[The] grotesque figure we call "Charlie" has carried into cinema one of the oldest and most characteristic traditions of pure theatre, that of the Commedia dell'Arte. Chaplin is in direct line from the mimes of Roman comedy, the players of the Italian Commedia dell'Arte of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the English pantomime of the eighteenth century…. Like [the] players of other times Chaplin has built certain elementary frailties and foibles of human nature into the framework of a conventional figure known as Charlie, whose shabby costume furnishes the needed mask. (p. 23)

The influence of tradition appears most strongly in the highly individual way in which he makes his own pictures and in the use to which he puts his gift for improvisation when on the set….

Chaplin builds his films altogether on what he calls "feeling," that is, he begins, let us say, with Charlie, and studies the emotional values that his own creation will yield in various situations. The Harlequin of the films knows intuitively that the secret of comic effect lies in the relation between emotion and laughter…. Chaplin proves himself not only a rare clown but a practical psychologist when he makes his working basis for a film the result of an amazing thinking-through of all the possible emotional responses which are peculiar to an individual character. (p. 24)

Chaplin always tries for expression of strong elemental emotion in his films on the basis that since the majority of people are swayed by their emotions the entertainment values are certain to be satisfactory, if the emphasis in scene or in sequence is upon the right emotion. His aims are to attack rapidly all the emotions of the spectator, using gradations of movement to suggest sorrow, gaiety, pensiveness. But he never begins with the story. He begins always with the emotional in relation to the reactions peculiar to the characters chosen….

Once a character or situation becomes gripping in quality of interest, then Chaplin seeks to apply all the artistry he can summon in the terms of cinema as a medium. He neither over-acts nor indulges in that unexpressive restraint typical of feeble playing…. (p. 25)

When Chaplin is playing and directing on the set he utilizes everything, introducing all sorts of things to keep the action going. There is no let-down in his work. It is a continual flow of motion and situation which makes the spectator feel that he is looking into the mind of Charlie Chaplin….

[Alas], it is his inability to think and work in terms of montage which visually and technically keeps Chaplin's films in the theatre tradition and prevents them from becoming truly cinematic in character. At times one regrets the many montage opportunities passed by in his films—opportunities that would have greatly heightened the fine feeling and situation in Charlie's productions….

The Woman of Paris, the only film that he directed without playing in it himself, had a charming flow in its visual continuity. Although it is the most systematically planned picture of any that he has made, even here he had no organized script but simply a plan in the back of his head. He works best on the inspiration of the moment; and in this seemingly formless fashion he has made some of the best scenes in his films, as for example, the last scene in The Pilgrim and the wire-walking stunt in The Circus. (p. 26)

Charlie is Falstaffian in vigor of conception, universal in his appeal to healthy, cleansing laughter, and fascinating both as a survival and a continuation of a great theatrical tradition. Moreover, he is intimately a part of the culture of this age—something in which audiences a hundred years from now may behold a reflection of the times the great clown of early cinema interpreted through his unique creation. (p. 54)