Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin was one of the most popular and influential directors and performers in the history of film. His influence derived from many different aspects of his work but one of the most important was his role in the development of comic feature films. Although other performers and filmmakers were involved in the same process (and surpassed Chaplin at times) he was nearly unique in the degree of control he exerted over the development of his own films. A comparison of works ranging from his early days of making two-reel shorts for Keystone to later shorts and his first self-directed feature at First National, The Kid (1921), demonstrates the process through which coherent narrative features were developed from the gag-based style of the shorts. Although The Kid is not the height of Chaplin's accomplishment in the new form, as his first it displays some of the problems the vaudeville-oriented comic filmmakers faced in making the transition.

There are, of course, many ways to read film history. Jenkins and Karnick, for example, argue against the auteur- (or "author") based approach on many excellent grounds. But, especially in the case of Chaplin who produced, directed, wrote, starred in and, later, composed music for his own films, the auteur clearly conceived of himself in just this way. Thus when Jenkins and Karnick argue against reading "the shifts of individual comic artists, such as Chaplin, from short films which were largely outside the classical norms of

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s not particularly interesting--although it is funny in many places--and its unusual features include the fact that Charlie (to distinguish the performed character from the director) is married (with a child) and shows few signs of the tramp character which was only gradually being developed during the early years with Mack Sennett at Keystone. In this short film Charlie and his wife quarrel and he leaves the house, but seeks to placate her with the gift of a bottle for their baby. Another couple is shown on their honeymoon and, as he leaves his hotel, the man (Mack Swain) is asked by a young woman to mail a love note that sets up a tryst. For structural purposes it is only necessary that Charlie and Swain meet, be able to recognize each other later on, and accidentally exchange overcoats--one bearing the love note and the other the baby's gift. This will lead to confusions as their respective wives berate them for infidelity and, eventually, once the correct overcoats have been regained, all will be sorted out. Swain's character, however, will still be the victim of misunderstanding as the film ends because his wife's jealousy over the baby's gift will be replaced by her jealousy over the unexplained love letter. Thus, in

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