Word: chaplinitis
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...high point of the series, however, began last week, with a three-part documentary titled Unknown Chaplin. Film Historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill (who produced the program in 1983 for Britain's Thames TV) scoured the great comedian's archives and other sources for outtakes, home movies and other never before seen footage. In most of his productions, Chaplin worked without a script -- improvising, experimenting and refining on film until he was satisfied, throwing out whole sequences or starting over when he wasn't. There are tantalizing scenes of the director at work (Chaplin getting exasperated with...
...film amply illustrates Chaplin's obsessive perfectionism. His 1931 classic City Lights took more than two years to complete, as the director shot endless retakes and stopped filming for weeks at a time while he sought inspiration. For one important scene, in which Chaplin's Little Tramp first meets the blind flower seller, he shoots for weeks, groping in vain for a way to convey a crucial piece of plot information: the girl has mistaken the tramp for a rich man. Nothing seems to work. The scene is finally completed, but Chaplin returns to it months later with one more...
...view while filming it in a style as fancy and knowing as Simone's. No wonder audiences have taken to this gritty romance as to a mongrel puppy; for at heart Mona Lisa is an old-fashioned poor-soul weepie, and George is less a Cagney rakehell than a Chaplin tramp. Ever clever, though, Jordan massages the viewer's sentimentality like Simone servicing a dim, fond client...
...unlike the overwhelming machines of Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, Department 260's equipment is mostly nonthreatening, with sometimes vexing personalities. "Mamma mia, ti prego comincia a lavorare! (Please, start working!)" implores Mechanic Bruno Lockner to one balky contraption. "This machine understands Italian," he jokes. Some machines have names. Clarabelle is a complex wonder that churns out 1,000 crossbar assemblies an hour. It was designed by Allen-Bradley engineers, and is tended by 18-year veteran Employee Cheryl Braddock. Says Braddock: "I talk to her every morning. I pat her on the side. I say, 'It's going...
Dean of the College Maude Chaplin and Vice President of Business Affairs Burton Sontenstein refused comment yesterday...