Chapter X
SOME OF THE ARTS OF SLAPSTICK COMEDY
The director of the knockabout comedy grossly neglected in the parcelling out of praise.—The inventive genius of Mack Sennett, king of comedy, and a digression on the “discovery” of Charles Chaplin, prompted by our present day radical and liberal writers
Chapter X
The usual critic of the motion picture is given to prating long and seriously about the art and the business of it with relation to the Griffiths, the De Milles, the Ingrams, the German Ernst Lubitschs and the ordinary whatnots and their dramatic productions, but when approaching the producer of the slapstick-thrill comedy, they seem to forget that this branch of production is an art too and a very high one and one to be taken just as seriously if not more so than the art of dramatic production.
The picture critics of the New York and Boston newspapers, for instance, will sometimes devote a whole column to a review of an ordinary dramatic production and then close with the line: “There is also a Mack Sennett comedy on the bill.” Nine times out of ten this comedy so briefly dismissed is more interesting and entertaining than the featured part of the program.
Aside from Charles Chaplin (Chaplin is his own director) the critics don't regard the comedy director in his proper light—often one of high artistic achievement plus a marvelous amount of ingenuity.
To digress for a moment, the case of the critics and the Chaplin comedies amuses the writer and many of his acquaintance immensely. It appears that the critics, commentators and publicists of national and sectional standing have only recently “discovered” Charles Chaplin. The reviewers of the daily newspapers and the magazines now hail each effort of his as masterly, pointing out virtues in his performances, in his attitude on life and in his inventive genius with remarkable pride. Chaplin has become the “fashion” with those who formerly thought his name a synonym for a vulgar, pie-throwing clown.
It was some seven years ago that a number of motion picture trade critics and myself first saw the comedian doing a “bit” in a Mack Sennett comedy. Somebody said his name was Charles Chapman. Somebody else said it was Chaplain. They thought so. They weren't quite sure who he was. But everyone in that little room knew then that, whoever he was, he was great.
Five years afterwards, as the picture subtitle would say, some of the newspaper critics woke up to the fact that this little man was an artist. And a year later the liberals and radicals of Greenwich Village, New York, and points west, discovered that Mr. Chaplin was somewhat liberal, even radical, politically, and so made the astounding revelation to their worlds that he was a great artist. Perhaps the above is a little unfair but if Mr. Chaplin had voted a straight Republican ticket it is hardly to be supposed that he would have been heralded as such a master of his craft by these people.
But we in the motion pictures knew him in his true colors from the first and so perhaps this little excursion into the realm of jealous back-biting may be pardoned. However we feel somewhat as Columbus, in his grave might feel if Marshall Foch on his recent visit to these shores, should have announced to the world that he had discovered America.