The Masquerader

The Masquerader (August 1914)

The best disguise Chaplin has in his makeup box is to take off his mustache.  A different mustache, I can recognize him in, but if he's clean shaven, I have no idea who he is.  Clearly that's the case of his fellow filmmakers at Keystone, as well.

Chaplin plays himself, famous movie star, who is a bit too into himself and he makes enemies of his fellow actors (Arbunkle has great repartee with Chaplin in his early scene) and his director (Charles Murray) and so is fired.  So Chaplin does a Tootsie, dresses as a woman who is so convincing that the director makes a pass  tries to rape her.   It's a funny gag with some great small moments, including one at the end where Chaplin is fighting with a Keystone staff member and the staff tries to hit him in the face and he keeps ducking... well, you'd have to see it.

In the process of them really improving, this has a coherent story, excellent sight gags, but the ending is too rushed.

3.5/5

Face on the Barroom Floor

Face on the Barroom Floor  (August 1914)

Just a couple weeks before the creative low point of Chaplin's time at Keystone, Recreation, they decided to adapt a poem going around at the time "The Face on the Barroom Floor".  The original poem is about a man who enters a bar, and for a bit of whiskey (and then a bit more) he promises to tell them a funny story, and he tells them about his love who ran away from him with another man.  He then draws her face on the floor of the bar and collapses and dies.  Not exactly comic material.

And, interestingly enough, the film doesn't make a comedy out of it.  They tell a slightly different story, just to the side of the poem's story.  Chaplin, is, of course, the man telling the story, and emphasis is placed on his days as an artist, where he is looking at his past through the sorrow of his present.  There are a few sight gags, but it frankly works better as a melancholic piece with a good punchline two thirds in.   They finish it off with a fight and Chaplin drawing and dying on the painting, but it doesn't fit the story.

If I hadn't read the poem first, I'm not sure I would have understood the film as well.  I think it was really meant to be for those who already appreciated the poem, and so offers commentary and humor to the side of the poem, without actually tackling the poem as a straight adaptation.  That's a great way of adapting a work to film-- not ignoring the original work, but assuming that the audience experienced the work already, and providing tone and humor and side stories to the heart of the work. 

I'm torn about this short.  In the end, I feel positive toward it, although I think the end of the film was unnecessary.

3.5/5

The New Janitor

The New Janitor (1914)

Although still in 1914, this is Chaplin's 27th film for Keystone Studios, and the first where we see The Tramp as being the character we recognize as the classic character.  The first we see as a full-fledged character at all, sympathetic, clumsy, well-intentioned, at times pathetic, at times heroic.  Even so, the film is at times comedic and at times dramatic, with the action being played for laughs and thrills, sometimes at the same time. We can see the mixed emotions and sympathy for a sorry plight we will often find in Chaplin-directed films.

The Tramp gets a job as a janitor in a tall office building, which he finds himself completely incapable at.  While washing windows, he drops a bucket on the head of the owner, which gets him fired.  In another office, an important employee of the office is threatened with gambling debts, and he decides to take a desperate action.

This was a pleasure to watch, an almost perfect gem of a film, which could easily be remade into a longer film.  And it was, another longer Chaplin short, The Bank.  Jess Dandy played the boss well (reminding me of a later Lionel Barrymore).

3.5/5

Mabel's Strange Predicament

Mabel's Strange Predicament (February,1914)

Here, the first time the Tramp was filmed, we have a complex short, in perfectly timed comedy, with Mabel Normand as the star.  Mabel Normand had a series of films that she starred in and sometimes directed.  The films are of mixed quality, but they were among a number of films directed and presented from a woman's perspective, along with films by Alice Guy-Blache and Lois Weber.

The Tramp is drinking himself silly in the lobby of a hotel, where he pays his rent for a chair which he keeps falling out of, driving other customers away with his presence (and we assume, his smell).  Mabel happily passes through with her dog and goes upstairs to play with her pet.  Soon, she is locked out of her room in her bedclothes with a lecherous Tramp after her and her boyfriend to visit and a couple across the hall to further her embarrassment.

