Charlie Chaplin and A Woman of Paris: The Genesis of a Misunderstood Masterpiece

261 Pages·2021·8.542 MB·English

by  Wes D. Gehring

Charlie Chaplin and
A Woman of Paris
Edna Purviance as The Woman of Paris (1923)
Charlie Chaplin and
A Woman of Paris
The Genesis of a
Misunderstood Masterpiece
Wes D. Gehring
Foreword by Anthony Slide
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
Recent works by Wes D. Gehring and from McFarland
Buster Keaton in His Own Time: What the Responses of 1920s
Critics Reveal (2018), G enre-Busting Dark Comedies of the 1970s:
Twelve American Films (2016), Movie Comedians of the 1950s:
Defining a New Era of Big Screen Comedy (2016), Chaplin’s War
Trilogy: An Evolving Lens in Three Dark Comedies, 1918–1947
(2014), Will Cuppy, American Satirist: A Biography (2013),
Forties Film Funnymen: The Decade’s Great Comedians at Work
in the Shadow of War (2010), Film Clowns of the Depression:
Twelve Defining Comic Performances (2007), Joe E. Brown:
Film Comedian and Baseball Buffoon (2006), Mr. Deeds Goes to
Yankee Stadium: Baseball Films in the Capra Tradition (2004)
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Gehring, Wes D., author. | Slide, Anthony, writer of foreword.
Title: Charlie Chaplin and A Woman of Paris : the genesis of a
misunderstood masterpiece / Wes D. Gehring ; foreword by Anthony Slide.
Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers, 2021 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
♾
Identifiers: LCCN 2020054850 | ISBN 9781476672441 (paperback : acid free paper)
ISBN 9781476640723 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Woman of Paris (Motion picture) | Chaplin, Charlie,
1889–1977—Criticism and interpretation. | Silent films—United
States—History and criticism. | Romance films—United States—History
and criticism. | Motion pictures—United States—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC PN1997.W599 G44 2021 | DDC 791.43/72—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054850
British Library cataloguing data are available
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-7244-1
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-4072-3
© 2021 Wes D. Gehring. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover image: Despite Chaplin’s “serious drama” comments,
A Woman of Paris (1923) plays as a sophisticated comedy.
The still was acting more as a warning that he was staying
behind the camera (author collection).
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
In memory of My Father
Gerald “Jerry” David Gehring
and
In honor of a lovely new
granddaughter, Roseline Alice Long,
about to be introduced to film and comedy

Table of Contents
Foreword by Anthony Slide 1
Preface and Acknowledgments 3
Prologue: Searching for an Artist’s Lost Shadow 5
1. Chaplin’s Biography Prior to A Woman of Paris:
(A Darkly Farcical Perspective) (1889–1923) 13
2. “Chaplinitis”: The Initial Fame Factor and Early
Chaplin Films with Tangential Ties to
A Woman of Paris 26
3. The M essiah-like World War I Bond Tour: “Chaplinitis”
in Overdrive 50
4. Further Glass Ceiling Breaking: The Precedent
Shattering Dark Comedy Shoulder Arms (1918) 66
5. Edna Purviance: A Less Than “Sunnyside” (1919)
March to The Kid (1921) and A Woman of Paris (1923) 77
6. More Revisionism: A Short Subject and The Kid (1921)
Continue to Anticipate A Woman of Paris (1923) 91
7. The Kid (1921) More Than Fulfills the “Letter to a Genius”
Opening to Chapter 6 111
8. Charlie Chaplin Goes to Europe (1921) 122
9. Continuing the Path to A Woman of Paris (1923):
A Unique Literary Year and Two Seminal Shorter
Works 138
10. Prologue to A Woman of Paris (1923): The Pilgrim
(1923), and the Women Impacting Paris 159
vii
viii Table of Contents
11. Making A Woman of Paris (1923) and Its Response 177
12. Correcting More Errors About Both the 1923 Release
and the 1970s Rebirth of A Woman of Paris 193
Epilogue: A Woman of Paris (1923) and the United
States of Amnesia 213
Filmography 219
Chapter Notes 221
Bibliography 237
Index 249
Foreword
by Anthony Slide
Yet another volume of Chaplin and his films? Well, yes and no. This
is certainly another book about Chaplin, but one that deals not with his
comedies but rather the filmmaker’s one departure from his acknowledged
genre, humor, to the world of sophisticated drama with A Woman of Paris.
A Woman of Paris is generally is acknowledged for its distance from
Chaplin’s usual efforts, but more often than not is u nder-discussed. It does
contain minor elements of comedy, most notably Chaplin’s uncredited
cameo as a railway porter, but it is closer to the later cinematic world of
Ernest Lubitsch or Clarence Brown than the combined comedic efforts of
Chaplin and his contemporaries, including Keaton and Lloyd. Mal St. Clair,
a director who like Chaplin began his career at Keystone tried his hand,
quite skillfully, at mixing comedy and sophisticated drama with The Grand
Duchess and the Waiter (1926), starring Chaplin’s Paris leading man, Adol-
phe Menjou, and A Woman of the World (1925), which makes brilliant use
of the temperamental and dramatic silent star, Pola Negri. But these films
were comedies of manners, whereas A Woman of Paris was something very
special for audiences of the day—the latest Chaplin release.
Perhaps the reason why A Woman of Paris is so u nder-discussed is that
it is all too easy to dismiss it as little more than a sophisticated melodrama.
But, as Wes Gehring reveals, the film contains much that is worthy of exam-
ination and discussion. More so certainly than its general identification as
the production that made a star of the cultured Adolphe Menjou and ended
the career of Edna Purviance, Chaplin’s most prominent leading lady of the
1910s. (I have often pondered if it is true that Chaplin banned Edna Purvi-
ance from the lot in later years because she was a reminder of his early years
of ingenuous filmmaking.)
Just as Chaplin may be considered unique as a comedy creator, so
should A Woman of Paris be considered unparalleled as a sophisticated
drama. It is not so much the basic story or the performances (good as they
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