Directed by: Charlie Chaplin

Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, Chester Conklin, Charles Murray, Jess Dandy, Minta Durfee, Cecile Arnold, Vivian Edwards, Harry McCoy, Charley Chase

Written by: Charlie Chaplin

PAGE OR STAGE: Unlike many later classic films adapted from plays, novels or other published works, The Masquerader was an original screen comedy written by Charlie Chaplin for Keystone. Chaplin devised the scenario specifically for the motion-picture medium, and turned the filmmaking process itself into part of the joke.

STORY

Welcome to the movies, where Charlie Chaplin is about to prove that getting fired doesn't necessarily mean you have to leave.

Charlie plays a troublesome actor working inside a bustling motion-picture studio. We first see him arriving in ordinary street clothes and, remarkably, without the familiar comedy makeup audiences would soon associate with him around the world. Once inside his dressing room, however, Charlie applies his makeup, puts on the familiar costume and emerges ready for work.

Ready may be an overstatement.

Instead of concentrating on the picture being made, Charlie flirts with the women around him, misses his cue and manages to ruin the scene. Given another opportunity, he proceeds to make a mess of things again. The increasingly exasperated director has finally had enough and throws his troublesome actor out of the studio.

But Charlie isn't finished.

The next day, an extraordinarily attractive young woman arrives at the studio looking for work. The director is immediately captivated by the mysterious newcomer and sees the possibility of a new leading lady.

There's just one problem.

The beautiful woman is Charlie.

Disguised so convincingly that the people who threw him out fail to recognize him, Charlie has transformed himself completely. The masquerade gets him straight back through the studio doors — and gives Chaplin the opportunity to turn the entire filmmaking operation upside down once again.

Eventually Charlie slips back into his familiar clothes and makeup, and the director discovers exactly who his beautiful new “actress” really is.

The deception exposed, chaos erupts.

Charlie races through the studio with the furious director and others in pursuit until his elaborate masquerade ends in gloriously Keystone fashion — with Charlie retreating into a studio well and discovering, unfortunately for him, that there's real water at the bottom.

Fast, mischievous and wonderfully self-aware, The Masquerader gives us something especially valuable today: a glimpse of Charlie Chaplin experimenting with his screen identity while simultaneously poking fun at the strange new business of making movies.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
CHAPLIN PLAYS WITH CHAPLIN

One of the most fascinating things about The Masquerader is that Chaplin isn't simply playing another fictional character. The official Chaplin archive describes him as playing a mischievous version of himself. We actually see him enter the studio in civilian clothes without his comedy makeup before watching the transformation into his familiar screen persona.

WATCH THE TRAMP BEING CREATED

For modern audiences, the dressing-room sequence is a wonderful piece of film history.

Chaplin allows us to see the performer before the character. He applies the makeup and changes into the costume associated with his rapidly developing comic identity. Instead of pretending the character simply exists, Chaplin lets the audience peek behind the curtain and see the actor creating him.

CHARLIE BECOMES THE LEADING LADY

Chaplin's transformation into a woman isn't merely a quick visual gag. His disguise is convincing enough within the story to fool the director and get Charlie rehired as a potential leading lady.

Contemporary attention was drawn to the effectiveness of the impersonation, and the sequence demonstrates something Chaplin would continue developing: his extraordinary ability to change his physical presence through makeup, costume, gesture and movement.

NOT CHAPLIN'S ONLY MASQUERADE

The Masquerader was the second of three Chaplin comedies in which he appeared as a woman.

He had previously done so in A Busy Day earlier in 1914, although that characterization was deliberately much broader. Chaplin returned to the idea in A Woman in 1915, taking the transformation even further.

HOLLYWOOD MAKES FUN OF HOLLYWOOD — BEFORE HOLLYWOOD WAS HOLLYWOOD

The setting gives The Masquerader another layer of historical fascination: it's a comedy about people making a movie, created when the American film industry itself was still extraordinarily young.

Chaplin repeatedly returned to movie studios as comic territory. A Film Johnnie had already explored the setting, while His New Job and Behind the Screen would later bring him back behind the scenes.

AINTOID: CHAPLIN WAS ALREADY TAKING CONTROL

This wasn't simply a movie starring Charlie Chaplin.

He wrote it and directed it too.

The official Chaplin archive credits Charles Chaplin with both the scenario and direction, with Keystone chief Mack Sennett producing. At this astonishingly early stage of his film career, Chaplin was already moving beyond being merely the funny man standing in front of someone else's camera.

AINTOID: FATTY ARBUCKLE IS HERE TOO

Look for another giant of silent comedy: Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

Arbuckle appears as an actor in the studio, giving us two enormously important figures in early screen comedy in the same little one-reel film. Chaplin and Arbuckle appeared together in several Keystone pictures during this period, although they were rarely used as a sustained comedy team.

AINTOID: AND SO IS CHARLEY CHASE

There's another future comedy star hiding in the cast.

Charley Chase, then still known as Charles Parrott, appears as one of the actors. Chase would eventually become a major silent and early sound comedy performer in his own right.

ONE REEL OF COMEDY

The Masquerader was made as a one-reel Keystone comedy. The Chaplin archive records that the picture was finished and shipped on August 12, 1914, and released only fifteen days later.

That lightning-fast turnaround reminds us just how rapidly these early comedies were being produced and placed before audiences hungry for more Chaplin.

AINTOID: QUEEN OF THE MOVIES

Silent Era records an intriguing working title for the film: Queen of the Movies.

Considering Charlie's transformation into the studio's glamorous new “actress,” somebody clearly knew where the biggest joke in the picture was going to be.

AINTOID: AN EARLY MOVIE ABOUT MAKING MOVIES

Today, films that reveal the mechanics and absurdities of filmmaking are commonplace. In 1914, the medium itself was barely out of childhood.

That makes The Masquerader particularly fun to watch more than a century later. Cameras, performers, dressing rooms, directors and movie sets aren't hidden from us — they're the playground.

Chaplin isn't only making a movie.

He's already making jokes about making movies.