Volume 3, Number 5 · October 22, 1964
The Romance of Charles Chaplin
By F.W. Dupee
My Autobiography
by Charles Chaplin
Simon & Schuster, 512 pp., $6.95
One of the many fine things about this volume is that it includes, along with an exhaustive index and a lot of photographs, a 'List of the Films of Charles Chaplin.' Thus we learn that his first movie—or if he insists, film—dates from 1914 and was entitled Making a Living. In all senses of the word 'living,' Chaplin has since made it. No other movie career, and few recent literary careers, have yielded so much continuous delight over so many years as his has. It has also included a period of what might be called 'total crisis,' one of those situations in which the hero of a mass society undergoes a bitter reversal of fortune, public and private, and becomes for a time a prominent scapegoat. In Chaplin's case, this deplorable turn hasn't proved ruinous. On the contrary, his present life as described in My Autobiography resembles the last act of a late-Shakespearean romance. Order has been restored, love is requited, paternity is triumphant, and there has been a general reunion with the universe—possibly excepting the United States. In this country, however, many of his films are again on view; and while you endure that 'short wait in the lobby for seats,' you are gratified to hear from the auditorium gusts of unembarrassed, in fact uncontrollable, laughter. Even 'the children,' whom you have taken along, with some fears as to their possible reactions, soon get into the spirit and join the great collectivity of Chaplin-inspired mirth and adoration. A student did once tell the present writer that Chaplin's comic style lacked 'moral reference' and was a little dated. It is the unfortunate student who seems a little dated now.
Review, 4049 words
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