THE LITTLE FELLOW

A second coverage of The Life and Work of Charles Spencer Chaplin (a previous biography-Huff's Charlie Chaplin -- P. 169, 3/15/51) has the advantage of breaking down into separate sections, the life -- and the work-- so that there is a continuous line of personality- career and then later a parallel chronology of films, which ties in with the previously identified personal history. This makes for an interesting mirroring -- of the subjective substance of the films, the autobiographical notes there recorded and the evolution of a specific brand of international appealing comedy in moving pictures. The story goes back to Chaplin's technical schooling and its importance as a 'prentice in England, under Karno; the force of his brother Syd; and the subsequent entertainment that came out of his early years in pictures here; it accents the meteoric rise, the persecution of the press, the holdovers of insecurity and the trial by public -- in his marriages and in his cinema subjects -- which to date have not erased the genius, the symbol that the man has evoked throughout the world.