Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Aug 1926)

Chaplin — the Genius 89 In the shack of wood and galvanized iron where a sheet was hung, a smoking crowd of doughboys mingled with an equally odorous throng of poihts. There had crept in a few timid civilians — old men and women, and fresh, village maidens. We saw Chaplin's war comedy, "Shoulder Arms." We laughed, we shouted,, we stamped, we swore — great, round oaths, expressing joy. I remember him, camouflaged as a tree, standing near the camp fire of a German outpost when a burly, bearded Heinie seizes an ax and starts up. The situation, with its inescapable denouement, broke on us all with ribcracking force. "Ooooh!'' screamed the village girl behind me. "II cherche Ic bois!" The girl, though she could not read the English subtitles, nevertheless followed the adventures of the ridiculous little Yank as well as we who spoke the American tongue. She knew the Heinie was going after wood and she anticipated in a flash the terrific scene that would ensue when he began hewing at the bark-inclosed figure of Chariot. For sheer mechanics of pantomime, Charley is unequaled. Yet we could concede him this much — he is the culmination of a race which has followed the English Christmas pantomimes — we could concede him this much and still he would be only a cheap-jack performer. It is my conviction that, like many a genius of the past, he is a victim or rather a beneficiary of the inferioritv complex. Physically he is small. Once he was poor and despised. Now he is rich and famous. But he can never completely offset the complex born of his sordid earlv surroundings and his frail physique. Chaplin is a radical in politics. Yet at heart he is an aristocrat of the intellect. He sees himself, in fact, as a sort of modern Lorenzo the Magnificent. He surrounds himself with thinkers. Konrad Bercovici, writer of gypsy stories, is a close friend of his and actually wrote a book at the Chaplin studio. Jim Tully, the tramp author, who wrote "Emmett Lawler" and "Beggars of Life," is employed as his secretary. His duties consist wholly in discussing political movements with Chaplin. With a fine scorn for time and money, he will halt any scene he is making to enter an argument with Jim Tully, Upton Sinclair, or anv other liberal thinker who happens to drop in on him. On the other hand, if somebodv calls to interview him, he will send out word that he is too busy. The press agent at his studio is never the sort of gracious official who usually functions in this capacity at other studios. He is, rather, a suppress agent. I recall going to interview Chaplin for a newspaper when he was reported engaged to Pola Negri. At that time his suppress agent was none other than Monta Bell, now a featured director in his own right. Incidentallv, Chaplin was responsible for Bell's Tt remained for a girl from Mexico City — the girl with the rose, as they called her — to show me, in a flash of Latin feeling, the peculiar fascination which Chaplin holds for women. I talked to Senorita Marina Vega — daughter of a wealthy mother living in the Mexican capital — a few hours after she had been picked up in front of Chaplin's house and pumped out at the receiving hospital. The girl had swallowed poison because of her hopeless love for the comedian. How had she got into his house? How had she made her way unmolested into his bedroom ? Nobody knows, but that was where she had been found when Chaplin returned home with some friends — including Pola Negri. Gravely this beautiful young Spanish girl told me of her dawning love for the international comedian. How she used to watch him at the movie theaters of Mexico City while she was studying in a fashionable girls' school. With an eloquent wave of the hand, she swept aside my curiosity about why a creature as beautiful as she should fall in love with the funny feet and mustache. "I lofe Charlie," she declared, "not for his face, but for the sentiments. I see he is great actor. He is arteeze. He is what you call intellectual." It is superfluous to state that Chaplin gave this fanatical girl no encouragement. In fact he never knew of her' existence until the embarrassing bedroom incident and the subsequent poison act on his doorstep. Nevertheless, the diminutive comedian has had more publicity in connection with his reported love affairs than any other male star. He has been pictured as a triumphant conqueror of feminine hearts. Of the long list of actresses who have been reported at one time He earned his first pennies as a lather hoy in a London barber shop. getting into the movies. The voung man was assigned the job of assisting him in preparing the material for his book, "My Trip Abroad." Later, Chaplin made him his press agent, and then gave him a chance to direct. When I called at the row of English cottages which compose the Chaplin studio, Monta sent out word that Mr. Chaplin could see no newspaper men, and that settled it.