a script, but never found public domain copies of the films of suitable quality. Perhaps one day I will find the prints and make the film.

Until then, here's my list of the films from weakest to strongest:

12. THE FIREMAN, 12 June 1916
Directed by Charles Chaplin

The Firemen, the second of Chaplin's Mutual comedies, is probably my least favorite of the bunch. It is a typical occupational comedy, where a comedian is placed in a certain job and wrings the comic potential from the tools of the trade.

It's not a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination. There are laughs, and Chaplin does milk some simple gags, like the incessant butt-kicking, more successfully than he did at Keystone or Essanay. (For example, in a Keystone comedy, if someone bent over, someone else would automatically kick them in the butt. Here, if you bend over you will still get kicked, but Chaplin makes a little more of it. He will consider the butt, address it as it were, before he makes his kick. It is a small step to be sure, but every step is important.) Chaplin also attempts some backward motion gags, but they are obvious and not very funny.

Overall, the film suffers because it does not reach the standard Chaplin would set for himself with his later efforts.

11). THE COUNT, 4 September 1916
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Chaplin plays an apprentice to tailor Campbell. He is fired for burning the pants of a customer. The customer was a count, and, finding the invitation to a swanky party, both Chaplin and Campbell go and impersonate the Count and vie for the hand of Miss Moneybags, Edna Purviance. 

Likable, but nothing too fresh or new.  Impersonation and mistaken identity are common themes in Chaplin's oeuvre.  How else would the tramp be able to mix with the rich and pompous? The film features simple slapstick that could have just as easily played in one of his Essanay shorts. It is, however, elevated by higher production values and better performances from his cast.

10). BEHIND THE SCREEN, 13 November 1916
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Chaplin has various misadventures while working in the property department of a movie studio. For some reason, this film turned out to be the last of the Mutual shorts that I saw. I really looked forward to seeing it, thinking Chaplin would make the most of the studio location.

Sadly, if only because of my sense of anticipation, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't find it as funny as the bulk of the other Mutual shorts. Despite a location rich in potential, I found the funniest moments in this film to be some of the smallest ones, –like Charlie trying to steal bites from Albert Austin's lunch.

Still, the film retains interest as a behind the scenes view of motion picture production circa 1916. (A superior and more concise view of the world of producing silent films can be found in Singin' In The Rain as Gene Kelly walks through a silent studio.) To me, the most interesting thing about this film is Chaplin's hostile attitude toward the striking union workers. If he had made this film later in his career, the radical unionists might have been the good guys!

9). THE FLOORWALKER, 15 May 1916
Directed by Charles Chaplin

A floorwalker, Lloyd Bacon, and manager, Eric Campbell, rob the safe of a department store. Before they can leave with their ill-gotten gains, the floorwalker knocks the manager out and steals his share. To evade detectives, the floorwalker induces a look-alike tramp, Charlie Chaplin, to trade places with him. When the detectives arrest the real floorwalker, Chaplin is left with a suitcase of money and one small problem: Campbell wants the money and revenge.

The Floorwalker was the first of Chaplin's films for the Mutual Company. It is more heavily-plotted than most of his earlier shorts. It uses Chaplin's common plot device of mistaken identity which he frequently employed from 1914's Caught in a Cabaret to 1940's The Great Dictator. This time he doesn't reach as high - merely to the ranks of the employed.

The gags are good, in particular Chaplin makes excellent use of an escalator, although the film isn't as funny as many that will soon follow. Still, The Floorwalker remains one of my favorite Mutuals, if only for the sentimental reason that it was the first full-length two-reeler I bought in Super 8mm when I was a kid.

Well worth a look, but not the best introduction to Chaplin.


8). ONE A.M., 7 August 1916
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Chaplin plays a drunk who spends the entire film trying to get into his house and go to bed. In a comic experiment, Chaplin appears alone in this film, aside from Albert Austin, who briefly appears at the beginning as a cab driver. Chaplin draws the humor from his interaction with various objects around the house, most humorously with a hostile Murphy bed.

