Charlie Chaplin (1951)

cc 4 Chaplin, then, worked out a common denominator of fun and feeling that accords with something in every age, class, arid race of people the world over. Other comedians are typed as Irish, Dutch, Jewish, Broadway, Scotch, Negro, rubes, hillbillies, zanies, etc. Chaplin is universal and timeless. To the French he is a Frenchman; to the Japanese he is one of their own. To children he is the eternal mischievous boy. To the common, underprivileged, or little man, he is their champion who somehow manages ,to outwit Mr. Big. To esthetes he is the dreamer ever searching for beauty in an often ugly and cruel world — the conscience of the world. In women he appeals to their maternal instinct. For Freudians he personifies our frustrations. To left-wingers, his comedies ' 'protest against the crushing of the individual by social forces." However, according to Robert E. Sherwood, a motionpicture critic before he became a playwright and biographer, "Charlie Chaplin is a great artist, an inspired tragedian — and everything else that the intellectuals say he is — but there can never be any doubt of the fact that he is fundamentally a clown; and it is when he is being most broadly, vulgarly, crudely funny that he approaches true genius." These endlessly various interpretations have kept the Chaplin legend eternally green and have led each new generation to rediscoveries of the secrets of his art. Each finds in Chaplin what he brings to him — as with all great art. One of Chaplin's greatest assets is his deep understanding of human nature — again an outcome of his own circumstances which compelled first-hand knowledge of life and close observation of people at an early age. As stated in an early article ("What People Laugh At," American Magazine, November 1918, ghost-written by Rob Wagner), "There is no mystery connected with