Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1919)

The Shadow Stage A Review oj the N, <-'»• Photoplays By Julian Johnson Enrico Caruso, in the Fl N A L L V. the two characters he plays comedy in his first Phot0Play> Aftc'r an indifferent feature, after a routine news-reel, after an average M'enic — after anything, we list the funny film. Why? Why do we make laughter only a sideshow, while giving our greatest homage to a little man with a syncopated walk and microscopic moustache? Why do producers, pressagents, exhibitors and even audiences make laughter the tail of importance, while demanding so much of it that the humorous ,-tudios had to work right through the recent Spanish vacation itch up with their orders? Perhaps we have reversed the relative importance of our emotions. Or perhaps we have been judging by the length of the picture — quantity still has a vast hold on the public. I'll venture this assertion, anarchistic as it sounds: our comedy-makers, as a whole, deliver immeasurably better goods than our feature-makers. Better in point of ingenuity, originality, and entertainment value. Now this comparison is not made for individuals. I'm not putting Harold Lloyd alongside D. W. Griffith, nor am I setting "The Cook'' up against "The Bluebird." Here's what I mean: opposite the total recent output of any four dramatic studios I'll put the product, for the same period, of four comedy studios, and, basing the comparison only on the same percent of the whole output of each, I'll show you that the comedy studios put in more thought, more care, more expert photography, more down-right creative endeavor — and got a far more diverting result. Here you'll find a masterful achievement with some old melodrama like "Sporting Life." there a tender poem of the shadows like "Missing. ".yonder a revelation like "Revelation." But what of the feature-host that accompanies these occasional greatnesses? Isn't it true that most five-reelers are lovestories of a pattern, with the expected virtues, the stereotyped heroisms, the conventional villainies? On the other hand, let us consider the occasional output of Mr. Chaplin, the none-too-rapid production of Mr. Arbuckle, the rather too-rapid offerings of Mr. Sennett, the wild farces of Mr. Lehrman. or the late oddities of that present gob, Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Chaplin shares Mr. Griffth's situation as the mosteagerly awaited producer in motion pictures. Why? Because every audience has come to know that his successive entertainments, like those of Mr. Griffith, are the fruition of long >'ays and weary nights of intense study and experiment, heroic cutting, endless rejection, continuous retake and infinite patience. When you see a new Chaplin picture your ticket does not insure a laugh every two seconds, but it does entitle you to witness the ultimate endeavor of an artist who has completely mastered his business. Do you have this same assurance when you face the transparencies of most of the famous dramatic stars? Write your own answer. While there is only one Chaplin, Mr. Arbuckle crowds him hard as a prodigious worker and genuine originator. Here is another man who should be honored for his stern self-criticism, for his determination that everything he puts out shall be worth while. Mr. Sennett, the first master of both these laugh-chieftains, waters his high percentage with the aqua of quantity. No man possesses the diving-rod that goes unerringly to the spring of inspiration, but where Chaplin and Arbuckle are prone to keep on digging until they hit it, Mr. Sennett comes out on a time-table. Consequently the amount of uproar from a Sennett audience varies. Lehrman is the wild man of screen farce. Manifesting no great originality, he nevertheless exaggerates to the human limit. Does Mr. Arbuckle blow up a building? Mr. Lehrman kisses his actors good-bye — and blows them up. Does Mr. Sennett cautiously use a lion? Mr. Lehrman ties a knot in his lion's tail, and kicks him out into a group of shrieking clowns and soubrettes. Mr. Lloyd is not yet travelling fast enough to make a flat entry with these speedsters, but he is promising comic material, and when he comes back from the submarine base at San Pedro I predict his steady advance as an expounder of mere and sheer entertainment. I may be a Philistine, but when I go out looking for a good time on the screen there are mighty few dramas that could draw me away from a new composition by one of these boys. I had rather get a good laugh than a weak emotional thrill any night, and I feel that that sentiment is general. There is_ a group of so-called screen comedians whose perfunctory piethrowing and meaningless knockabout deserves no patronage and invites downright suppression, but their trade buffoonery casts no shadow over the lustre of the great few. It seems to me that bringing honest, unrestrained laughter to serious faces in serious times is a pretty good public service. The material which causes such laughter is fairly shrewd cartooning, too. Too much of our sentimental drama and romance is not life at all, but bald falsehood caramel-coated. Most of the stuff that is really laughed at on the screen is life — real life — comically twisted in a Coney Island mirror. In "Shoulder Arms" Charlie Chaplin so easily and perfectly gets away from the bewildering trousers, the rattan cane and the immortal derby that his escape, at last, is scarcely the matter of a moment's thought. Here he is in khaki, canvas leggings and army hat— yet how many of us have insisted that the gentlemanly essentials named in' the preceding paragraph were an absolutely necessary part of his success? "Shoulder Arms" is the glory-dream of a recruit. It is a 67