Is this comic experiment successful? Yes, for the most part. It is a funny short, but, in my opinion, nowhere near his funniest. Still, one must admire Chaplin's boldness. When one watches this film, one sees a talented film maker testing the limits of his skills. Bravo.


7). THE PAWNSHOP, 2 October 1916
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Charlie plays an assistant at a pawnshop with a eye for the owner's daughter and a skill for making mischief. The Pawnshop is perhaps the least plotted of Chaplin's Mutual films. Charlie thwarts Eric Campbell's plan to rob the business, but little screen time is devoted to that story.

This is a situational, or should I say, occupational comedy, where Charlie and his talented cast and crew try to make the most of a particular setting. The best sequence comes when customer Albert Austin arrives with a clock to pawn. Charlie hilariously and inventively destroys the clock in his attempt to discern its value. This "business" - the ability to wring comic potential from simple everyday items - is a lost skill among modern comics. Chaplin was a master at it, and this film serves as a good example why.


6). THE VAGABOND, 10 July 1916

In The Vagabond, Charlie plays a street musician who rescues a girl, Edna Purviance, from a gypsy camp. They set up their own little camp and Charlie soon falls in love with Edna, but before long a rival soon appears in the form of a painter who asks Edna to model for him. A wealthy woman sees the painting in an exhibit and, as a result of a birthmark, recognizes Edna as her daughter who was stolen away as a child. The mother and painter come and sweep Edna up away from Charlie. However, as they drive away, she suddenly demands that they go back and get Charlie, who gets into the car with them and they all live happily ever after.

The Vagabond, the third of Chaplin's films for Mutual, is probably the least humorous of the series, but it is also one of the most interesting. It is essentially a melodrama, and serves as an important creative building block toward his heartfelt feature triumphs that would follow in the twenties and beyond. A film like this was a riskier proposition back in the age of slapstick when comedy was comedy and drama was drama. Today, this is not the first place to look for Chaplin the laugh-getter, but an interesting curio to examine when studying Chaplin's growth as an artist.

5). THE RINK, 4 December 1916
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Charlie plays a waiter with a penchant for roller skating in this very funny short.

There isn't much of a plot in this film, but it generates a great many laughs nonetheless. The scenes featuring Charlie as a waiter are amusing enough, particularly as he mixes a drink, but Chaplin really shines in the skating scenes. Although he was always an agile and physical comedian, few of films display his skills as fully as The Rink. (W.C. Fields called him "a damned ballerina.") Chaplin was so good on skates that one regrets he didn't put them on more often, although he did so to great effect in Modern Times.

4). THE ADVENTURER, 22 October 1917
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

In The Adventurer, Charlie plays an escaped convict who briefly manages to enjoy the good life after rescuing a drowning rich woman before the police find him again.

The Adventurer is the last of Chaplin's films for the Mutual. Lacking any attempt at the pathos and social commentary that Chaplin injected in some of his previous Mutual shorts, this chase comedy almost appears to be a throwback to his rough-and-tumble roots at Keystone. However, there is one major difference, this film is much funnier than anything he did at Keystone. While I do not consider this to be his best short, it is arguably his funniest. The chases that bookend the film are hilarious. The middle is hilarious too. The film is a laugh fest through and through. If this film doesn't put a smile on your face, check your pulse.

3). THE CURE, 16 April 1917
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Charlie, an alcoholic, goes to a health spa for the water cure. He does so, however, only half-heartedly since his luggage is filled almost entirely with alcohol. Once at the spa, he flirts with the always-delightful Edna Purviance and battles with the always-menacing Eric Campbell, who finds himself at a slight disadvantage in this film since his character suffers from gout.

This film, Chaplin's tenth under his twelve-film Mutual contract, doesn't quite scale the heights of his previous one, Easy Street, but remains one of his most consistently funny shorts. A revolving door is used repeatedly for great comic effect, but the highlight of the film is the massage sequence where Charlie desperately tries to avoid the rough treatment masseur Henry Bergman deals out.

Charlie interestingly abandons his normal tramp persona for this film. Although he felt rich drinkers were ripe targets for comedy, he felt that alcoholism in the working class was a serious problem which wasn't suitable for comedy. (Don't ask me for attribution, but I know he said that somewhere.)

