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Aileen St. John-Brenon, Picture-Play, New York, July 1927.

Charles Chaplin attended the opening of the circus,

but was not recognized.

(...) Photo by Apeda, Picture-Play, July 1927

„...“

Editorial content. „Manhattan Medley

      Intimate glimpses of movie folk sojourning in New York, with

      all the news of their professional and social activities.

      By Aileen St. John-Brenon“ (...)

      „SOLITARY, aloof, unrecognized, Charles Spencer Chaplin

occupied box No. 13 at the opening of the circus.

      He is to be seen lunching alone in out-of-the-way restaurants,

strolling by himself on Fifth Avenue – a silent, introspective

man whose face brightens when a friend strikes a responsive

chord.

      There is something very hard, yet at the same time

yielding, about the little comedian with the gloomy face and

sad eyes, but it is only the yielding of an artist‘s spirit

in a man wrapped up in his own world – his own kingdom,

complete within itself, in which Chaplin himself reigns

supreme, and all ye who enter there must have a special

cachet.

      It is a kingdom where you find much that is fine and noble,

much that is unworthy  in which there is no great struggle

of might against right, but where the despotic impulses of the

czarist régime sway each cause.

      One discerns in Chaplin‘s face keen and penetrating

intelligence and a melancholy interest in human

affairs, banished fitfully by the desire to make people laugh.

      There is bitterness and the stamp of an indomitable

will which knows no law, and brooks no interference of right

or wrong. There is the intolerance of a man who calls

himself – himself alone – master; who feels he has earned

that right because he has suffered, deeply, savagely,

and now sees only the futility of it all.

      But a genuine love of art and literature, and a quick

perception of the beautiful, share the despot‘s

throne. Chaplin may be harassed by his own shortcomings,

but he finds solace in the outpourings of other

groping souls.

      In lonely hours he has taught himself, by means

of a phonograph, haunting, old melodies of the Arabs and

Turks. Recently, he sang some of these songs

to a gathering of musicians who, one and all, felt the little

comedian with the big shoes and the shuffling feet.

      Then, suddenly, he becomes the quipster. He‘s laughing

at life, though it has hurt him – and still hurts him.

The poverty, the struggle, the beauty that he senses, but

misses, all have hurt him, and he has got to laugh,

or go mad. So he bursts into a screamingly funny parody

of Italian, French, and Spanish operatic arias, and

his little audience, so near tears a few moments ago, is in fits

of laughter. The entertainment over, he is chatting

volubly of current affairs, proving himself to be a well-informed

young man on all the topics of the day. And then again

that silence, that veil of introspective melancholy descends

upon him, and quietly he gets his little cane and,

leaving the merry throng behind him, slips into the night.“

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