Behind the Screen (1916)
Chaplin's Mutual Comedies (1916-1917) • 25m
A refinement of his earlier comedies set in a film studio, BEHIND THE SCREEN, Chaplin's seventh film for Mutual, lampoons the unmotivated slapstick of the kind Chaplin disliked when he worked for Mack Sennett. Chaplin made the film as a sort of parody of the knockabout, pie-throwing comedy of the Keystone films.
An aspireing actress (Edna Purviance), desperate for work, disguises herself as a boy and is hired at the studio as a stagehand when the regular crew strikes. Charlie, discovering that the new stagehand is in fact a girl, gently kisses her just as Goliath (Eric Campbell) enters. "Oh you naughty boys!" Goliath remarks in an intertitle, as he teasingly pinches their cheeks and dances about in an effeminate manner before offering his backside to Charlie, which Charlie promptly kicks. This curious scene representing a homosexual situation is highly unusual in American commercial cinema for its time.
Up Next in Chaplin's Mutual Comedies (1916-1917)
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The Rink (1916)
Chaplin's eighth film for Mutual, THE RINK, is one of Chaplin's most popular comedies. Charlie is an inept waiter who prepares the bill of Mr. Stout by examining the soup, spaghetti, melon stains, and other remnants on the sloppy eater's shirt front, tie, and ear. Charlie employs an unorthodox ap...
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Easy Street (1917)
For EASY STREET, his ninth film for Mutual and the most famous of the twelve, Chaplin ordered the first of the T-shaped street sets to be built that he would consistently utilize to provide a perfect backdrop to his comedy. The look and feel of Easy Street evoke the South London of his childhood ...
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The Cure (1917)
THE CURE, the tenth film in the series, is perhaps the funniest of the Mutuals. Inspiration for the film was drawn from the Los Angeles Athletic Club, where Chaplin was living at the time and where the idea of a health spa first occurred to him. The wrestling bouts in the gymnasium of the Athleti...
