A Dog‘s Life Clippings 121/146
Film Fun, New York, August 1918.
THE END of the War Film
(...) Film Fun Cover, Jan. 1918, drawing
„And patiently waited in the cold entrance“
Editorial content. „Comments and Criticisms of a Free-Lance
By Linda A. Griffith (Mrs. David W. Griffith)
Some Nuisances of the Movies“ (...)
„The pie slinging, except when practiced by the only
Chaplin, might well be dispensed with.“ (...)
„The Genius of Charlie Chaplin
When the day is dark and cold and dreary, be thankful
for Charlie Chaplin. When the sun is shining brightly
and cheer and pleasantness obtain, give thanks for Charlie
Chaplin. The long-awaited picture, the first from his
own new million-dollar studio, has arrived. A Dog‘s Life,
it is called. It seems the exhibitors fussed a bit about
paying an additional 25 per cent, for this picture, which
overran the usual 2,000 feet by an additional 700
or more. As it was in the contracts that anything over 2,000
feet would mean an extra charge of 25 per cent,
why were the exhibitors peeved? Considering the mobs
that were on hand at the theatres as early as
six-thirty p. m. in order to get a seat, and the hundreds
that had the doors closed in their eager faces and
patiently waited in the cold entrance way for the second
running of the picture, and considering the excellence
of this Chaplin picture, why need anyone be
peeved? The audience even endured without protestation
(perhaps some slept – you couldn‘t have blamed
them if they did) the most stupid, deadly dull five-reel
picture, a Triangle feature, which preceded the
Chaplin film in the San Francisco theater I attended. This,
I presume, was good business judgment on the part
of the house manager to cut down expenses by securing
a cheap picture to fill out the bill and even up for
the Chaplin film. The audience survived this Triangle picture
only in the hope of what was coming. One flash on
the screen of their beloved ,Charles.‘ and they immediately
,came to.‘
A Dog‘s Life shows what Chaplin can do as actor,
author and manager. Chaplin is not only the one geniune
comique the screen has produced. He has dramatic
ability as well. In one of his early pictures he gave a hint
of this in a pathetic scene, not much more than a
pause and a droop of the head. It told volumes. In A Dog‘s
Life the pathetic note is there, but Chaplin is too wise
to think the public will ever accept him in serious roles. The
public will keep him where they want him, as the one
gloriously funny man of the screen. But though ,funny man
of the screen‘ he is destined to ever be, he is withal
a genius. He is the one movie star universally admired by the
young and old, from children to their grandparents,
enjoyed in equal measure by men of intellect and the carrier
of hod, by sedate matrons and giggly girls.“ (...)
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