City Lights 1930 1931 1932 next previous
City Lights Clippings 311/387
New York Times, New York, March 29, 1931.
She‘s Proud of Charlie Chaplin
No one in London awaited a visit from Charlie Chaplin,
noted screen comedian, more anxiously than this old
lady. She is Grannie Tricks, 79 years old, who was nurse to
Chaplin, when he was a child. She is proudly displaying
a photo of Chaplin, shown in inset, to a youngster. The comedian
has received a tremendous welcome in England on his
first visit to his home land in six years.
(...) Photo, Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa,
March 8, 1931
& Charlie Chaplin in „City Lights.“
(...) Photo, New York Times, March 29, 1931
„I felt that he ought to be alone, really alone“
Editorial content. „Chaplin IN ENGLAND
THE London papers on Charlie Chaplin‘s arrival in England
recall New York‘s tumultuous reception to the shy little
clown. The scenes at Paddington station when the boat train
from Plymouth pulled in are described colorfully in The
Daily Mail.
,Suddenly there was a cry. ,There he is! There‘s Charlie!‘
says the report. ,Pandemonium broke out. Roars of
cheering swept up to the station roof. The crowds surged
to and fro in frantic efforts to get somewhere near
the invisible figure.‘“ (...)
Chaplin‘s Tramp.
What Chaplin told the reporters was approximately
as follows:
,I never quite know what my tramp character is. I think
he is a bit of an opportunist. When he first appeared,
men were wearing tight trousers, and those baggy trousers
seemed ludicrous. My one idea was contrast –
to create a comment on apparel. The cane was an attempt at
dignity. The mustache an adornment – a manifestation
of vanity. Those big boots? Well, those big boots were everything
that impedet humanity.
But he doesn‘t bear analysis. It is like Freud. If you analyze
his figure, he evaporates. I don‘t want to give him a voice.
I prefer to express myself in pantomime. The charm of the silent
screen is that the figures are not quite real. They are
shadowy figures of romance. That is why I have declined
to broadcast. I want to leave an illusion over my
personality.‘“ (---)
„Charlie was coming back to walk along Kennington, S. E.,
to see the crumpet man, the tripe dresser, the cobbler,
the barkeep and all his old friends of twenty years ago, before
he went on the stage in an Islington music hall at 30
shillings a week. A reporter for The Daily Mail went down to tell
of Charlie‘s homecoming. This is the story he brought
back with him.
,I found one of those men yesterday in a tiny cobbler‘s
shop next to Sadler‘s Wells Theatre in Islington.
Barnett Deitch is his name, and he sat among his boots and
lasts laughing with pleasure at the thought of Charlie
returning to his old haunts.“ (...)
„Next day, under heading ,Mr. Chaplin at His Old School,‘
The Daily Mail reporter told the story of Chaplin‘s
surprise visit to the Hanwell Residential School in Greenford
Avenue, Hanwell, where he was a pupil thirty-three
years ago.“ (...)
„He performed his famous antics of the films before 400
wildly delighted boys and girls. He visited the infirmary
and spoke to every one of the children in bed. He visited the
babies of the school, who had waited up for him, and
he went to his old dormitory, recognized the old bed, and met
a nurse who had looked after him when he was a boy.“ (...)
,The Darling of the World.‘
,Alone and very quietly, Mr. Chaplin went home yesterday.
The wealthy and famous darling of the world slipped
away from the rich setting of his royal suite, out of the soft-
carpeted lounge of the Carlton Hotel, and in a moment
was inside a taxicab.
,I saw him jump into the cab and, wondering where
he was going alone like that, jumped into another and ordered
my driver to follow.“ (...)
,I knew that I was seeing something rather wonderful
and rather pathetic – Charlie Chaplin was going home.“ (...)
,First to the right and then to the left he looked,
drinking it all in. Along the Kennington Road the cab drew near
the house where Charlie lived in rooms twenty years
ago or more. He looked at it with eyes that could not have
been far from tears. He did not stop at his old house.
,The cab passed into Balham High Road. Here it stopped
and turned back about a quarter of a mile, where
it pulled up at the corner of Hildreth Street, a narrow turning
filled with marketing stalls.
The Clown Laughs.
,There he left his cab and stood for a moment at the
corner of the street.
,He laughed. He laughed as he stood there alone – a short,
smartly dressed figure in heat hard-felt hat with velvety
gray overcoat and dark blue suit. He laughed to see once more
the hawkers in cap and muffler, to see the plump and
genial women with shining red faces.“ (...)
,He crossed to the other corner and stood there for a moment
looking round with a radiantly happy face. Then he plunged
up the pavement through the crowd between the stalls and the
shops in the very heart of his own London – recognizing,
but unrecognized.
,And there I lost sight of him among the cabbages and
potatoes and fish and shoes and stockings and sausages. And
I was glad – because I felt that he ought to be alone,
really alone.“
The London Premiere of City Lights takes place
at the Dominion February 27, 1931.
Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London.
Redaktioneller Inhalt.
City Lights 1930 1931 1932 next previous
