Word: chaplinitis
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Birth of the Tramp. When he arrived in Los Angeles at 24, Chaplin was a thoroughly experienced veteran of the theater. On his first day at the studio, Mack Sennett took him aside to explain that "the essence of our comedy is a chase." Chaplin knew better, but for months as he worked under and fought with Sennett's directors, his funniest and most inventive efforts kept winding up on the cutting-room floor...
Destitute Childhood. What Chaplin has delivered is the expectably professional production, fine-honed and highly polished, with funny moments and some touching ones. Yet many readers will wish they had Reinhardt's opportunity to see the great pantomimist act out the high points, for without Chaplin's visual art, the story he tells is in some ways curiously flat, formal, and unrevealing...
...Chaplin's book is most moving when he is describing his childhood. He was born in London in 1889, the second son of an English theatrical couple. His parents soon separated-his mother was forced off the stage by loss of her voice, and his father was often drunk and out of work. Chaplin remembers his mother bending over a sewing machine far into the night in their garret room, sewing the sweatshop blouses that earned her 1½ pence each. He and his older brother Sydney were in and out of London's grim schools for destitute...
...Sennett, looking at a hotel-lobby set, remarked that "we need some gags here," then turned to Chaplin. "Put on a comedy makeup. Anything will do." On the way to the wardrobe, Chaplin improvised the tight jacket, baggy pants and big shoes, added a small mustache for age. "I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. By the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born." Within two years Chaplin was making $10,000 a week...
With such stuff included, Chaplin's frequent omissions are puzzling. He never mentions the name of his second wife, Lita Grey,* mother of his two eldest sons. So much is omitted, in fact, that little is left from which to deduce Chaplin's mature feelings and beliefs-beyond his lifelong insistence that he has never been a Communist, and the apparent mellowing of his resentment against the U.S. as he grows old and turns inward to bask in the profound joy of his life with his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, and their eight children...