Composer Chaplin

Last week at the San Francisco World's Fair, the San Francisco Symphony, under Composer-Conductor Meredith Willson, played a work listed in the program as Prelude to The Great Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin. The program was not quite accurate. Actor Chaplin made up the four themes of the Prelude ("Invasion of Osterlich," "Hanah Theme," "Barber Shop Theme," "Charlie Motif"), but the music was fashioned, and orchestrated, by Composer Willson. Although Actor Chaplin always writes music for his films, this was the first to be performed in concert. Said the critics: "Obvious as most satirical attempts. . . . Interesting. ... A pleasant trifle. ... It cannot claim to be concert music."

Charlie Chaplin had no musical training, cannot read a note. But he plays the piano well for an amateur, the violin and concertina very well. Chaplin composes by humming, whistling or playing his themes on a piano while someone takes his tunes down. For The Great Dictator, his first picture in which he avowedly needed help, Composer Chaplin thought up most of the tunes, in part or in whole, let Composer Willson do the rest. One sequence, a variation on an old beer-garden waltz, begins when Actor Chaplin is hit on the head by a frying pan, which is tuned to D natural. Composer Willson thinks that Chaplin's longest (32 bars) melody, identified in the score as "Boulevardier," will be a hit. Other themes are called "Rape of Leeda," "Zigeuner" (gypsy), "Schweine-knocken" (pig's knuckles), "Pudding Mysterioso," "Empty Street Montage." One, the "Horse's Assmanship," is Charlie Chaplin's special tribute to Hitler. No one but Chaplin's staff has heard the full score of The Great Dictator. They think it is terrific.

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