Chaplinitis

Cinemimic Charles Spencer Chaplin was in Berlin last week, but Britain still echoed with the sound of his passing. British newspapers brimmed with photographs: Chaplin walking with the Prime Minister, Chaplin sitting on the edge of Lady Astor's theatre box, Chaplin mobbed at a railway station, obliging autograph hunters, quipping with George Bernard Shaw, etc. etc.

Cartoonist Strube of the Daily Express acknowledged the epidemic with a drawing (see cut) in which all Britain's political leaders were disguised as Charlie Chaplin in famed Chaplin films. Central figure was Stanley Baldwin, while the slightly sinister Baron Beaverbrook (as Jackie Coogan) squatted on the curbstone beside him. Not so obvious to U. S. readers was Secretary of State for the Dominions Jim Thomas, sprawled on a sofa while a coronetted earl lit his cigar; Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden tripping up an ineffectual little man in a bowler hat who represents the British taxpayer.

In Berlin Cinemimic Chaplin had his troubles. Day after his arrival the Communist Young Guard printed an apocryphal message from the comedian: "My greetings and all my sympathies are with the Communist Youth of Germany." In vain Chaplin protested that he had made no such statement, had no interest in politics. Nationalist papers roared that this was "unwarranted meddling with Germany's internal affairs." Hitlerites, convinced that Chaplin is a Jew, marched up & down, roaring defiance, before the swanky Hotel Adlon where he was staying. A crowd of Communists, more practical, threatened to smash all the windows in the Adlon unless the great Chaplin received a delegation.

The U. S. Press suddenly remembered that Cinemimic Chaplin had denied to reporters three or four years ago that he is Jewish. The argument embroiled Jewish Scientist Albert Einstein, in mid-ocean on the S. S. Deutschland. Said he:

"Charlie Chaplin is half a Jew, that is he is of Jewish descent, and so far as I know one of his grandfathers was a Jew."

Jew or Gentile the Gaumont British Corporation, controlling 300 theatres, refused to rent City Lights last week on the original Chaplin terms: 50% of the gross receipts.

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