I am disappointed to see the Tramp in such an unsympathetic light, but really the star is Mabel, whom I might watch more of because she is a perfect victim here.  Although Chaplin isn't the star, he is the cause that moves the "predicament" to such hilarious heights, and his perfect timing along with Normand, Harry McCoy and Alice Davenport really keeps it going.  In a modern film, we might see this comedy stretched to a half hour of a film, but it is perfect at just over ten minutes with many laughs.   

This is certainly the better introduction to the Tramp, between this and The Kid Races, but we see that the Tramp was first imagined as a completely unsympathetic character.  We were meant to feel superior to him, as well as of the people who blindly reject him with prejudice.  We are to see in him the people we are irritated by, the drunk or the person who insists being in the film.  That's a good start, but of course, I prefer the more sympathetic Tramp of later years.

Chaplin says that as he was on his way to dress the part for the film, "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 Sennet had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small mustache, which I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression."  Mark Sennet was the producer of the film.

Note: this is the funniest of these films from 1914 I've seen so far, as well as the best choreographed.  And it is the only one directed by a woman, for Mabel Normand directed it herself.

4/5 -- Check it out!  It's short and funny!

Introducing Chaplain: Making a Living and Kid Races at Venice

Making a Living (February, 1914)

A strange short, but it is Chaplin's first starring role, and occasionally funny.

Chaplin is a poor man, dressed to the nines with a long mustache, trying to obtain an engagement with a wealthy woman.  He only does so through stealing a ring from his rival (Henry Lehrman, who also directed the short), and after fighting, Chaplin comes out the victor.  But he still has another obstacle before he can be wed-- getting a job.  So he battles with his rival over getting a reporter's job at the local paper.

The strange part of the film is the editing.  Clearly, there are portions of this film left out.  It drops us in the middle of the story without context (which isn't so bad), there are cards for what we can tell from the context, but no cards for scenes that would be useful to have them.  It feels as if part of the story was cut out, it just feels perfunctory.  It turns out, the director admits that he purposely made cuts to Chaplin's role because he disliked Chaplin and wanted him to fail.  So, rivals both in front of and behind the camera.  Unfortunately, this did little to improve Lehman's role, either.

Despite this, Chaplin still shines.  Somehow, although his rival is the hard working, upright one, we root for Chaplin because the rival is more of a buffoon, and Chaplin is just more likable, although deceptive.  But this film isn't very funny, except for a couple scenes, and is sometimes confusing. What is clear that it isn't the fault of the performers, all of whom did well, but the director/editor.

This film shows up under many names, including Doing His Best or Busted Johnny.  

3/5

Kid Auto Races at Venice (February, 1914)

It is 101 years since the Tramp first made his appearance in this film.  From this time, the Tramp has been an icon, at times center in the world stage.  Hitler probably borrowed his mustache style from the Tramp, being a huge fan, which Chaplin used to great effect in The Great Dictator, at the other end of the Tramp's career.  Yet the Tramp's beginnings were small, an inside joke between two people, with him doing nothing more than mugging for the camera.

The plot is simple.  The Tramp is doing his best to get in front of the camera, posing, and Henry Lehrman, the director of the film, is doing his best to keep him out of it.  By itself, the film is kinda dull.  But the meta-meaning of the story is what really brings entertainment to it.

Just as background, the races were a "kids" version of the Vanderbilt Cup, an auto race of some importance in 1914 Santa Monica, CA. The children's version were mostly soap box races, using a ramp to give speed.  A few motorized cars were also used in a separate race.

As we saw in the last film, Making a Living, Lehman didn't care for Chaplin and tried to edit the better part of the star's role out of the film.  So here is a throwaway film, six and a half minutes (the "longer" version is simply the film twice in a row, as above), of Chaplin trying to force himself in front of the camera and Lehrman pushing him out of it.  To me, it is funny to think of them coming up with this film as the only one the two of them could agree upon.  It is also funny to think of the filming, where Lehrman is directing himself as a director, doing the same thing in front of the camera, beside a camera, which is also capturing Chaplin.

