Little Tramp: instant celebrity
A war couldn’t suppress the rise of the Little Tramp.
The historical anniversary that has loomed over 2014 since even before the year’s onset has been that of World War I. Attracting a lot less publicity or reflection has been another milestone, one whose cultural influence is arguably just as significant. It has been 100 years since Charlie Chaplin began his film career.
At the beginning of 1914 Chaplin was a relatively unknown music hall entertainer. By year’s end he was the most famous man on the planet. Today the phenomenon of instant celebrity is commonplace, but a century ago it was unheard of. True, there were film stars before Chaplin.
The French comic Max Linder, an important influence on the Englishman, was internationally celebrated, as was Mary Pickford, Chaplin’s future partner in the United Artists studio.
However, the Little Tramp’s rise to fame was unprecedented in its swiftness and intensity. The silent cinema had found its purest and most perfect exponent. In an era before sound imposed the restrictions of the spoken word, a pantomime genius became cinematic king the world over.
It is interesting to trace the growth of Chaplin’s reputation through the New Zealand press of the day.
Through the Papers Past website ( paperspast. natlib. govt. nz), a research tool in which 19th century and early 20th century publications have been digitised, we can estimate both the release patterns of Chaplin’s Keystone shorts and his building fame.
New Zealand fell in love with the Little Tramp as quickly as anywhere else. Our audiences were certainly exposed to his work at roughly the same time.
The earliest indication of a Chaplin film being screened in New Zealand is April 9, 1914, at Wellington’s Empress Theatre. Mabel’s Strange Predicament had been released in America precisely two months before, two days after the first appearance of the Little Tramp character in Kid Auto Races in Venice and a week after Chaplin’s film debut, Making a Living.
Regardless of the minutiae of these dates, David Robinson argues in his definitive biography of the comedian that Mabel’s Strange Predicament was the film in which the Tramp was first widely seen. This was also the case in New Zealand.
As Mack Sennett’s studio had a reputation that preceded that of its soon to be most noted player, Mabel’s Strange Predicament was advertised as a ‘ Keystone ‘‘ Feature’’ Comedy’.
An advertorial type review of the short published on May 2 notes that the ‘‘ Keystone comedians . . . give an active exhibition of comicality much to the satisfaction of the audiences’’.
Publicity elsewhere in the country proclaimed the film ‘‘ the greatest Keystone comedy ever’’ or use similar superlatives but no mention is made of individual cast members.
This is also the case for two other early Chaplin shorts that were screened through June and early July: Kid Auto Races and Between Showers.
The first time Chaplin’s name appears in print is July 3. Interestingly, his fame was already sufficient by this stage for it to take precedence over his material. Instead of advertising the name of the title, Dunedin’s King Theatre encourages its patrons to ‘‘ See CHARLES CHAPLIN, THE KEYSTONE KING . . . the sidesplitting Shriek’’. Two days later another advertisement makes clear that what is being screened is Film Johnnie, a short first released in the United States four months earlier.
With A Film Johnnie and His Favourite Pastime exhibited throughout the country during July and August, Chaplin’s moniker now frequently featured in promotions. That muckraking rag the NZ Truth misspells the name as ‘‘ Charlely Chaplin’’ in an August 1 advertorial
Abut states that the comic ‘‘ creates guffaws by the hundred’’.
On August 3 the Timaru Herald ran a crudely written piece promoting Chaplin as ‘‘ Keystone’s Drunken Comedian’’, claiming that he is ‘‘ at his funniest’’ in The Star Boarder, already alluding to past work.
By November 12 the Wanganui Chronicle was able to run a review of Mabel at the Wheel which claimed that ‘‘ the hilarious comedy work of Charles Chaplin needs no introduction’’.
So well known was the Tramp persona that this piece describes the plot and asks its readership to imagine Chaplin in the scenario.
On November 23 an advertisement in the Dominion promoting The Property Man declared the star ‘‘ The World’s Favourite Picture Comedian’’.
The same day, in another capital city paper, elaborate prose traced Chaplin’s career path: ‘‘ America started the laughing boom – Australasia confirmed it; Auckland endorsed it and all Wellington citizens will have their risible faculties greatly affected . . .’’ For once such hyperbole had a solid grounding in fact.