I found this excerpt in Reader's Digest from an unidentified book on Charlie Chaplin from 1922.

He gets at the heart of comedy and human nature–too often, we fight back against reality, causing ourselves more difficulty, often looking foolish in our attempts to deny the truth, and creating more suffering than if we learned to accept what is.

From Reader's Digest 1922-1923

TRANSCRIPT:

What Makes People Laugh?

THERE is nothing more mysterious about my comicality on the screen than there is about Harry Lauder’s way of getting his public to laugh. You'll find that both of us know a few simple truths about human nature, and we make use of them in our jobs. And when all is said and done, the foundation of all success is only a knowledge of human nature.

Now, for example, what I rely on more than anything else is bringing the public before someone who is in a ridiculous and embarrassing position.

Thus, the mere fact of a hat being blown away isn’t funny in itself. What is, is to see its owner running after it, with his hair blown about and his coattails flying. Placed in a ridiculous and embarrassing position, the human being becomes a cause of laughter to his fellow creatures.

Every comic situation is based on that. And comic films had immediate success because most of them showed policemen falling down drain holes, stumbling into whitewash pails, falling out of carts, etc. Here are people who stand for the dignity of power, often deeply imbued with this idea, and the sight of their mishaps is twice as funny as if only ordinary citizens were made to suffer.

2. And still funnier is the person in a ludicrous position who, in spite of it, refuses to admit that anything out of the ordinary is happening and is obstinate in preserving his dignity

That is why all my films rest on the idea of getting myself into awkward situations, so as to give me the chance of being desperately serious in my attempts to look like a very normal little gentleman. That is why my chief concern, no matter how painful the position I get myself into, is always to pick up my little cane at once, and put my hat straight and adjust my necktie. I do not try only to get myself into these embarrassing positions, but I count on putting others also into them.

In one picture, I was on a balcony eating an ice with a young lady. On the floor beneath was a stout, respectable, well-dressed lady at a table. While eating my ice, I spilled a spoonful which fell down the lady’s neck. The first laugh is caused by my own embarrassment, the second, and much the greater, comes from the arrival of the ice on the lady’s neck. One single action has made two people ridiculous.

3. Two traits of human nature are involved in this. The public takes pleasure in seeing richness and luxury in distress; also, the public tends to feel in itself the same emotions as the actor on the stage or the screen. Knowing that the ice is cold, the public shivers. Most people are rather pleased when they see rich folks having the worst time. This comes from the fact that nine out of ten human beings are poor and inwardly jealous of the riches of the tenth. Now, if I had made my ice fall down the neck of some poor housewife, there would have been a burst of sympathy instead of laughter for the woman. Moreover, the incident wouldn’t have been funny because the housewife would have no dignity to lose.

4. Another human trait I often make use of is the general tendency of people to like contrast and surprise. The public likes to laugh and cry, all in a few minutes. For the public contrast makes for interest. In one film, I am seen in a sixty-acre field, taking a seed from my pocket and planting it by making a hole with my finger. If I am chased by a policeman, I always make him a heavy, clumsy fellow while I, dodging between his legs, seem as neat as an acrobat.

It is lucky for me that I am small. Everyone knows that the persecuted little individual has always the sympathy of the crowd. I emphasize my weakness by taking a frightened air.

5. Alongside contrast I put surprise. If I feel convinced that the public is expecting me to proceed along the street on foot, I jump into a cab. In one picture I am seen leaning over the side of a ship. When I straighten myself I pull up a fish on the end of a line—instead of being seasick I only have been fishing. It is a perfect surprise and rouses great laughter.

There is a danger—the desire to be too funny. At some plays and films the audience laughs so much that they get completely exhausted. I prefer to scatter the laughter here and there.

I could kill laughter more easily by exaggeration than in any other way. If I overdid my peculiar walk, if I were too brutal in knocking someone over, if I chanced on any excess, it would spoil the film. I prefer a thousand times to get a laugh by an intelligent act than by anything brutal or banal.

I hope you enjoyed this archive from the past!

Until soon, I remain...