Unfortunately, I can't imagine it being too entertaining for the audiences watching it for the first time in 1914.  This film isn't given great applause, and certainly Chaplin's performance is relatively poor.  It isn't even the first time the Tramp was filmed, because the movie Mabel's Strange Predicament, which also stars the Tramp, was filmed first.  This short was released first, though, so it is given first credit.

4/5, just as an inside joke.  

The Survival Kit

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“Survival is just a matter of logic.  Looking at the possibilities and preparing,” Chuck said, walking quickly with his unusually flowery tote down the theatre aisle.

I had no idea what in hell I was doing here.  Chuck told me it was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” and that I “would commit hari-kari” if I missed it.

Honestly, I had never heard Chuck speak so strongly about anything, except perhaps Pixar.  He is an insane movie nerd, and all the time I’ve spent with him he has been speaking about this film or that, this scene or that.  I like movies, but I have a life.  I’m not so sure that Chuck does.

We climbed over the black lip before the screen of the cinema and I queried, “You never told me what this is about.  What are we getting into?”

“I did tell you.  It’s a Purple Rose of Cairo situation.”

“And I told you, I’d never seen that film.”

“Simple.  A movie character sees a lonely woman in a theatre and he climbs out of the film to spend time with her.”

“So movie characters will be spending time with us?”

“The second half of the film, she visits the world of the film that she had been watching.”

“So we are…”

Suddenly, the world around me turns dark, almost amber, but a hazy light shone through the trees.  Trees?  How are there trees?  And I would swear…  I turned around and looked at a car behind me.  It is a 1967 Pontiac LeMans.  It is supposed to be a bright yellow (how did I know that?), but instead it is a muted grey.

“Entering the world of cinema, to experience it firsthand.”  He gazed at me, eyes smiling, his hands stretched out.  “I told you, once in a lifetime chance.”

A group of people came staggering toward us, as if they had just suffered through a horrific battle.  “Really?” Chuck scoffed, “This is too simple.” As they came closer, I could see that they wore everyday clothes, if an older style, but their lower eyelids were darkened and their brows extended over their eyes. 

I stare at them as I realize that a huge group of zombies were cambering toward us, I moan, “No… not a horror movie.”

Chuck meanwhile is digging in his tote.  “Nothing to worry about.  We just need to be prepared.  And I am.”

I shake my head in terror, “I hate horror movies.  You know that.  I can’t stand to watch them.  And you put me in the middle of one?  This is a chance I would be happy to forego.”

Chuck doesn’t even glance back as he reaches the bottom of his tote.  “Look, I didn’t know that it was going to be a horror movie.  But there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Doesn’t everyone die at the end of this film?”

“Yeah, but it’s all in good fun.  There,” he grunts as he pulls out a pair of handlebars from his tote.  Attached to the handlebars is a scooter, which he drags out of the tote.

“What?”

“Yeah, I know, amazing, isn’t it?  I have a friend at Walt Disney Studios.  He let me borrow Mary Poppins’ carpetbag.  You didn’t think it was really my style did you?  But you have to be practical.”

“How did you know it would work?”

“This is the world of cinema.  Anything can happen here.”

He sets the scooter on the dirt road, as the zombies pause by the LeMans, looking for brains to chew on.  “Zombies here are so slow.  Just about any vehicle can speed past them.”

“Why a scooter?”

“You think a Ferarri could fit through the lip of the bag?  It’s big, but not that big.”  He climbs on the driver’s seat, and indicates I’m to sit behind him. “Besides, this isn’t a scooter.”

The zombies are but a yard away as he turns the key of the scooter and I rush over to secure myself on the back seat.  “It’s a Vespa.  From Roman Holiday.  You know, with Audrey Hepburn?”

He speeds off, leaving zombies in the dust.  Other groups of zombies lunk along ahead, but Chuck easily evades them with his Vespa.

“When you are in the cinema world, there is one other thing that helps one survive, beside logic and preparation.   And that’s imagination.”

“How did we even get in here?”

“I’m not exactly sure.  I received an invitation by email from an unknown address, but I don’t care who it came from or what their purposes are.  I could never pass up an opportunity like this.  I figured that no matter who it was that offered this to me, no matter what insidious purpose he had, I couldn’t say no.”

