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20
Photoplay Magazine
Chaplin spaces his laughs far enough
apart that you may get your breath
and be all set for the next one.
\\ hen Mr. Chaitlin was meruly a slapstick comedian at the Keystone studios back in the roaring days of 1914 he used to kick out a thousand feet of film comedy a week witliout heating or motor trouble.
Now that he has become an artist, a world institution, a cult and a philosophy, with a reputation quoted at a million a year F.O.B. Los Angeles, C.O.D. New York, he can barely finish his two thousand foot comedies on release dates almost two months apart.
When Charlie did not have any reputation he had a lot of speed and very little control. Now, responsible to a vast fame, he is all control and no speed.
In the Keystone Age Mr. Chaplin's comedy was largely a matter of foot work. Improvhig taste on the part of the public, and the artist too, has made Chaplin comedies work for both head and feet.
Naturally there is a certain amount of difficulty about making both ends meet, and operating both ends of his versatile anatomy simultaneously and synchronously.
Commercial progress has made Mr. Chaplin's artistry so valuable that he can hardly afford to use it.
In those Keystone days the Chaplin comedy plot — if one may be permitted this euphemistic term with reference to the
comedies of that period — was usually made over niglit.
Now Mr. Chaplin indulges in a couple of scenario writers and a retinue of sundry secretaries, both salaried and free lance, ^^'aking and sleeping Mr. Chaplin and his staff are forever in pursuit of "the next story."
At the Chaplin studio "the next story" is conceived, subjected to gestation, labor and birth, all of tliese vital functions being attended by the severest mental suffering on the part of the father. When Mr. Chaplin signed his now historic $670,000 contract with John R. I'reuler in the spring of 1916 the comedian was then wondering what "the next story" was to be about. As this article is written Mr. Chaplin is in the third week of the making of his twelfth comedy under that contract and he is not yet certain what it will be about.
It is safe to assume and predict that it will be about two thousand feet, probably all very funny feet, but furtlier the insidest insider can forecast notiiing — neither can Mr. Chaplin. He does not have to, either. Meanwhile he is wondering what "the next story" after that will be about.
How Chaplin encompasses a comedy plot is well illustrated in his construction of "The Floorwalker." This was to be the first of his efforts under his record making contract and with the eyes of the world upon him he was determined to deliver something extraordinary.
The comedian had only three weeks in which to decide upon the plot which would enable him to kick somebody in the addenda to the satisfaction of the expectant millions waiting, dime in hand, at the box ofiice.
Two weeks and six days Mr. Chaplin wandered about New York between breakfast at the Plaza and dinner all over town. He had that pale wan look.
He was accused of being in love or otherwise dissipated, while the girl reporters