Five days ago I got a little
giddy with excitement over the one hundredth anniversary of Charlie Chaplin’s
debut screen appearance. Today, February 7th 2014 marks another
centenary; the anniversary of the first screen appearance of Chaplin’s defining
character, the little fellow, his tramp. Released on this day a century ago, Kid Auto Races at Venice was Chaplin’s
second film to be released but wasn’t the first film for which he had donned
his famous costume. Shot a few days earlier but released two days later, Mabel’s Strange Predicament is
technically the tramp’s first film. In that film though, the tramp is very much
an also ran, part of a small cast of characters who cause a ruckus in a hotel.
Here Chaplin stands alone, as he did through much of his film career.
Just eleven minutes long, though
the version I own is seven, filming took place during a soap box derby race in Venice Beach, California.
Chaplin plays a bystander, nestled in amongst the sizable crowd who stand
respectfully at the side of the track. When the tramp notices a camera filming
the event he becomes infatuated with it, making numerous attempts to get in
front of it and generally cause a bit of trouble. This isn’t appreciated by the
director who bats the tramp away. Here in his debut film, the tramp is very
much that. He’s a mischievous vagrant with no better place to be. His cruel
streak isn’t really evident but neither is the kindness of his later feature
films. He’s a character whose personality is very much still being formed. He’s
not bad and not really mean, he’s just annoying. The tramp remained an
annoyance for many of his early appearances, taking some time to develop into
the more sincere and sympathetic character he would later become.
Although his personality was
still in flux, his look remained almost unchanged from this film until his
final appearance in Modern Times over
two decades later. Chaplin stated in his autobiography that:
"I had no idea
what makeup to put on. I did not like my get-up as the press reporter [in Making a Living]. However on the way
to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a
derby hat. I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat
tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look old
or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I
added a small moustache, which I reasoned, would add age without hiding my
expression.
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. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage
he was fully born."
Although his story has been
challenged in more recent times, he isn’t wrong about the results. The
character is fully born just seconds into this film. The famous moustache is
fixed in place, the feet pointing outwards at right angles and bowler hat
tilted slightly to one side.
Although this film is of interest
to people like myself and it has obvious historical importance, as a comedy it
fails miserably. Generally Chaplin’s comedies were funny when released and
funny now but in this instance, I don’t know what people were laughing at. The
film is insanely repetitive and despite a little bit of comedy business in front
of the camera, Chaplin does little to amuse. It might be funny to see someone
get in the way of a camera once or twice but the joke is repeated so many times
that you lose all sense that it could ever have been funny. Had the film been
directed by Chaplin and been made a year or two later, he may have used the
Venice sequence as one part of a larger film, having a bit of fun annoying a
cameraman before being chased away to go and cause mischief elsewhere. Instead
the film just goes on and on with the same joke before finally ending on a nice
close-up shot of the tramp having his face contorted as he’s escorted away.
There is some interest to be
found in the breaking of the forth wall as a second camera is used to show us
what is happening in front of the original one. In these scenes we get a
spectator’s eye view of the nuisance tramp as he battles with an enraged
director, played by Henry Lehrman, the film’s actual director. It also gives us
a rare chance to see an early movie camera being cranked, evoking memories of
the immeasurably fantastic Man with a Movie Camera. Even this though does little to break the tedium and
repetitive nature of the humour.
Had this short film featured any
one of Mack Sennett’s other actors, there is little chance it would have
survived and would almost certainly be forgotten by now. Because it features
the tramp’s first performance and because it’s a Chaplin film, it’s been
preserved. As a film, it doesn’t deserve to be but as a historical artefact it
most certainly does. It’s a terrible opening page of a magnificent novel.
4/10
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