Insidious….?

“Ah, just as I thought.  He wouldn’t just place us in a Romero film.  We’re in a series of clips. I wish we had the soundtracks, though.  We’re really missing out.”

Chuck sped quickly toward a motel on the side of the road.  Behind the motel was a hauntingly familiar house.  “Psycho, really?  Chuck, I didn’t come here to be stabbed.”

Chuck pulls over in front of the motel, next to the vehicle with NFB 418 on the plate.  He climbs off of the Vespa, puts down the carpetbag and reaches in, pulling out a lavish, shiny, samurai sword.  “Nothing’s going to happen to us.  Especially here.  Norman Bates is frightening because no one expects danger from him.  We are prepared. Come on!” 

We rush through the unlocked door (1960 was so innocent), through the bedroom to the bathroom.  And there he was, Norman, dressed in his wig and dress, attacking Marion in the perfect combination of sex and terror.  Chuck picks up a telephone book, and tosses it behind Norman.  He spins around, terrified to see someone behind him.  Chuck positions himself, samurai-perfect, and Norman attacks, knife over his head.  Chuck dispatches him handily, with two strokes.  Then he wipes his blade off on the back of his fallen foe.

“Now I know for certain who gave us this marvelous opportunity.  My arch-nemesis, Corey.  The only reason he would place us here is not to frighten us, but because of his weakness.  He has a shower fetish.”

Chuck spins around and begins to drag me out of the motel.  Suddenly, I find that we are both in the bed, sound asleep, and yet we see the motel room clearly.   A set of blades scrape on the wall, and the wallpaper rips and tears, blood cascading through the torn openings.  “Huh,” my friend grunts, clearly not expecting this.

“Nightmare on Elm Street.  I despise this film, “ I murmur.

Although asleep, Chuck’s carpetbag is still on the floor.  He quickly digs down and grabs two cans.  “Here.  Drink this.”  He throws me one.  It’s a twenty ounce can of Red Bull. 

Suddenly, a man with a wide brimmed hat, striped shirt and specially made finger blades hovers above me.  “You and I still have some business to attend to,” he mocks me.

I watched Nightmare as an older teen, and I stayed up for nights, frightened that my very dreams might attack and maul me.    I shook as Freddy placed his index finger blade under my chin and whispers, “You are very, very late for our appointment…”

“Drink!” Chuck yells, and his shout startles me out of my tharn-gaze.  We both guzzle the caffeine-drenched beverage together, as I feel the blade descend into my gullet…

Then Freddy, the blood, the tears in the wall all disappear.  We were instantly awake.  “Fast acting,” Chuck quips.  He grabs my hand , the sword, and the carpetbag and we run out of the motel room.

Instead of the Vespa and vehicle, outside the motel room is a beautiful, clear lake, surrounded by trees. “Ah, now this I might have expected.” Chuck tosses me the sword, and I miss it, letting it drop on the ground.  I was glad to see that we were finally in a color world, full of greens and mist.  “I’m going to be busy,” Chuck says.  “You need to keep your eyes open, and look around.  Don’t let anything take you by surprise.  And use that sword.  Quickly, when the time comes.”

Suddenly, right behind Chuck, the familiar figure with a hockey mask attacks him with an axe.  Chuck, displaying a physical confidence and swiftness I’d never known he’d had, kicks Jason in the gut, then shifts and knees him in the face.  “Where did you learn…”

“Behind you!” Chuck shouts.

I spin and there is Jason again, with a machete, pulling back to strike me.  I quickly lash out with the Uma Thurman sword and before I knew it, Jason’s head was rolling on the ground.  I glanced over at the man Chuck had dispatched, but Jason was still there.

My friend saw the shock on my face.  “You didn’t kill Jason.  That is his mother.  She was the villain in the first film.”

I collapsed on the ground, dropping the sword, still bloodied. “I’d never killed anyone.  I can’t believe I’ve taken a human life.”

Meanwhile, Jason gets up and attacks Chuck from behind, using his weight to push him to the ground, beating him with hard, swift blows.  Chuck winces from the pain, then pulls a switchblade from his pocket and opens it upon Jason’s unprotected chest, entering his heart. 

