WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO CHARLIE CHAPLIN?

Hokitika Guardian, 7 January 1920, Page 4

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO CHARLIE CHAPLIN?

(By a Film Goer, in London Taper). Film pictures containing the wonderful comedian Charlie Chaplin are becoming few and far between. What has happened to him ? Many months ago he entered into a contract to produce eight pictures for one million dollar s (£200,000), and up to the present three of them have been seen by the public. A fourth has been promised for some time now, but there is no sign of its completion, and the announcement that it will very likely contain some aeroplane comedy does not bring it much nearer to the public.

in the earlier days new Chaplin pictures seemed to follow one another with great speed. No sooner had an audience rocked with joy at seeing his antics in a bank than they u r ere able to look upon his, efforts at roller-skat-ing or his unpleasant experiences when being “shanghaied” with a villainous ship’s company.

Terhaps this was “over-production.” Rut the public never tired, and such is : tlie demand for something by him nowadays that these older works are being put on the market again to satisfy it. The pity of it is that Chaplin has done his best work by far in “A Dog’s Day” and “Shoulder Arms,” the first two of his million-dollar contract films, and the public, having seen these examples of his comedy work at its best, may not be quite so ecstatic over the earlier films.

ilia latest effort, “Sunnyside,” was a disappointment. It was obvious that Chaplin himself did not quite know what he wanted- -The picture alternated between fantasy and tbe broadest knock-about comedy. Chaplin was consciously trying to show himself a “film actor” rather than a born comedian, and did not always succeed.

Not only is Chaplin a born comedian, but he has shown that he is an artist in comedy as well. His great popularity in the world is undoubted, and he will keep it by such work as “Shoulder Arms” j but film audiences want some kind of new him from him. If only he would make a less ambitious film in his inimitable vein the public would pack the theatres to see it. But nothing comes at all. What has happened to Charlie Chaplin?