The Rink Clippings 6/55
New York Tribune, December 10, 1916.
Rialto Theatre, exterior by night, marquee E. H. SOTHERN
EDITH STOREY AN ENEMY TO THE KING, New York
(...) Motion Picture News, Dec. 23, 1916
& NIETZSCHE HAS GRIP ON CHAPLIN
„The Rink“ Strong Plea for
Acceptance of Master Morality
FERMENT AT WORK ON POPULAR FILMS
Discussion of Education
To Be Derived by Visit to Rialto
By Heywood Broun
The latest Charlie Chaplin film is called „The Rink.“ It is
about a roller skating rink, and several people,
including the hero, fall during the course of the play. It will be well
to take up the plot before applying any of the critical
rods to the piece.
In the beginning, Charlie Chaplin is a waiter in a restaurant.
A stout lady enters and just as she is about to sit down
Charlie inadvertently removes the chair. As a matter of fact
she does sit down, but not on the chair. Apologetic,
Chaplin puts the chair in place, and on this occasion he warns
the visitor just in time. While she waits he removes
first the right arm of the chair and then the left, so he believes
that only after these alternations will it be possible for
the stout lady to occupy it. Abashed rather than angry, the stout
lady is seated and the play goes on.
Here there is a break. When next we see Chaplin he is in the kitchen preparing two cocktails. These he makes by
placing eggs and the shells into the shaker and adding first
whiskey and later hot coffee. In demonstrating his
skill at pouring the liquid from the shaker to the container and
back to the shaker again the hero carelessly misses
his mark and hits the cook. However, the comic possibilities
of a physical encounter between the two men are
neglected by the author, who is anxious to get down to the
serious business of his little play.
Approaching the oven, Chaplin opens one of the little
doors and fetches out a hat and coat. This is perhaps
the neatest touch in the whole drama. He then leaves the
restaurant and enters a skating rink. Here he meets
a girl named Edna, beautiful in a more or less obvious fashion,
who informs him that a stout gentleman is annoying her.
Chaplin picks a quarrel with the stout man by tripping him up with
a cane. In the battle which ensues the hero‘s agility
stands him in good stead. Again and again he skates about
his ponderous adversary, dealing him telling but
by no means mortal thrusts with the cane. The large gentleman
desists from fighting after he has fallen several times,
and Charlie and Edna thereupon skate away, arm in arm.
This is the play, barring a few diversions of no
particular importance. It is interesting to not that Chaplin falls
only twice during the picture, both times of his own volition,
and that not once is he kicked. Is it not obvious, then, what ferment
is at work in the philosophy of the Chaplin comedies?
Gone is the old comedy of submission, as emphasized in „The
Bank,“ „The Tramp,“ „Shanghaied“ and others, and in its
place there there has grown up a comedy of aggression. One
cannot overlook the influence of Nietzsche and the
„Will to Power“ here.
Was it in „Menschliches, Allzumenschliches“ or in „Also
sprach Zarathustra“ that the sage declared it was
comic to kick, but never to be kicked? At any rat „master
morality“ has set its mark upon Charlie Chaplin and
his comedies. The old Chaplin, of whom it was said „here
is the head upon which all the ends of the world
are come and the eyelids are a little weary“ is done. „Welcome“
has been erased from his shoulder blades. The new
Chaplin is a superman, and though the hordes of fat villains
may rage against him with pie and soup and siphons
they shall not prevail.
–––––
Nowhere is the effort for an intellectual democracy more
evident than in one of our big picture theatres. The
bill at the Rialto, for instance, begins this week with the overture
to „The Flying Dutchman“ and ends with Charlie Chaplin.
Suitably enough Augustus Thomas comes midway between
Chaplin and Wagner. The educational effect of such
a bill is enormous. The Wagnerites want Chaplin sorely. The
Chaplin fans, on the other hand, have been raised
in a broader school and are less in need of liberalism.
However, a bill at the Rialto contains education
enough for everybody. Think of the worlds which the topical
review opens up. This week we have dredging for
gold, the largest turkey in America, Lloyd George, shipping
50,000 geese to market, Asquith, damming the Ohio,
Mackensen, a prize bull and other cattle, Joe Cannon, and
threshing lima beans. Only fancy threshing lima beans!
One goes home and looks at the cans with renewed interest.“
(...) New York Tribune, Dec. 14, 1916
„Beginning Monday Charlie Chaplin in The Rink“
Advertisement. „,The Temple of The Motion Picture‘
Rialto
Direction of S. L. Rothapfel
„Always Worth While“ (...)
Presents
Commencing To–day,
,The Witching Hour‘
The Freshman Amusement Corporation‘s Production
of the Celebrated Drama by Augustus Thomas
Beginning Monday
Charlie Chaplin
in The Rink.
Jenny Dufau
Coloratura Soprano Chicago Opera Co.
Vicente Ballester
Spanish Baritone Boston Opera Co.
The Incomparable Rialto Orchestra
Hugo Riesenfeld, Conductor. Rendering Overture in The Flying Dutchman and Intermezzo from Jewels of the Madonna.“
Rialto, Broadway at 42nd Street, New York.
Identical Advertisement in Evening World, Dec. 9, 1916,
Sun, New York, Dec. 10, 1916,
New York Herald, Dec. 10, 1916 and
New York Times, Dec. 10, 1916
The Rink is released by Mutual December 11, 1916.
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