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Chuck breathlessly states.

I looked again at the decapitated head, hockey mask still attached.  “Then what is this?”

“She’ll be back.  They all will.  This isn’t our world, where people die, never to be experienced again.  In the cinema world, the past always exists, and we can always visit it.  It never disappears.  Jason’s mother is alive, and she can die, but she will always come back, good as new.” He catches his breath, “Let’s go.”

We run through the woods, and find just on the other side of the trees a huge bar, on the side of a lonely road.  My friend smiles, “Let’s get a drink. If we’re lucky, we might get a glimpse of Santanico.”

As we get a bit closer, I notice the gauche neon, in the shape of a half-nude woman with the words “Titty Twister” beside her.  I tried to remember what film I saw this in, but it wouldn’t come to me.  As we entered, I glanced around at the large, open room and knew it seemed familiar.  As the door behind me automatically locked and barred, I knew.  “Dusk till Dawn, really?” 

“I know.  And we already missed the dance number.  Damn.”

Hordes of vampires surround us, slowly approaching us.  I hold up the samurai sword, ready for the fight of my life.  Chuck calmly speaks to me, “Put that thing down.  It won’t do you any good here.”  He is already reaching in the carpetbag. 

A vampire jumps over the bar and lands next to me, ready to strike.  I punch him in the face. “Chuck…”

“Just a sec.”

Two more vampires approach me from either side.  I spin and kick them both in the chest in one swift movement.  Although I am getting the hang of cinema world, this particular setting truly frightens me.  I’ve learned a lot, but even George Clooney barely survived this bar.  “Chuck?” I shouted.

“Got it.”

Just as twenty vampires were ready to attack us, he pulls out a small stick, waves it and shouts “Lumos maxima!”

Suddenly, bright light shone over all the bar, leaving no corner darkened.  Vampires screamed and collapsed, some melted, but all died, handily.

Chuck begins shouting at the ceiling.  “Is that all you got, Corey?  You lack just as much imagination as you ever did in your idiotic reviews.  You wouldn’t know a good film if it bit you in the head and swallowed your forehead!  Come on, which horror film can kill me?  I’m ready for whatever you can throw at me!”

The dismal strip club disappeared and replaced with a bright, clear, blue sky.   I quickly realized that I wasn’t looking at the sky directly, but reflected off the mirror windows of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, with Dubai a thousand feet below me.  Only a few yards below me was Chuck, stretched across a window, sweating, his breath labored as he struggled with a panic attack.  I climbed up to an open window, just a yard above me.  Once secure, I reached down to my friend, terror in his eyes and shouted through the wind, “Just one step at a time, Chuck.  You can do it.” 

“I…I… can’t move.”

“You don’t need to have your carpetbag for this, Chuck.  Remember, it’s cinema world.  You can do it.”

“You can!  Just try!”

Chuck, for a moment, went within himself, closing his eyes, finding his strength.  With a steel resolve, he pulls a foot up, finds a grip.  Then he puts his hand up, stretching out his arm, gripping the window frame.

And slips.  The sweat on his hands was too thick, and he couldn’t maintain his hold.  He falls. A thousand feet.  Well, perhaps twenty feet until I couldn’t look anymore.

I wipe the tears from my eyes and the frustration from my soul.  “Okay, Corey,” I speak in an even voice.  “Yes, you knew his kryptonite.  He hates heights.  I’m okay with them.  I can’t stand horror films, but I love a good action film. And Mission Impossible 4 is one of the best.”

I looked out the window, trying with all my effort to see the smiling face in the projector’s booth far beyond the screen.  “You won.  You proved your point.  Now please rewind the film and let us go home.”

What’s the Deal with M. Night Shyamalan?

All right, full confession right up front: I’m a fan of M. Night.  I don’t think he’s some Hitchcock or Spielberg, but I like his style.  He tells great stories.  I think of him as a campfire narrator.  He’s the guy who we listen to at the campfire and we get creeped out or sometimes scared or at times we are incredulous at his tale, but we’ve learned that he’s someone to listen to, and he makes us forget the real world for a little while.   A good entertainer, if not especially deep. 

