Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

CITY LIGHTS 101 attention. It is not unconnected with the relation between Chaplin, as an independent producer-director of films, and other directors whose creative ability is held in check by the production-committee methods of the ordinary studios. A more significant example of the difference that exists between the two distinct types of film production — the individual creative picture and the mass production product — could hardly be found than a comparison between either Harold Lloyd's Feet First or Buster Keaton's Parlour, Bedroom and Bath and Chaplin's City Lights. All three are tremendously amusing, but what widely divergent methods lie behind their construction. And although the three films in question happen to be representative of the comedy element in cinema, the object lesson provided by their comparison — they were all to be seen in London about the same time — applies equally to other types of theatrical pictures. While not wishing to be accused of invidious intent, I do not think that either Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton are ever likely to be reckoned as serious creative artists, or even comedians who resort to any great lengths of imagination or inventiveness in order to provoke laughter. They are content to rely on a series of clever and compromising situations thought out with great labour by a well-paid staff of " gagmen," amplified these days by an occasional wisecrack. To all intents and purposes both Feet First and Parlour, Bedroom and Bath are mechanically constructed articles from two of the most skilled firms of movie-makers, Paramount and Metro-GoldwynMayer respectively, products of that one-hundred-per