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