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(1918), which told the bitter truth about war was nevertheless the film which had, among many others, the brilliant gag of the submerged head resting on the submerged pillow in the flooded dug-out. The Circus (1926), one of Chaplin's saddest films, contained some of his happiest comedy — the tightrope walk complicated by monkeys, the chase through the gallery of distorting mirrors; while all the Hynkel part of The Great Dictator (1940) makes full use of Chaplin's endless capacity for comic invention. Every film brings with it the memory of great comedy, of spent laughter.
Chaplin the interpretative artist comes then to his work loaded with more gifts in four different categories of expression — mime, acting, dancing and comedy — than most men have in any one of them; and that would be enough to secure him a memorable place in the world of entertainment.
His abundant creative vitality overflows. Charlie, expressing his poetic and philosophic self through the highly skilled interpretative gifts of his creator, is given still greater scope through the fact that fie is produced, directed, edited, and later given musical accompaniment by that same Chaplin who first engendered him, then interpreted him, and finally controlled the whole of his expression and the medium in which he was expressed. Chaplin is very nearly as fabulous as Charlie.
The singlehearted purpose, the desire to have his work come whole and entire from his own hands and brain, the devotion and patience of the artist were shown by Chaplin when the coming of talking films caused him most furiously to think while he was making City Lights (1931) and to decide that the film must have a musical sound-track accompaniment. He was an accomplished executant; for three months he studied the composer's craft, and when he had mastered it, he composed the music for his completed film. He himself conducted the orchestra which played the music, so that City Lights, in spite of its unusual addition, was still Chaplin's whole work.
Chaplin the creator of Charlie is as fabulous an artist as his creation would lead us to suppose — indeed, Alexander Woolcott, in his lyrical appreciation of City Lights, goes so far as to say, "I would be prepared to defend the proposition that this darling of the mob is the foremost living artist".
His superb cinematic imagination is betrayed in everything he does, and certainly in his writing.* His book, My Wonderful Visit, written in a clipped nervous style, intensely personal, suddenly brings home the atmosphere of places and things, as when he describes the mystery of Limehouse at dusk — "There is a tang of the east in the air, living,
* See Appendix B.