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His Trysting Places Clippings 34/42
Punch, London, September 1, 1915.
Near-sighted Old Lady (a keen Recruiter). „NOW LOOK AT THAT YOUNG FELLOW. A COUPLE OF MONTHS
IN THE ARMY WOULD MAKE A NEW MAN OF HIM!“
(...) Punch, July 28, 1915, cartoon
& AT THE PLAY.
„SHELL OUT“ (...)
Of the incidents I found the street scene, in which a robbery
was brought off under the eyes of the police on an
unsuspecting countryman, with the aid of a cinematograph
and a ruffian disguised as CHARLIE CHAPLIN,
so plausible that I feel inclined to protest against it in the interest
of public safety and morality; or at least to insist
that SIR EDWARD HENRY sends all his inspectors to see it.
(...) Punch, Sept. 1, 1915
„CHARLIE CHAPLIN is crossing the equator“
Editorial content. „CHARLIE.
For weeks there has been no escaping him. Nations might
be at each other‘s throats; Zeppelins might be dropping
bombs upon sleeping families; hopes and fears might make
hearts beat faster, while a sense of calamity filled
the air; yet all the time his claims as a gravity-remover
in excelsis have met one‘s eyes at every turn.
Sometimes they were fortified by effigies of himself, both
life-size and gigantic, a representation of one
of which recently found its way into a drawing in Mr. Punch‘s
own pages. More than one weekly paper has been
printing his autobiography serially.
The time clearly having come to investigate this personality,
I entered a cinema which promised a play with
the famous man at his best. And then I entered others,
for Chaplin had caught me.
Whether or not CHARLIE CHAPLIN is, as is claimed
for him by certain not disinterested people, the
,funniest man on earth,‘ I leave to others to decide. Two persons
rarely agree on such nice points, and I retire at once
from the arbitrament because I don‘t know all the others. But
that he is funny is beyond question. I will swear to that.
His humour is of such elemental variety that he would make
a Tierra del Fuegan or a Bushman of Central Australia
laugh not much less than our sophistical selves. One needs
no civilised culture to appreciate the fun of the
harlequinade, and to that has CHARLIE, with true instinct,
returned. But it is the harlequinade accelerated,
intensified, toned up for the exacting taste of the great and
growing ,picture‘ public. It is also farce at its busiest,
most furious. CHARLIE has brought back that admirable form
of humour which does not disdain the co-operation
of fisticuffs, and in which, by way of variety, one man is aimed
at and another, to intrusive, is hit. However long
the world may last, it is safe to say that the spectacle of one
man receiving a blow meant for another will ever
be popular. Indeed the delivery of blows at all will ever
be popular. Thus – glory be! – are we built.
What strikes one quickly is the realisation of how much
harder CHARLIE works than any other of the more
illustrious filmers. He is rarely out of the picture, rarely still,
and he gives full measure. In the course of five
minutes he receives and distributes a myriad black eyes,
a myriad falls. He kicks abundantly and is abundantly
kicked. He runs and is pursued. There is no physical indignity
that he does not suffer – and inflict. Such impartiality
is rare in drama, where usually en are either on top or underneath.
In the ordinary way our pet comedian must be on top
– as, for example, Mr. GEORGE GRAVES with his serenely
conquering tongue. Even the clown, though he receives
punishment en route, eventually triumphs. But CHARLIE CHAPLIN
seldom wins. Circumstances are too much for him,
and he goes out in a very riot of grotesque misfortune. With him,
however, are always sympathies. These and a trifle
of $500 a week (if the paragraphs tell the truth) are his only
reward; for of course our laughter he cannot hear.
Yet I suppose no one man has, in the same space of time,
ever made so many people laugh as he. Wether
his fellow cinema actors laugh I cannot say. But everyone
else does. it is a curious thought that CHARLIE
does not hear it.
In the pictures CHARLIE has no immediate rival, although
on the actual variety stage I have seen several drolls
very much in his tradition, which is associated with the name
of KARNO. One detects the KARNO brand at once,
but in CHARLIE CHAPLIN, on the synthesizing film, it has
an extra drop of nervous fluid. He has none of the
bland masterfulness of the urbane and adventurous MAX
LINDER; he has none of the massive repose of the
late JOHN BUNNY; he has without the resource of the Italian
POLIDOR. He remains a butt, or, at any rate,
a victim of circumstances whom nothing can discourage
or deter. His very essence is resiliency
under difficulties, an unabashed and undefeatable front.
By gestures rather than facial play does
he gain his ends – gestures allied to acrobatic gifts of no mean
oder. He has a host of comic steps, a thousand
odd movements of his hands and head, which, when brought
into play under domestic or social conditions, are
absurdly funny. With his hat, his stick and his cigarette,
he has also a vast repertory a quaint actions;
and it was a wise instinct that caused him always to appear
in the same costume. But his especial fascination
is that life finds him always ready for it – not because
he is armed by sagacity, but because he is even better armed
by folly. He is first cousin to the village idiot, a natural
child of nonsense, and, like ANTEUS, every time he rises
from a knockdown blow he is the stronger.
The promise of CHAPLIN is sacred; the promise of JOHN
BRADBURY is not more so. Seeing him, one is
assured that he is about to make hay of all the other
dramatis personae. One may sit back safely
and prepare for fun. He joins the film in his unobtrusive
methodist way as quietly as a smut settling
on a nose, and behold he is the very spirit of discord,
the drollest of all the lords of misrule. Wherever
he goes CHARLIE CHAPLIN is crossing the equator.“
Redaktioneller Inhalt
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