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Remember him reading, with a passionate interest and excitement and appreciation, other people's letters from home, over their hostile shoulders, because he had none himself. Wordlessly, soundlessly, with mime so subtle it defies analysis, so brilliant it defies description, Chaplin limns in his masterpiece — the little soldier, outcast still and lonely, caught up in the jaws of Moloch, suffering the true rigors 0f War — the boredom, the desolation, the lost hours and days and years, the cessation of living, and the familiarity of death. Is it any wonder that the trenches rang with the name of "Charlie"?
1919 — JUNE Sunny side (3 reels)
Here Chaplin the poet reaches his full development and gives himself wholly to the lyrical element that has crept imperceptibly into his work. Once more, as with The Champion, and One A.M., the film is balletic in composition, and dancing plays an actual part in it, as does the dream sequence idea first to be found in The Bank.
In spite of its comedy and burlesque, Sunnyside is unique among all Chaplin's films for its highly developed poetic quality. It is a lyric. Two sequences stand out particularly, and for opposite reasons. One, the scenes with the nymphs in the dream, where Chaplin's superlative dancing overcomes the initial disadvantages of baggy trousers, tight waistcoat and shirt sleeves, to achieve, in spite of them, a miracle of beauty, the purest poetry of motion; and the utterly ridiculous sequence in which, having lost his cows, he takes the head of a yokel between his hands and stares long and hard at him, as though to make quite sure, in his own mind, that this is not one of the missing beasts. The eager, searching look, its blend of hope and disappointment, is unforgettable.
1919 — December A Day's Pleasure (2 reels) 1921 — February The Kid (6 reels)
Charlie's motherly care of his adopted baby, his instilling of standards of behaviour, their manner of living, is comedy touched with tears. His fight to save his "kid" from the hands of officialdom, austerely stretched out to take him to frigid safety, leave the tears with no comedy to dry them. The ensuing battle to rear the child himself, without the interference of cruel philanthropy, is an epic blend of comedy and tragedy, where Charlie's well-known indomitable spirit reaches new heights of endurance.
There is burlesque too; but even burlesque, in the hands of this incomparable master, undergoes a strange metamorphosis, and approaches poetry. The famous dream sequence of The Kid is an example of this.