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Filming Sunnyside

Chaplin signing the title card for Sunnyside
Chaplin signing the title card for Sunnyside

In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that making Sunnyside was “like pulling teeth”. From time to time, like any artist, Chaplin experienced creative blocks; but this was one of the worst in his career. No doubt one cause was his private life. Late in November 1918 he had married in haste a 17-year-old actress, Mildred Harris - and immediately regretted it as he found that poor Mildred was “no intellectual heavyweight” and woefully unequal to the job of wife to a genius.

Charlie Chaplin and Mildred Harris at Santa Catalina Island, 1918
Charlie Chaplin and Mildred Harris at Santa Catalina Island, 1918

Barely a week after the marriage, he was back at the studio with a plan to put Charlie into a rural setting, as the put-upon man-of-all-work at a seedy country hotel. He took the unit on location to one of the ranches that were still close by in that rural California, and hired horses, cows and cowboys - but the ideas for comedy did not come. After more than three months of idleness and a temporary abandonment of the project, Chaplin suddenly forced himself into a three-week spurt of energetic activity, after which he was able to complete Sunnyside.

Tom Wilson, Charles Chaplin and Roland Totheroh on the set
Tom Wilson, Charles Chaplin and Roland Totheroh on the set

It is a more interesting film than Chaplin or his critics gave him credit for. The spectacle of Charlie in a rural setting is novel, and provides some unexpected gags. Some scenes have a rather piquant edge of cruelty.

One scene in particular is particularly remembered. Charlie, knocked unconscious, dreams that he dances with four wood-nymphs. This virtuoso performance is clearly a tribute to the ballet L’Après-midi d’un faune, created and performed by the great Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinski. Nijinski had visited Chaplin’s studio and the two men clearly had a great mutual admiration. Chaplin was understandably flattered when the Russian dancer and his colleagues complimented him on his own dancing skills.

Chaplin dancing with the wood nymphs in Sunnyside
Chaplin dancing with the wood nymphs in Sunnyside

Text by David Robinson / Copyright 2004 MK2 SA


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