Join
us in commemorating the 85th anniversary
of Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim!
A
Celebration of Chaplin will begin in William S. Hart
Park's Hart Hall with a lecture on filming in the Santa
Clarita Valley. The festivities continue in the Hart
Museum for a tour and talk on displayed Charlie Chaplin
film memorabilia. Following the discussions and a
catered dinner, guests will find themselves in the
Saugus Train Station where The Pilgrim was
originally filmed and where guests will enjoy a
screening of the film.
FILM SYNOPSIS
The
Pilgrim,
is Chaplin's last film for First National Pictures. It's
a little more expansive than his prior three, a
four-reeler which represents a reworking of the ideas
that Chaplin had for Life, a feature he had wanted to
make back in 1915. Charlie is a convict ("Slippery Elm")
who just escaped from prison. He immediately steals the
clothes of a bathing minister (it could happen). He buys
a ticket to Devil's Gulch, Texas, where, coincidentally,
the local congregation is expecting the arrival of a new
minister, who, also coincidentally, has been delayed.
Charlie is welcomed with open arms by the senior
minister Mack Swain, along with his entire congregation.
According to Joyce Milton, in "Tramp", her 1996
biography of Chaplin, Charlie intended to show the
church in Devil's Gulch struggling with a declining
congregation. It seems the locals prefer good times to
the gospel. As the new minister, Charlie sets out to
fight fire with fire, installing roulette wheels and
featuring sexy choir girls to lead the parishioners away
from sin instead of towards it.
Unfortunately, the infamous Fatty Arbuckle rape case was
underway, prompting Hollywood's first great spasm of
morality. Chaplin jettisoned the "new model" church
plot, although he still exposes Mack as a secret
tippler. The real set piece of the film is Charlie's
sermon on the subject of David and Goliath. In wonderful
pantomime, Charlie shows us a prissy little David
assaulting Goliath with his tiny sling. The giant,
provoked rather than slain, promptly beheads the little
snot. The congregation stares in horror, but a little
boy in the front pew bursts into delighted applause. At
last, some honest insight into how the world works!
Reality, not myths!
Charlie is installed at the home of Mrs. Brown and
daughter Edna. At a "social" hosted by the trio, another
little boy, "Dinky Dean" Riesner, shows up and proves to
be a relentless terror, harassing Charlie and the other
guests without mercy. Charlie has bigger problems than
Dinky, however. He crosses paths with one of his old
prison buddies, played by Dinky's father Charles
Riesner, who figures Charlie must be running some sort
of hustle with the preacher thing and wants in on it.
Charlie, of course, has fallen in love with Edna by this
time and has turned his back on crime.
Riesner successfully invites himself into the Brown
household and is even accepted as an overnight guest. He
takes the opportunity to steal the mortgage money,
despite the best efforts of Charlie, who takes off in
hot pursuit. While Charlie�s gone, the sheriff shows up,
bearing the bad news about Charlie — he's an escaped
con. Charlie's cover is blown but he doesn't know it. In
a hurried and confused sequence, Charlie brings
retrieves the cash from Riesner and returns it to Edna.
Unfortunately, the sheriff is listening in. He allows
Charlie a brief farewell to Edna, who is then taken
away, he thinks, to prison. Instead, the sheriff,
perhaps the only merciful lawman in the Chaplin film,
lets Charlie walk, but he had to do it south of the
border. As Charlie steps into Mexico, a couple of bad
guys start shooting at one another. He hops back into
the U.S., but then, recalling the sheriff's
instructions, starts racing away, one foot on either
side of the dividing line. |