The Essential Chaplin: Perspectives on the Life and Art of the Great Comedian

Schickel reviews movies for Time, and has an obvious but clear-eyed affection for Chaplin, whom he calls ""gallant and plucky and romantic and hopeful"" and ""the most famous man in the world"" in his time. Most of the writers he gathers for this collection were Chaplin's contemporaries and fans, including the critics Edmund Wilson, Alexander Woolcott and Brooks Atkinson. Schickel has unearthed a few rare and notable pieces, including Alistair Cooke's memories of working with Chaplin on a screenplay when Cooke was a young man, and novelist Graham Greene's thoughts on Chaplin's film Modern Times. Even Winston Churchill wrote about Chaplin. (Perplexingly, Churchill declares that poverty in America in 1935 was ""deliberately chosen, rather than imposed from without."") There are very few bum notes, but one is surely James Agee's histrionic defense of Chaplin's little-liked film (and first talkie), Monsieur Verdoux; Andrew Sarris's auteurist take paradoxically comes off much better. In the main, these 33 essays offer a 20th century-eye view of Chaplin's cultural impact. There's even this, from Theodor Adorno: ""He once imitated me, and sure I am one of the few intellectuals to whom this happened and to be able to account for it when it happened."" For many theory-minded readers, what follows will be worth the price of admission.