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 while on the set; at this point, a male stagehand enters and, thinking that Chaplin has kissed a man, starts acting in an overtly effeminate way until Chaplin kicks him.
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| Release date: | November 13, 1916 |
| Directed by: | Charlie Chaplin, Edward Brewer |
| Runtime: | 15 Minutes |
| Producer: | Henry P. Caulfield |
| Editor: | Charlie Chaplin |
| Cinematography: | George C. Zalibra, Roland Totheroh |
| Screenplay by: | Charlie Chaplin, Vincent P. Bryan, Maverick Terrell |
| Genre: | Short Film, Comedy |