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The Circus Clippings 328/376

Robert Herring, Close Up, Territet, Switzerland, May 1928.

Charlot En „El Circo“, Chocolates Cards, Spain, ebay

„The insistent slice-of-life-iness of The Circus“

Editorial content. „A LETTER FROM LONDON“ (...)

      „Then came The Circus and The Last Command. These two

pictures or rather, Chaplin and Jannings, these two actors,

desperately trying to be tragedians, draw people to the movies

who never, usually ,care for pictures‘. This is as well for

it leaves us free to go elsewhere. We who go any and every

day cannot be expected to pay the highest prices which,

contrary to the unwritten laws of the cinema as an entertainment

for the many, are in operation as soon as these are

seen to be successes – to pay for the outlay expended on the

first showing, of course.“ (...) „The American papers,

I see, have lost their heads over this new film of Jannings.

One is sorry to see them airing their ignorance of what

has been done in Europe so lamentably. As this and the Chaplin

stayed on so long, duty (and boredom) dragged

me, protesting, to The Student Prince. And I am glad. Despite

Lubitsch I should never have gone had there been

anything that sounded one degree less banal. I don‘t, didn‘t

like Ramon Novarro. Especially in a student‘s cap

drinking beer. But The Student Prince is a good film. It‘s light

and artificial, but it preserves its lightness, and it never

tries to be any thing else but artificial. It leaves the emotions

absolutely and exceedingly gracefully (I stress that point)

out of it. It is gay, at times it is wistful – it does not try to be tragic.

And its artificiality holds a reality far realer than the

insistent slice-of-life-iness of The Circus.“ (...)

                                                                  „Robert Herring.“

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