2). THE IMMIGRANT, 17 June 1917
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Chaplin plays an immigrant on a ship bound for America. While on the ship, he helps a fellow immigrant, Edna Purviance, whose mother had been robbed. Chaplin meets Purviance later at a restaurant where they are spotted by an artist who hires them to be models. Chaplin uses the advance to buy a wedding license for them.

The Immigrant is generally considered to be one of Chaplin's finest shorts. That is true. It is one of his funniest, too. However, I do not consider it as finely-structured on the whole as many of the other Mutual films. The Immigrant feels like two separate one-reelers, featuring some of the same characters, strung together. We have a shipboard reel and a restaurant reel. The only common characters from both segments are Chaplin and Purviance. (I don't count members of the stock company who appear in both segments as different characters.) The film also suffers from the lack of a consistent heavy throughout.

This weak story structure slightly hampers the overall effectiveness of the short, but doesn't detract too much from the comedy. The first segment has some of the more elaborate gags, like eating dinner on the wave-tossed ship, but I prefer the more subtle humor of the second half as Chaplin tries to figure out how to avoid the wrath of his tough waiter when he discovers he doesn't have any money to pay for his meal.

Much political hay is made of Chaplin kicking the immigration officials after the ship passes the Statue of Liberty. Leftist supporters look at it as an early example of his "heroic" anti-totalitarian political sentiments, while critics take it as a nasty, early anti-American statement. I believe both groups are guilty of wrongly transposing the political sensibilities of the late-forties and early-fifties back into the teens. Robinson's excellent book Chaplin: His Life and Art thoroughly examines the issue and shows that Chaplin intended no political message.

Charlie, however, would have plenty of time for politics later!

1). EASY STREET, 22 January 1917
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

Easy Street starts with Charlie as a poor, destitute tramp. After attending a storefront revival service, and meeting the always delightful Edna Purviance, he decides to turn his life around. He quickly gets a job as a policeman and he finds himself assigned to Easy Street, the worst neighborhood in the city ruled by tough Eric Campbell. Using his own unorthodox tactics, Charlie eventually subdues Eric and the neighborhood and they all live happily ever after.

 Easy Street is easily the best of the Mutual comedies. It is a very funny short. This is the film I show when I want to introduce someone to Chaplin or silent films in general. The gags are inventive, and they are extremely well-played by his regular company of Mutual performers. Chaplin himself is at his best in this film, but where would he be without Eric Campbell, the best heavy he ever played against.

But there is more to Easy Street than laughs. It is unusually mature for a silent comedy of its period. Chaplin usually presented his tramp character as a happy-go-lucky figure - a vagabond by choice, not circumstance. This film starts with the tramp as a down-and-out character, much in need of the new beginning he gets at the mission. In perhaps his first attempt at social commentary, Chaplin provides an unblinking view of the ills of the society of the time. The most graphic example is the drug addict shooting up with a needle. People often have a misconception of silent comedies being simply quaint. That isn't quaint.

This is a must see.

After Mutual, Chaplin signed an even richer deal with First National which gave him more freedom and even ownership of his films. However, he would only make three more two-reel comedies. As his budgets rose, economics (and his own inclinations) required him to turn instead to feature length films. The Kid would be his first true feature as a writer, director, producer and star. When he left First National for United Artists, a company he founded with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, Chaplin would devote himself to features only.

Chaplin would enjoy an amazing run with features despite bucking the tide of talkies. However, his popularity rapidly fell in the 1940s after a scandalous paternity case and suspicions that he was a communist sympathizer.  Having never become a citizen, Chaplin was eventually forced to leave the United States, but he returned in triumph to receive an Oscar in 1972.

Here's the clip:


Here are some other lists:


And, of course, no blog would be complete without some self-promotion. So feel free to check out my  memoir The Promise, or the Pros and Cons of Talking with God, published by TouchPoint Press. It is my true story of first faith and first love and how the two became almost fatally intertwined.



Here are some sample chapters of The Promise:
Chapter 7 - Mission Accomplished
Chapter 15 - Quarter To Midnight

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