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A Night in the Show Clippings 27/54
Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, December 18, 1915.
„Business“ as Usual, American Duettists (concluding their
„Refined Act“), „Although We May Be Nootral We Hope You‘ll
Win The Fight, So Tell Your Friends, and Come Again
To-mor-row Night,“, Cartoon, Punch, London, September 1, 1915
„,Punch‘ Sets Seal on C. Chaplin“
Editorial content. Title: „,Punch‘ Sets Seal
on C. Chaplin
Still Does Chas. Cause Critics
to Scrape – Punch Takes Off His Hat
Many times have our most sincere critics fought over
the irrespressible Charlie Chaplin, and many people ,simply cannot stand his low methods,‘ but at last the personification of high
brow fun and humor steps forth from the shadow of war to add his
weight of opinion, and that of a staid English view, by Jove.
No less a funmaker than ,Punch‘ is on our Charlie‘s side:
,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 one
from arbitrament because I don‘t know all the others. But that
he is funny is beyond question. I will swear to that.
His humor 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
civilized 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 humor which does not disdain the
co-operation of fisticuffs, and in which, by the way
of variety, one man is aimed at and another, too 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 realization of how much
harder Charlie works than any other of the more illustrious filmers.
He is rarely out of the picture 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. 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 is 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 order. 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 of 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 Antaeus, every time he rises from a knockdown
blow he is the stronger.‘“
Quoted from Punch, London, Sept. 1, 1915.
Redaktioneller Inhalt
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