Charlot macchinista

"Behind the Screen" is an excellent Charlie Chaplin short feature, with plenty of good slapstick and much more. The setting, with Charlie working as a hired hand in a movie-making operation, lends itself to a lot of good comedy, and there are plenty of standard gags plus a lot of material that creatively uses the props and situations of the setting. It also works very well as a self-satire of the industry (as suggested by the title), making some subtle and other not so subtle points. Finally, there is some nice interplay between Charlie's character and his superiors, especially his burly, brutish immediate supervisor, played by Eric Campbell, an amusing actor who was one of Chaplin's best supporting players.

Most of these earlier Chaplin films (referring to 1914-1916, the years when he made the majority of his short features, making ten or more each year) do not get very high ratings. It's true that some of them are mostly routine slapstick, but there are also a few gems like this one that combine slapstick with substance. Most of the movies from these years can be rather hard to watch, because the film often survives in poor condition, and so it's understandable that even the best ones might not always stand out as clearly from the rest. But this one is a fine film, and definitely recommended for Chaplin fans.

Behind the Screen stars Charlie Chaplin as a stagehand on a movie set. Chaplin is overworked and under-appreciated and his boss (Eric Campbell) spends most of the time asleep, leaving Chaplin to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile a young woman (Edna Purviance) is trying to get her big break as an actress but is turned down so dresses up as a male stagehand in order to have at least some involvement in the movies. At the same time the fellow stagehands go on strike for being woken up by a studio boss and plot their revenge… This isn't one of the funniest Mutual shorts but it certainly has one of the better plots. It's multi layered and features side plot as well as the main narrative. It is also an opportunity to see behind the scenes of an early movie set in much the same way as His New Job, Chaplin's first film for Essanay a year earlier. What the film is most famous for now though is its forthright joke about homosexuality, a subject which was barely mentioned in cinema for another fifty years.

The scene in question comes late on when Chaplin discovers that the new stagehand is actually a woman. In a cute scene, Chaplin sneaks a couple of pecks on the lips. The start of a romantic relationship is interrupted though by the appearance of Eric Campbell who not knowing Edna Purviance is a woman, believes the two hands to be gay men. He starts prancing around in an effeminate way which today feels quite offensive. The fact that homosexuality was even mentioned though, no matter how insignificantly, was very bold. The same scene also features probably the defining image of the film, Chaplin's and Purviance's faces squished together, looking forward towards the camera, Chaplin with a trademark cheeky grin.

In terms of comedy, the film is a little short. There are of course funny moments which include a use of a trap door and a pie throwing finale. For me the funniest scene came when the stagehands were eating lunch. Chaplin was sat next to a man eating onions and to escape the smell put on a knights helmet, lifting the visor briefly to stuff bread into his mouth. During the same meal Chaplin tries to steal the meat which the same man is eating and when discovered, pretends to be a begging dog. There is plenty of slapstick to be found here also with large props producing most of the laughs. One fantastic act sees Chaplin pick up about eleven chairs and sling each one over his arm, giving him the appearance of a hedgehog or porcupine. This isn't enough for the poor stagehand as in his other arm he also carries a prop piano. It's very clever and looks incredibly difficult. The scene felt familiar to me but I don't know if that's because Chaplin repeated the stunt for a later film or because I've seen that clip before.

One interesting thing about Behind the Screen is getting a glimpse of an old movie set. A surprising aspect of this is finding two separate productions sharing the same stage. As noise made little difference to what the final picture looked like it was possible to have multiple movies being filmed in close proximity. Here Chaplin works on a set of what appears to be a medieval palace which is right next to a farcical comedy set in a police station. As you can probably guess, Chaplin ends up interrupting both at various times before completely destroying both towards the end. The final shot itself is also surprising in its violence. Although no blood, body parts or death was seen, it was still not what I was expecting to end a short comedy.

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Chaplin plays the part of David, the lowly assistant to the oafish stage hand Goliath, and as is to be expected, everything goes wrong in the most hilarious ways. Being an early short Chaplin comedy, a good portion of the comedy is slapstick, with such elaborately acted scenes as the one with the stage pillar prop that just would not seem to stand up.

Poor David works like a slave for the lazy Goliath, but at first, he just keeps messing things up - he just can't seem to do anything right. But later, when he starts working really hard and doing things right, his boss always walks in just as he sits down to rest, and he gets into trouble for loafing on the job, and Goliath, who spends most of his time sleeping, gets all of the credit for David's work.

Not only does this film satirize the falsity of film and stage, but it also goes into actual filming, in the surprisingly effective pie throwing scene. Eventually, all of the workers go on strike, leaving only David and Goliath on stage and, as is common in Chaplin's films, he ends up the victor as a result of some inadvertent events concerning a trap door and a lot of guys fighting. The ending of this film is unusually violent for a generally light Chaplin comedy, but the comedic value is never diminished.

In 1914 and early 1915, Chaplin did his first comedy shorts. In general, they were pretty awful--with almost no plot and consisting of him mugging it up on camera and hitting people. However, in 1915 he left Keystone Studio and began making better films with Essenay (though there are some exceptions) and finally, in 1916, to Mutual where he made his best comedy shorts. These newer films had more plot and laughs and usually didn't relay on punching or kicking when they ran out of story ideas.

This film is one of these later Mutual Films and has a pretty decent amount of plot. Charlie is a carpenter's assistant on a movie set and his boss mostly sits around doing nothing--making Charlie do all the work. Later, the crew goes on strike and Charlie gets to act (although in real life, Chaplin's sympathies would have definitely been with the workers). In addition, a lady sneaks onto the set and disguises herself as a male laborer. Charlie realizes this and falls for her, though everyone else thinks she's a guy. I particularly liked the scene where Charlie is making out with the lady and really smooching it up good--and his boss looks on with horror! Overall, this is a pretty typical Mutual film--neither better or worse than the average one and worth a look if you get the opportunity.

An interesting scene was the one where Charlie picks up the MANY chairs and then the prop piano. This exact same scene was replicated by Syd Chaplin (Charlie's half-brother) years later in THE BETTER 'OLE.

Charlie has various misadventures while working in the property department of a movie studio. For some reason, this film turned out to be the last of Chaplin's twelve Mutual shorts that I saw. I really looked forward to seeing it, thinking that Charlie would make the most of the studio location.

Sadly, if only because of my sense of anticipation, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't find it as funny as the bulk of the other Mutual shorts. Despite a location rich in potential, I found the funniest moments in this film to be some of the smallest – like Charlie trying to steal bites from Albert Austin's lunch. Still, the film retains interest as a behind the screen view of motion picture production circa 1916. (A superior and more concise view of the world of producing silent films can be found in 'Singing in the Rain' as Gene Kelly walks through a silent studio with the head of the studio.) To me, the most interesting thing about this film is Chaplin's hostile attitude toward the striking union workers. If he had made this film later in his career, the radical unionists might have been the good guys!