The Mutuals - 57, 58, 59

Monday September 24, 7:00 pm, The Paramount Theater

Behind The Screen (1916)

A wickedly funny parody of his Keystone days, Behind the Screen was Charles Chaplin’s seventh production under contract to The Mutual Film Corporation. Building on themes used in A Film Johnnie and The Property Man, it is among the quickest and most clever of the series.

Goliath (Eric Campbell) is a lazy stagehand who takes all the credit while his assistant slaves away unnoticed. David (Chaplin) slings eleven chairs over one arm while carrying an upright piano, kicks over cameras, and repeatedly drops a large column on the dramatic director (Henry Bergman). They remain when the crew (caught napping after lunch) goes on strike, and hire an aspiring actress (Edna Purviance) disguised in workmen’s clothes to help. David realizes her true identity when she faints, and Goliath discovers them kissing. Behind the Screen ends with a colossal pie fight as the strikers bomb the studio and David rescues the girl.

The Rink (1916)

An inept waiter (Charles Chaplin) visits a roller skating rink on his lunch hour. Posing as Sir Cecil Seltzer C.O.D., he meets a lovely young girl (Edna Purviance) who invites him to her skate party that evening. Inspired by Skating, a Vaudeville routine co-written by his brother Sydney and Fred Karno, The Rink showcased Chaplin’s graceful and at times frightening roller-skating abilities.

Charlie serves one customer a live cat, is responsible for another receiving a scrub-brush and soap for lunch, and douses the cook (Albert Austin) with the contents of a cocktail shaker. Romantic entanglements begin when Mr. Stout (Eric Campbell) flirts with Edna at the rink, while Mrs. Stout (Henry Bergman) flirts with Edna’s father (James T. Kelley) in the café. They end in a wild free-for-all when everyone embarrassingly shows up at the party, and Charlie escapes by hooking his cane to the bumper of a passing car.

Easy Street (1917)

A derelict (Charles Chaplin) visits the local rescue mission where he finds encouragement and resolves to make "A new beginning." Hired as a policeman at a stationhouse where street violence rages uncontrolled, he vanquishes an enormous bully (Eric Campbell), twice, restores civility to the neighborhood, and gains the respect of the beautiful mission worker (Edna Purviance). Easy Street is without question Campbell’s best performance, as the rampaging monster and ultimate challenge to Charlie’s survival.

The ninth of Chaplin’s twelve productions for the Mutual Film Corporation, Easy Street is among the most popular and best remembered. It was the last of the twelve produced on a monthly basis and came at a point in Chaplin’s career when his working methods became increasingly meticulous and greater amounts of time were required to produce fewer films. Chaplin used nearly as much time to produce the final three films as the nine they preceded.

Seattle Theater Group and The Paramount present, Silent Movie Mondays: The Chaplin Triple Play, September 10, 17, 24 and October 1. Musical accompaniment for the series features Dennis James on the Paramount’s original Publix 1, 4/20 Wurlitzer.