Charlie Chaplin (1951)

Essanay — the transitional period 51 which, in a previous scene, he had pulled through heavy traffic as if he were a truck horse. In the same picture, amidst violent slapstick with buckets of paste, Charlie puts a lampshade on a small nude statue to provide it with a skirt. As we are about to scoff at his prudery, he peeks under the lampshade like a naughty schoolboy (a wonderful illustration of the roots of obscenity) and manipulates the lampshade to make the statue do "bumps" and "grinds." Throughout he wears an expression of disarming casualness. In "Carmen" soldiers ramming a heavy courtyard door detach it from its hinges. The smugglers behind it continue to "hold" and the door is juggled all around the courtyard — the sort of grotesquerie later copied in cartoons. Then came the gag, which became the foundation of American screen comedy in its classic era, in the twenties, after pie-throwing and the chase had gone out. (Pie-throwing, though this is seldom realized, was considered oldfashioned as early as 1918. In a press interview Sennett himself spoke patronizingly of the "old days" when piethrowing was popular. "Speed, pretty girls and spectacular effects" had become the Sennett formula in 1918.) The Chaplin gag, perhaps, was an accommodation to his short stature. This called for the use of his wits in encounters with giants — like David with Goliath. It was a clever trick or comic stunt, not necessarily "legitimate," invented to overcome superior force. Thus, in "The Champion," before getting a job as a sparring partner, Charlie picks up a horseshoe, the symbol of good luck — and makes sure of the luck by slipping it inside his boxing glove. Later, as Charlie is being worsted, he calls his faithful dog to the rescue, which the animal accomplishes by holding the bruiser back by the seat of the pants so Charlie can deliver the knockout. Incidentally, "The Champion," the third Essanay, seems