I do love his turns in his films.  I don’t call them “surprises” because they aren’t always surprises.  But he builds up a story toward a turn and then slowly finishes it after the turn is made.  And I love that kind of straightforward storytelling.  And I think enough of his movies are worth re-watching even after you know the turn. There’s enough detail and character interest that watching it a second time isn’t a chore.

I recognize that he’s made some duds. Every director has those.  But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying the next tale he tells.  The darkness is lessened, the smoke a bit lighter while he’s telling his tale.

But the man has detractors.  Frankly, he is completely hated by some.  As if he had deeply hurt these people who just saw a film they didn’t like.  They call him names and say he hasn’t had a decent film since Sixth Sense, and blah, blah, blah.  And it is not a few people.  I was in a theatre when his name came up in a trailer and some in the audience booed the name.  I was sad at this.  I didn’t think he deserved it.  After all, he hadn’t participated in rape, statutory or otherwise. He just made some films these folks didn’t like.

And I wonder, why this hate?  Why is Shyamalan’s film The Visit greeted with as many haters as lovers?  While I don’t have any real answers, I want to share a few thoughts:

Reasons to hate M. Night Shyamalan:

1. Morals
Although he labeled only “The Lady in the Water” as “a fable”, the fact is that all his films are fables—stories with a moral.  The Visit openly gives a moral about releasing anger.  The moral in the Sixth Sense wasn’t as obvious, but all his movies lead to a point, even his written-but-not-directed movie Devil, which is about forgiveness.  Personally, I like a good sermon, and M. Night tells a good yarn with a good lesson at the end to wrap it all together.  But I can see that others may not like this approach.

2. Pseudo-fake
In The Visit and especially in The Happening the actors are directed, in parts, to act like their acting.  This is all part of the storytelling, but we prefer our actors to be more natural seeming.  This is a problem that Verhoeven and Richard Kelly also have, trying to communicate a sense of satire or falsehood by having their actors “act”.  But this doesn’t communicate to all audience members.

3. Your Slip is Showing
Shyamalan’s scripts are so straightforward and mechanistic, that all the parts are out there, easy to see.  There’s the three-part script, the obvious building blocks, the “surprise” and the wind up—a pretty basic outline, obvious to all.  And perhaps it’s too obvious for those who prefer a more artistic presentation.

 4. X Movie with Y Ending
Mark Harris earlier this year wrote a great analysis of why some critique the Oscars for not choosing the “great” movies for best picture 

He differentiates between “X” movies—dark and nihilistic films—and “Y” movies—drama that is light and often has a happy ending.  Some critics would only accept an X movie as being great, while Forest Gump and The King’s Speech, being “Y” films, are simply unworthy.  Where do Shyamalan’s films sit?  Perhaps Sixth Sense and Unbreakable could be considered “X” films (the two most likely to be considered “good” by M. Night), but the rest, while they might have a hard exterior, have a gooey center, a Y movie with an X wrapping.  So those who prefer X movies might see him pulling the dark out from under their feet, leaving them with a positive ending and a moral.  Yuck, say the X-promoters.

5. Self Promotion
But I think that Shyamalan’s biggest cinematic sin is wearing his self-promotion on his sleeve.  Maybe he did it himself, and maybe he was put up to it, but how it looks is that he thinks pretty well of himself.  We can forgive a bad film by Ridley Scott, because he doesn’t put his name above the title, or participate in gushing biographies about himself.  He does his work and lets others judge them as they will.  But by placing himself in actor’s roles and by the self-aggrandizing  turns in trailers, it seems as if he were comparing himself to Hitchcock or Spielberg, which is unacceptable.  That only works if you never put out a stinker.  But once you do, your ballooned reputation will pop, and no matter what good work you have done in the past, it won’t mean anything, because you will have used up all your goodwill in glorifying your name.

Again, I don’t think any of us knows whether Shyamalan did this himself, or was encouraged to do this by others in  the studio system, but it was a bad step.  And worse, when the campfire storyteller compares himself to Shakespeare, he’ll always come out defeated before he begins.