The Circus 1927 1928 1929 next previous
The Circus Clippings 203/376
Los Angeles Evening Express, L. A., Cal., Jan. 25, 1928.
CHARLIE ONCE PLAYED IN CIRCUS
Just Half a Somersault Landed Star in Movies
and Gave Screen Its Most Famous Clown; Began
as Acrobat‘s Apprentice
By Grace Kingsley
It was just one of those perfect days when I drove up
to Charlie‘s house on the top of a Beverly hill. It is
the house that he built some time ago. Lita and the children
live a mile or so away and Charlie visits his children.
Charlie didn‘t keep me waiting as stars sometimes do.
He came in almost at once after his servant let me
in. And he took my coat and hat himself, with a smiling, warm,
cordial little gesture of greeting that was like the sunshine
outside. He sensed I was „home folks,“ – that I would like to
have my host personally take my wraps.
That‘s like Charlie – one of the things that makes him
so charming. He guesses your likes instantly. Perhaps
you may not see him often, but when you do he makes you
feel that you are the only person in the world, which
warms your heart and makes memorable every occasion
you are together. Charlie is alway intensely simpatica.
He gives himself so very much when he gives himself at all.
He has the gift of concentrating all his charm and
highly intelligent interest upon you all the time with a more
flattering grace and effect of enjoyment than any
man I have ever known. (...)
He started turning a double flip-flop, one day when he was
a kid, made only one and a half turns, and landed hard
on the floor. He got so badly hurt that he decided not to be
an acrobat after all.
AN APPRENTICE
„I started out to be an apprentice to an acrobat,“ said
Charlie. „Do you know, there was a lot of drama in that
situation of a child apprenticed to an acrobat. An acrobatic
family would take a child, sometimes an orphan, and
train him. Might drop him hard enough to break his bones,
but that child would be trained in time.
„I just missed being one of these apprentices. I had
a tryout with a Risley act – balancing a child on the
acrobat‘s feet and tossing the youngster about. I was going
to join the act. Turning a double somersault one
day, I came down on my thumb and broke it. The acrobat
had thrown me too far with his feet. I had already
learned to do back somersaults and flip-flops. That time
I turned one and a half somersaults instead of two.
That landed me on my thumb. Had I made that stunt
successfully I should probably have joined the
troupe, and I might never have reached the screen.“
When Charlot was 8 years of age, he was
with a circus.
„It was a circus called Transfield‘s Circus. I was with
a troupe and they joined. It was a stationary affair
housed in a large wooden pavilion in Middleborough, Eng.
At that time I was a famous kid dancer.“
BECAME INSPIRED
It was really the clown rabbit, who was very funny, who
inspired Charlie to want to be a clown himself.
„He was very funny on the stage, but very serious
off stage. I loved and admired him. He had a wife
and kids. He had a brush and pan, and one of his stunts was
to go about brushing imaginary dirt off everybody.
He inspired me to want to be a comedian. I was hugely
impressed by his popularity. The whole town turned
out for him and everybody was crazy about him. In those days
a clown‘s humor was impromptu. He never knew
what was going to happen that he would want to burlesque.
He would watch a new act, and then fo on and
burlesque it.
„He was a whole show in himself, really, as he was a juggler,
an equestrian, an acrobat and a pantomimist all rolled
into one. When he wasn‘t clowning, he would come in and
ride horseback. I remember he did one amazing feat,
played a whole little drama while riding horseback. He was
jealous and in love and killed a man and went to jail
in chains – all indicated while he was standing up riding
horseback around the ring.“
Charlie gave a wonderful imitation of that, the galloping
horse, the pantomime‘s acting, and all between courses at lunch!
And when Charlie pantomimes for you, you see everything
just as he visualizes it. I think this mysterious power to convey
his visions is one of the secrets of his success.
TO BE TRAGEDIAN
„Until I met Rabbit, the clown, I never thought I would
be a comedian,“ explained Charlie. „I was plump and
short, and my brother Syd used to tease me and say, „You‘ll
be a funny, fat little comedian.“ I used to cry about it.
I didn‘t want to be a comedian. I wanted to be a tragedian.“
Charlie said they had no trouble with the story
of „The Circus.“
„We had started out with a complicated story. We were
going to bring in some religious material, for instance.“
„We had mortgages, too, and everything,“ put in Harry
Crocker with his humorous grin.
„But we soon discarded all that,“ said Charlie, „I agree with
John Erskine, who says that movies don‘t need plots.
They need action and characterization and bits of business
and mood, and narrative, if you like. Plots are always
told in subtitles. You don‘t remember the plot of that wonderful
picture, ,Seventh Heaven,‘ for instance. What you
remember principally is the tragic figure of the old cab driver,
the exquisite love scene of Charlie Farrell and Janet
Gaynor.“
HAPPY ENDING
Of course, „The Circus“ has a happy ending.
Did you ever notice, though, about those happy endings
to Charlie‘s pictures?
One thing that endears the little comedian to us is because,
while his stories end happily, this is through no supreme
quality in the hero himself. Fate hands him out some luck. That‘s
all. Thus we don‘t have to feel humanly inferior to him.
Charlie is just one of us.
(...) Los Angeles Times, Jan. 22, 1922
„Catch a glimpse of their favorite stars entering the theater“
Editorial content. „EXPECT THRONG AT PREVIEW
Chaplin Picture, ,The Circus,‘ Showing
Will Draw Filmdom Elite
All roads will lead to Hollywood Friday night, when
filmdom‘s celebrities, with all the enthusiasm of the
juvenile population of a small town when the ,big tops‘ are
erected, will turn out en masses for Sid Grauman‘s
presentation of the premiere of Charlie Chaplin‘s The Circus,
at Grauman‘s Chinese Theater.
In anticipation of a record breaking throng of sightseers
to jam Hollywood boulevard to catch a glimpse of their
favorite stars entering the theater, cordons of police will be
augmented by the entire personnel of a company
of the 160th Infantry, California National Guard, under the
command of Capt. C. W. Hoffman.
A nationally famed motion picture celebrity is to be
chosen as master of ceremonies to introduce the
surprise features, which the public has learned to expect
at every Grauman premiere, which takes on
the character of a festive civic event in the film capital.
Sawdust ring performers of international fame
have been brought to the cinema capital by Grauman to take part
in the prologue, to be an indoor circus in itself,
to introduce Chaplin‘s first production in three years.
Among the widely known novelties to be
presented on the stage will be Poodles Hanneford and his
famous equestrian and clown act; Pallenberg‘s noted
skating bears; Pepito, the clown; Samaroff and Sonia, Russian
dancers, with their acrobatic dogs: Ed and Jenny
Rooney, trapeze artists: the Three Freehands, widely
heralded equilibrists, and others.“
Grauman‘s Chinese Theater, 6925 Hollywood Blvd., L. A.
The Circus is released by United
Artists in New York January 6, 1928.
Redaktioneller Inhalt
The Circus 1927 1928 1929 next previous
