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"Gee," said Ben Turpin, "I wish they'd pick a nice soft tub of water to chuck me into"
The Sad
Business of Being Funny
By EMMA LINDSAY SQUIER
ALONG country road, filled with California dust and scorched by a California sun; a little man, toes turned out, bamboo cane swinging, walking with the jerky gait of a mechanical toy soldier, ambles down the stretch, while a camera grinds. A pig, set loose from a pen and shooed by energetic directors and assistants, takes a short cut to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and dashes between the legs of the innocent pedestrian. There is a general mix-up of pork, hat, cane and turned-up-at-the-toes shoes, a series of startled squeals from the animal, a cloud of dust rising thickly and chokingly, and a camera-man calls, "We'll have to do that over, Mr. Chaplin ; the film buckled."
"This makes the fourth time," the little man complains mildly, getting up and spitting out some of the ubiquitous dust. "First the pig gets outside the camera line, then I do, then we both do — and now the camera gets temperamental."
A valet comes up with a make-up box, the Chaplin countenance is wiped free of dust and perspiration, more grease-paint is applied, and a relay of camera-men capture the pig, who is brought back, protesting, to his narrow pen.
"Well, anyway," I console the perspiring comedian, "it looks awfully funny !"
"It does now," he replies, pessimistically, "but wait until you see it in the projectionroom ; it may look like a Bolshevik tragedy, and be too awful to use !"
I tactfully say nothing, and very little of that, and the scene is
Charlie Chaplin liked this man who applied for work in "Sunnyside," but he didn't like his hair-cut. "I'll bare it attended to," said the man. "No time," replied Charlie; "I'll do it myself." And he did
done over some three times, the porker continuously protesting in a weird and unearthly squeal, the dust filling the mouths, ears and eyes of the comedian and his assistants, the sun gleefully searching out uncovered spots of flesh from which to peel the skin.
Following this scene from "Sunnyside," a rural comedy which is Chaplin's latest and as yet unreleased production, I talked with the master of mirth in his bungalow dressing-room, which is decorated in tones of mulberry and gray, and has, among other things, a victrola, a fireplace and a couch. He had changed from his dusty clothes, had removed the make-up and the little mustache, and was wearing, in addition to his civilian's togs, a philosophical expression.
"The saddest thing in the world," he told me, "is trying to be funny!" He was curled up at one