Early television was treated like "radio with pictures" by producers. Your point is specious.
Gromnir makes a valid point: Metropolis or The Great Dictator didn't even use sound, yet they are just as powerful as any modern day claimant for the crown of best film and example of art.
Chaplin could easily have blamed the studio environment for preventing him from creating his art, but he didn't.
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Metropolis is one of the great movies of the era and so is Nosferatu. Brilliant forms of art.