Celebrate Chaplin—1914 (3/1/14)

Silent Cinema Presentations, Inc. has titled this series Celebrating Charlie Chaplin’s 125th Birth Anniversary, with a subtitle of 100th Anniversary in motion pictures. Saturday’s offerings were Gentlemen of Nerve and Tillie’s Punctured Romance, both from 1914 at Keystone Studios.

Gentlemen of Nerve, a two-reeler, is short on plot but long on slapstick and gags that come fast and furious. Mabel (Mabel Normand) and her beau (Chester Conklin) enter the grounds of a motorcar race. Chaplin, in one of the earliest "Little Tramp" character appearances, is without money and has to sneak in via a missing plank in a fence. A friend of his (Mack Swain) attempts the same but gets stuck. Chaplin does his darnedest to get the larger man through, and then scoots through himself, leaving the other fellow stuck. After finally getting him through, with the help of a handy-dandy seltzer bottle (dousing a cop in the process), all seems fine. Mabel ends up dumping her beau for Charlie, and after a series of flirtations and fisticuffs, the beau and Charlie’s pal get hauled away by the cop. Some of the automobile scenes were offbeat and funny. Interestingly, at the start of the race, each contestant had to completely change a tire before the actual driving part of the race. And there was one wind turbine–powered car that allowed for some funny bits by Chaplin and
Ms. Normand.

The main attraction was Tillie’s Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler,
Mr. Chaplin, Ms. Normand, Mr. Conklin, Mr. Swain and a host of others. I particularly enjoyed the opening, where Ms. Dressler stepped through a curtain dressed rather elegantly and then cinematically morphed into her character of Tillie (much more frumpy). Ms. Dressler was a big stage star, and producer Mack Sennett wanted to make the most of her appearance in the film. In fact, the project was stretched from a four-reeler into a feature-length six-reeler. Tillie is a country girl who Chaplin espies after a fight with his girlfriend, Mabel (Ms. Normand). He sees that Tillie’s father has a large bankroll to use for paying his farm workers, and he convinces her to elope with him, bringing the bankroll with her. All of this is accompanied, of course, by slapstick kicks, hits, and pratfalls. Tillie and Charlie end up in a restaurant, where Charlie sees Mabel again. Charlie gets Tillie tipsy, and gets her to let him hold her purse. Then he and Mabel abscond with her cash.

After Charlie and Mabel see a morality play movie about thievery, they are sitting on a park bench, having seen the error of their ways (sort of). A newsboy stops by, Charlie sees that Tillie’s rich uncle has died in a mountain climbing accident, and also sees that Tillie, as sole heir, has inherited three million dollars. Well he’s off to the races! back to the restaurant, where Tillie has had to take on work as a waitress (mayhem and slapstick ensue); he convinces Tillie that he really loves her, and they get married. They then throw a huge party in the uncle’s mansion that ends rather badly—why, yes, gunfire is involved—when Tillie discovers that Mabel has snuck in and is pretending to be a maid at the party. And is still being wooed by Charlie.

Whew! Then, it’s discovered that Uncle Moneybags did not die, and he insists that Tillie be arrested. Tillie, Charlie, and Mabel run from the cops (er, Kops, of the Keystone variety), until they end up at the end of a pier with nowhere to go. Tillie gets hit by a car and falls into the drink. She is eventually retrieved back onto the pier (after, of course, more mayhem, slapstick, and Keystone Kop-ery). Tillie and Mabel decide that they’re both too good for Charlie, and he leaves, with nothing to show for his troubles.

In a cinematic curtain call, Ms. Dressler enters through that curtain again, is joined by Chaplin, and then by Ms. Normand. After they’ve all bowed together, Ms. Dressler motions to both of them again but, cinematically, they’ve disappeared, and she’s left for her solo bows.

As usual, Ben Model had the herculean task of providing live piano accompaniment to both films and, as usual, he was more than up to the task. Bruce Lawton gave very informative opening remarks for the afternoon, and Steve Massa’s program notes were very much appreciated. A nice touch on Saturday were actual Chaplin artifacts—a cane, derby, and pair of shoes that had belonged to Chaplin. Though I didn’t stick around, Mr. Lawton invited audience to come up for pictures with the hat and the cane, but not the shoes (at least, not wearing them). As this is a series, I’ll save some of my observations re. glass projection slides for another time. Does that whet your appetite?

ConcertMeister