Chaplin at Mutual Studios - Part 2 is comprised of four shorts Charles Chaplin made at Mutual after signing a contract with that studio in 1916 to produce 12 two-reel comedies. Chaplin's Mutual period, which he would describe as "the happiest time of my career," was one in which he flourished with complete creative control over his projects. All the films in this collection were released in 1916.

The Count, Chaplin's fifth film for Mutual, has Charlie as a shy, inept tailor's apprentice who is fired from his job, only to end up impersonating a count at a party at the mansion of the Moneybags family. Trying to impress the Moneybags' comely daughter (Edna Purviance), Charlie makes quite a spectacle of himself on a slippery dance floor before the real count arrives and a slapstick chase ensues.

The Count was one of Chaplin's most ambitious projects to date, with three elaborate sets (the tailor shop, the opulent Moneybags mansion and a large kitchen). Chaplin hired a complete dance orchestra to film the dance sequence, which offered wonderful comic opportunities to display his skill at eccentric dancing including some funny splits -- one of which he pulls himself out of by hooking his cane onto a chandelier.

Producer/Director/Screenplay: Charles Chaplin
Cinematography: Roland Totheroh (uncredited)
Principal Cast: Charles Chaplin (Tailor's Apprentice), Eric Campbell (A Tailor), Edna Purviance (Miss Moneybags), Charlotte Mineau (Mrs. Moneybags).

The Vagabond, Chaplin's third film for Mutual, is considered by some to be his first masterpiece, refining the blend of comedy and pathos he had introduced in his earlier films and anticipating such later masterworks as The Kid (1921), City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936). In this one Charlie's tramp character is a traveling violinist; he's forced to compete with an artist for the hand of a beautiful girl (Edna Purviance) who is under the control of a brutal Gypsy king.

Biographer David Robinson wrote that, in The Vagabond, "Chaplin's sentiment is invariably saved from mawkishness by comedy and the belligerence that always underlies his despair... He uses his favorite trick of deflating his own dramatic despair with farce; the anguish of a lover rejected is quite eclipsed by the agonies of the same man accidentally sitting on a stove."

Director/Producer: Charles Chaplin
Screenplay: Charles Chaplin, Vincent Bryan
Cinematography: William C. Foster, Roland H. Totheroh, Frank D. Williams (uncredited)
Principal cast: Charles Chaplin (Street Musician), Edna Purviance (Girl stolen by Gypsies), Eric Campbell (Gypsy Chieftain), Leo White (Old Jew/Gypsy Woman), Lloyd Bacon (Artist), Charlotte Mineau (Girl's Mother).

The Fireman, Charles Chaplin's second two-reeler for Mutual, casts Charlie as a bumbling member of a small-town fire department. His foreman (Eric Campbell) is in cahoots with the wealthy father of a pretty girl (Edna Purviance) and plots to allow the rich man's house to burn down so the two men can split the insurance money. Charlie, blithely unaware of the scheme, comes to the rescue -- luckily, since the innocent Edna happens to be inside the burning building.

With gags galore and a plot no more complicated than a Keystone comedy, The Fireman is an exercise in pure slapstick. Chaplin produced it elaborately, employing a real fire station and stables complete with magnificent horses, and two condemned houses that were burned down to create a believable conflagration.

Director/Producer: Charles Chaplin
Screenplay: Charles Chaplin, Vincent Bryan
Cinematography: William C. Foster, Roland H. Totheroh, Frank D. Williams (uncredited)
Principal cast: Charles Chaplin (Fireman), Edna Purviance (Girl), Lloyd Bacon (Her Father), Eric Campbell (Foreman of the Brigade), Leo White (Owner of Burning House).

Behind the Screen, Charles Chaplin's seventh film for Mutual, offers a behind-the-scenes look at a Hollywood movie studio, circa 1916. Charlie plays an overworked prop man's assistant named David. He takes a shine to a country girl (Edna Purviance, of course) who poses as a boy so she can take a job as a stagehand. For the only time in his film career, Chaplin stages a pie fight, one that occurs after David and his boss, Goliath (Eric Campbell), are drafted into performing in a comedy sketch. Sparking the plot is a stagehands' strike that culminates in a scheme to bomb the studio.

Perhaps the most memorable gag in Behind the Screen is the one in which Chaplin must carry a dozen chairs at once and, with the chair legs sticking out in all directions, takes on the appearance of a porcupine. But the film's most surprising element is a scene in which Charlie, aware of Edna's disguise, is caught kissing her by the prop man, who exclaims in a title, "Oh, you naughty boys!" and does a little "fairy dance." Chaplin biographer David Robinson described the sequence as "the most overt representation of a homosexual situation anywhere in the Anglo-Saxon commercial cinema before the 1950s."

Director/Producer/Screenplay: Charles Chaplin
Cinematography: Roland H. Totheroh
Principal cast: Charles Chaplin (David, Goliath's assistant), Eric Campbell (Goliath, a stagehand), Edna Purviance (The Girl), Lloyd Bacon (Director of comedies - uncredited), Charlotte Mineau (Actress - uncredited).
The length of this program is 100m. B&W

by Roger Fristoe