Charlie Chaplin in the gold rush - 1889 (1925)

ON THE SET WITH CHARLIE as seen by SlD GRAUMAN THE Chaplin studio is differentiated from most other habitats of the photoplay by the use of the word itself. Essentially it is a studio—not an ag- gregation of buildings where scores of superiority-com- plexed individuals turn out animated pictures simultane- ously. One set at a time is used; the rest of the stages are dark. The handful of people clustered around the two inseparable cameras might appear to the average film magnate to be doing anything but making a screen epic. There are present neither mobs nor megaphones. There is a minimum of noise. The cameramen, property men, electricians all speak amongst themselves in hushed whis- pers when they speak at all. For the most part they look into the center of the set in much the same way as the Sunday flock looks at its pas- tor. For there gesticulates Charlie Chaplin. The set: A little cabin in Alaska. The bare wooden walls re-echo the emotions of two starving men, one almost insane from want of food, the other passive in submis- sion. "Great! Now just once more for luck." The speaker is the little man in very baggy trousers and a funny bobtailed coat. He is wearing one huge, turned-up, long worn-out shoe; his other foot is untid- ily wrapped in sacking His collar and shirt are affinities in dirt, and his face is the composite mirror of mighty souls who have gone before him. Strange how that queer get-up is unable to wipe the pathos from his eyes, how ut- terly those ragged pants and trick mustache fail to rob his brow of the Beethovian sweep. One looks at the patched coat-tails and thinks of Hamlet; hears the voice of the jester and thinks of a cardinal. He acts and di- rects the scene, conceives and considers that Chariot might equally have become a poet or a prime minister, an actor or an archbishop. Opposite him on the set is Mack Swain, a gentleman almost counterbalanced in avordupois and art. A long time ago he used to wear a silk hat and answer to the name of Ambrose. It was in those leaner days that Charlie met him; custard pies then were theirs, both to give and receive. Now they have gone back farther than the era of custard pies, for the present scene brings memories of the NEW YEAR S EVE gold rush to those, that is, who suffer memories. Charlie and Mack are miners starving in the cabin, Mack in particular, because he's making an awful lot of noise about it. Also, it appears, he is temporarily insane with the hallucination that Charlie is a chicken, and that such a chicken would still the void in his aching tummy. Whereupon he stalks Charlie with intent to kill, only to be outwitted by the nimble Charlie and the advent of a huge black bear. Only three scenes were taken in the entire afternoon, but the proof that Mr. Chaplin is without doubt the hardest working individual in Hollywood is that each scene is shot at least twen- ty times. Any one of the twenty would transport al- most any director other than Charlie; he does them over and over again, seeking just the shade to blend with the mood. And his moods are even more numerous than his scenes. "Just once more—we'll get it this time!" It is his continual cry, ceaseless as the waves of the sea. And each additional "take" means just three times as much work for him as for anyone else. Perhaps in the middle of a scene when everything seems to be superlative, he will stop the action with a gesture, "Cut"—he walks over to a little stool beside one of the cameras and leans his head upon the tripod. The cam- eraman stand silently beside their cranks; everyone virtu- ally holds his breath until Charlie jumps up with an en- thusiastic yell: "I've' got it, Mack, you should cry: 'Food! Food!—I must have food!' You're starving and you are going to pieces. See—like this!" Mr. Swain, a veteran trooper, watches intently as Charlie goes through every detail of the action. "Let's take it!" Charlie suddenly exclaims—"What do you saw Mack ?" "Sure," answers Mack. And again the scene is re-enacted and recorded in cel- luloid by the tireless cameras. Charlie Chaplin calls his present picture, "The Gold Rush," a comedy. This because he has on his comedy make-up, and because his principal purpose for the time being is to make people laugh. But Charlie is drama personified ; he couldn't possibly create a chuckle without shading it with the accompanying tear, for so utterK is