Intertitle of the Week: Sunnyside Up
So, I finished reading Glen David Gold’s Sunnyside, which left me feeling emotionally fragile and with a lump in my throat. Amazing book. Among Gold’s many accomplishments is the weaving together of three distinct narratives, two of which deal with World War One, while the remaining one covers Charlie Chaplin’s travails making SUNNYSIDE, one of his worst films — and Gold manages to get us to take Chaplin’s artistic difficulties seriously, even while men are dying over there — and there’s no sense of distortion in this. Chaplin’s problems ARE serious, but obviously on a different level from the life-and-death stuff. Gold also manages to make us care about Chaplin while being scrupulously honest about his many vices.
Both Gold in Sunnyside and Walter Kerr in The Silent Clowns are pretty scathing about SUNNYSIDE, a complete misfire that failed critically, commercially and artistically. Chaplin was still trying to reach beyond the simple comedies that had made his name, and would not find a successful formula to do so until THE KID, one film later. During the hideously protracted shooting of SUNNYSIDE, he tried many different stories and gimmicks to create emotional depth or sidestep easy story solutions. What he ended up with was, it has to be said, a mess.
This intertitle is singled out by both authors as an example of Chaplin’s bad faith. It seems to imply, “There you go. This is the kind of shit you like, isn’t it?” Still, the Finnish subtitles in my crappy copy are a nice touch, don’t you think?
The jumble of story — TWO dream sequences, and a movie set in the countryside yet based around a hotel, a romance that only gets started halfway through, and a romantic rival who doesn’t appear until nearly the end — is quite dismaying. Even Keystone comedies paid more attention to structure than this. Still, there are pleasures. The mistreatment of the idiot brother (blindfolded and sent out to play in traffic) is cruel enough to seem modern, and a relief from the cloying business around it, and then there’s this —
This surreal moment, in which the bleating of a baby goat makes Chaplin think his piano has a flat note — a sound gag in a silent movie — is reprised, minus the goat, in MONSIEUR VERDOUX. Chaplin had a long memory for comedy business.
shadowplay 
August 2, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“Charlie Chaplin’s travails making SUNNYSIDE, one of his worst films”
The film has more merit than what you would allow it to have, I think it is one of his best films (and I agree with the whole “jumble” analysis).
Read my post about it: Sugar is for Sweetening
August 2, 2009 at 4:48 pm
You don’t actually say anything about the film in your post, apart from a little plot detail. Mostly you’re talking about the collapse of “society” (whose?) So I’m not convinced you’ve proved your point. I think comparing Sunnyside to successful comic shorts like A Dog’s Life, or mature classics like The Gold Rush, is a little absurd.
August 2, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thanks for the leg up on this book. Sounds fascinating. I read Chaplin’s autobiography years ago, or at least I read his elegy to the holy trinity…me, myself and I. I figure that he was quite insufferable. His namedropping is not only annoying, it is often dizzying…I was driving in George Bernard Shaw’s car with H.G. Wells on my way to Mahatma Gandhi’s residence because T.E. Lawrence was visiting and Wells’ friend Alexander Korda asked me if I had opinions on my friends Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis…you get the idea, except you have 500+ pages of this. In the long run, he should have remained silent.
August 2, 2009 at 4:59 pm
It’s weird, because he was more famous than any of them. But he was clearly insecure intellectually, and this led to his pretension and name-dropping. It only mars his films occasionally — it’s part of the trouble in Sunnyside, perhaps, but there are bigger issues at work there. Bearing in mind Chaplin’s background, it’s not surprising he would have felt insecure upon literary and political and philosophical matters, but what’s touching is that he cared enough to go to a lot of trouble to try and appear super-sophisticated.
David Robinson, who wrote Chaplin’s definitive bio, noted that he was at least incredibly accurate about the stuff he chose to remember (an entire marriage is deleted from Chaplin’s own account).
August 2, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Well that’s what’s great about a memoir. You can cut out all the boring stuff and say precisely what you want to say.
Haven’t seen Sunnyide in eons so I’d have to take another look to engage in a thorough discussion of it. But I love Chaplina nd deplore the Keaton has been used as a club to beat him over the head with. They are great, but very very different comic filmmaking talents. Keaton never made it into the Talkies. Chaplin not only made it but reshaped his career in the process. I really don’t think it’s possible to compare City Lights to Monsiuer Verdoux, for instance. They have entirely different goals and methods.
August 2, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Keaton, of course, wasn’t given the chance to make it in talkies, thanks to MGM. As a performer, he was quite capable of speaking, and his voice was interesting and effective.
Chaplin made a slow but brilliant transition — his last two films suffer precisely because he didn’t have a continuity of work. With his own studio and crew and stock company, he was able to weather the change to sound at his own pace. And by the time you get to M Verdoux it’s a pure talking picture in which visual comedy is sublimated.
August 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm
His rise to sophistication is truly Dickensian, reminiscent of Pip in Great Expectations. I learned something very valuable from him. Every day, twice a day, upon waking and before sleeping, he would go to his dictionary and with eyes closed flip to a random page and then point to an entry, yet unseen. Then he would take the chosen word, common or uncommon, and read the definitions, etymology, pronunciation and prefixes and suffixes, writing down the information. This way he discovered two new words a day, seven hundred and thirty words a year. This is a good discipline.
August 2, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Save for the great parody of An American Tragedy, in which the presumably supremely self-involved Chaplin steps aside to let the great Martha Raye shine.
August 2, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Chaplin obviously appreciated other actors, because when you study the silents, they’re full of great performances and bits of comedy business. But usually Chaplin upstages everyone so perfectly that you only notice Syd or Edna on tenth viewing. In Limelight he gives Keaton a fair shot, and indeed Martha Raye almost takes over Verdoux.
I do the dictionary thing with film reference books! Chaplin’s approach was probably very good brain exercise, although his mind kind of gave out on him towards the end.
August 2, 2009 at 7:04 pm
His mind did give out at the end. A Countess form Hong Kong is proof of that. A truly sad film and a sad way to end a career.
August 2, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Agree on the Finnish subtitles. Reminded me of the Holy Grail of films:
“Wik.”
“Alsø Wik”
August 2, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Oh I don’t know A Countess From Hong Kong has a melancholy sweetness to it.
August 2, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I’d have to look at it again. My impression was that Sophia Loren made a better Chaplin substitute than Brando.
August 2, 2009 at 9:17 pm
up staging?..I thought Keaton was quiet and cleverly funny in the stage act that he and Chaplin perform in Limelight..but Charlie soon takes care of that..
August 2, 2009 at 9:55 pm
“Oh I don’t know A Countess From Hong Kong has a melancholy sweetness to it.”
And there is. But Chaplin rambles on at times in the film. The bed scene with Patrick Cargill is embarrassing.
August 2, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Once you get past Brando and Loren, the film is somewhat undercast: Cargill is an able enough farceur, but considering the comics around at that time, it’s a shame Chaplin settled for him. I never found the film funny, I have to say.
Keaton more than holds his own in Limelight, and it seems that rumours about Chaplin cutting his gags were unjustified. Considering Keaton’s lesser fame at that time, he’s treated very generously. It’s an amazing sequence, I think.
August 2, 2009 at 11:16 pm
Angela Scoular steals A Countess From Hong Kong
August 3, 2009 at 12:13 am
It is a good sequence..I need to give Limelight another look..I like the film overall..
August 3, 2009 at 8:12 am
OMG, I’d forgotten Angela S (also known as Mrs Leslie Phillips). Need to see it again, obviously. Maybe a viewing of the last five Chaplins one week would be in order. Am sure Fiona’s never seen any of them.