Behind the Screen

Behind the Screen is a 1916 short silent film written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, and also starring Eric Campbell and Edna Purviance. The film takes place in a movie studio; Chaplin plays a stagehand named David while Campbell, a large man, plays Goliath, his supervisor. Much of the film is slapstick comedy involving Chaplin manhandling large props, but other plotlines include a strike by the stagehands, and Purviance, who is unable to become an actress, dressing as a man and becoming a stagehand. The film is significant to the history of homosexuality in the cinema, as it contains a joke about the subject, which was relatively unusual at the time. After Chaplin learns that Purviance is really a woman, he kisses her...