The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-02-09
CHAREK CHAPLIN'S ART.

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There died last winter in NM York. a notable
artist who was comparatively unknown because he
had the ill-luck to miss his right artisffc.medium
He was a circus clown-"Slivers" of the detachable
baseball game" He should have been Frank
Oakley Of the movies" He was condemned to pan
tomime because of voice that inadequate-to
public utterance but he comedian Of sur.
prisne imagination. serious observer, real stun
dent of comic effects, and inherently pathetic
at his funniest.
Charles Chaplin has come into the kingdom that
poor Slivers missed. He wears. as S'ivcrs did
grotesque costume He has the same gift for Clown
ing-an ability to translate any natural gesture into
caricature without the slightest apparent exagger-
aon--a gift that seems inherent in his body
| grace is so often in the body of beauty. Slivers
| used to say: Put real clown in the middle Of a
three ring circus with nothn' to work but shoe
lace, an he'll make the whole tent laugh" Slivers
did 1t by virtue of penetrating imagination. He
would see the shoe lace as anything from angle
worm to string of spaghetti, and it and relate
himself to 1t so convincngly that he made You
it as he did Chaplin performs the same miracle
| with a walking-stick. He will simultaneously
as tooth pick but he will it exactly you
see oth-picks used at lunch counter, looking -
YOU with an air of sad repetion with glazed eye
from which all intelligence has withdrawn nwardly
| to brood over the internal satisfaction Of digestive
| process -absurdly but with unimpcachable realism
Or, he IS a clerk in a pawnshop, and man brings
| in an alarm clock to pledge it. Chaplin has to de-
eide how much 1t is worth. He it first as a
patient to be examined diagnosticaly. He taps it,.
rcrcusses it, puts his to its chest listens to it's
heart beat with scthoscopc, and, while he listens,
| fixes thoughtful medical eye space. looking in
scruably wise and professionally confident He
| begins to operate on it--with n can-opener. And
Immediately the round tin clock becomes a round
tin can whose contents under suspicion. He
cuts around the circular top of the can bends back
| the flap of tin with a kitchen thumb gingcrly.
scrutinzes the contents gngerIy and then, gngerly
| approaching his to it, shifts with a melan-
choly expression of an experienced housekeeper who
believes the worst of the packing houses. The i'm
aginaion is accurate The acting is restrained and
naturalistic. The result is scream.
! And do not believe that such acting is a matter OF
crude and simple means 1t is subtle in it's nat
uralsm the shades of information in a really tragic
speech, Slivcrs used to say: "Its i'm
itatm' lifc-thats what does it. You can get it by
muggin'-" making faces-'rt has to be real witt
you. Why. in that baseball game" And he woulC
describe how he had built up his elaborate carica
ture of a catcher from nnumerable observat tons
holding his glove between his knees instead of drop
ring ii on the gIound-when he paused to put OF
his chest pad-bccause SO and So always did it tina
way, and snatchng off his mask with just this gcs
,urc because it was the way he had anothc
catcher do that. And he would say: You know
it's hard work-that turn. You have to keep in you
mind where all the players are on the field an
on the bases all the time II keeps you watchn'.
| He serious about it a Russian realis
And result, you would the baseball fan
at the circus wiping the tears of helpless laughte
from eye at time so as not to lose sight O
him for an instant.
The curious thing is that none of the clowns VIII
worked with Svers in the circus learned the lesso
from him. They initiated his make up" They stol
his business" But they never reached his secret
And on the films, today the stage. you wi
find all the would-be comedians 'mugging diligent
~, trying to put OVER comedy" with consciousl
comic gesture and intonation saying to the audsene
tacitly, I'm funny-laugh at me-" and concludin
that the audience is "a bunch of boneheads" becaus
they do not laugh. The author gives the sta
comedians amusing lines. and Chaplin has no line