Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

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What's the Matter with Chaplin? Why has the world's greatest entertainer stopped producing? Here is the answer, told by a man who knows Chaplin, and who gives us an unusually intimate pen picture of the great film comedian. Bv Herbert Howe IT seems to be the fashion just now to take a furtive boot at Charlie Chaplin where he is most sensitive. Slapstick artists of the press have been banging him about the ears with the hotair bladder. Their evangelical purpose is to chastise him for his sins of omission and to remind him that this is no time to be doing a Rip Van Winkle. They haven't had a good laugh for a long time despite their loud guffaws at the antics of other pantaloons, whom now and then they covertly suggest are giving Chaplin the dust. "Well, to be persecuted is to be immortal. Oscar "Wilde, Caesar, Napoleon, and Joan were worshiped and then sloughed into jail or eternity. Charlie is being put to the inquisition because he has failed in his duty as court jester for the world. We must admit the hand that wields the slapstick rocks the world. And no one rocks it more merrily on its axis than Charlie. "\ arious reasons have been ascribed for his apathy, which has kept him away from the screen for a much longer time than generally is allowed for stellar recess. One pamphleteer psychic will give the motive as greed. Charlie is dissatisfied with his First National contract, which allows him only one million and a couple of hundred thousands for six comedies, which is considerably less than I is allowed other artists of less artistry. Therefore Charlie sits Chaplin and five-year-old Jack Coogan. 2 PP Chaplin, like most of the other really great stars, has been thoroughly absorbed in the work of picture making. The Chaplin studio is no house of mirth. on his set and sulks, like Achilles in his tent. This hypothesis seems illogical. If Charlie were so eager to emulate our landlords, clothiers, and gas trust, why does he not rush off some two-percent home brews, label them "comedies.'' and deliver them to First National ? Then he could run along and join Mary, Doug, and D. W. A more reasonable cause is his domestic denouement. It must cramp an artist's style to be wed to one not a muse. Although, Heaven knows, matrimony doesn't have time to cramp most movie stars. Chaplin, unfortunately, is sensitive. He never knew when he might return home to find that Madame Chaplin during his absence had hung the family skeleton on the clothesline. Madame had an annoying penchant for airing the family linen before the public. All this unpleasantness has had its effect, yet it is not the fundamental cause for the Chaplin hiatus. Even that other genius. D. W. Griffith, has moments of lapse from the sublime to the piffle, and. so far as we know, Mr. Griffith has never worried any about domestic or financial problems. An anecdote is told of Charlie's arrival at the milliona-vear sroal. He had been leashed bv a contract which