Charlie Chaplin (1951)

cc 26 Swain, Marie Dressier, Tom and Edgar Kennedy, Charlie Murray, Slim Summerville, Hank Mann, Charley Chase, Louise Fazenda, Polly Moran, Gloria Swanson, Raymond Griffith, Phyllis Haver, Marie Prevost, Billy Bevan, Harry Gribbon, Harry Langdon, Sally Eilers, Carole Lombard. In the early sound days he introduced Bing Crosby after three major studios had pronounced him unsuited for motion pictures. He also rescued W. C. Fields from oblivion. Some of his directors — Roy Del Ruth, Eddie Kline, and Mai St. Clair — carry on his tradition, and his influence remains visible in animated cartoons, the satires of Rene Clair, the comedies of the Marx Brothers, in "screwball" comedies of the "Nothing Sacred" school, in some of the Capra films, and in the work of Preston Sturges. But if he had contributed nothing else, Sennett would be sure of a place in history as the man who ushered Chaplin to his movie debut and gave him his first lessons in screen comedy. A rough and uneducated Irishman, Sennett had an intuitive knowledge of what would make people laugh. If a scene made him laugh, it stayed in the picture; if not, it was cut out or reshot. He had a genius for the ridiculous. His taste was an accurate barometer of the average. His fast-paced humor and slapstick provided the relief of the belly laugh for unnumbered millions. The universality of his pictures came from their direct visual appeal and their simple images. Beneath the surface humor of appearance and situation, there was often a wry commentary on the conventions and hypocrisies of life and manners. A circus origin was clear in many of his comic gags; others derived from burlesque and vaudeville. There were elemental jokes that had rocked audiences for centuries: the humor of physical deformity, ludicrous costumes, horseplay, the comedy of undress, the fall of dignity, the risible accident and dis