Making a Living

Introducing Charles Chaplin

Making a Living by Henry Lehrman, 1914:



Chaplin's vaudeville bandito moustache / A "sharper" in top-hat and monocle and spats beneath the Edendale sun / A monocle like the makeup around the eye of Petey the dog in Our Gang / And what if Dave Eggers had brio / That bit where the sharper turns his head back around and you see the monocle's fallen out of his eye, it doesn't look like a mistake so it's the most minor gag ever and one of the most pleasurable to see, I couldn't tell you why / Twitchy and frantic but the kid's got it / Every comedy till 1918 was surrealist / Back when drunk aristocrats discovered autos / Stabbing's just a blow, you stab or get stabbed you just keep on keeping on in the antic frenetic frame / Visual chaos / Don't ask sense of Making a Living / A real race to GET OUT THE NEWS / Henry Lerhman HAS AT IT / And for bystanders on the street it must have looked like some wildman getting possessed by one of those jumping Méliès devils

Making a Living by Henry Lehrman, 1914:






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