Word: tramp
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...occasional fluttering gesture, an odd grimace or two remind us, as well, of the great Tramp that was. Unfortunately, the spirit of that immortal, an archical figure does not even struggle to emerge from the portly, white-haired world figure and self-appointed deep-dish thinker who disports so uncomfortably before audiences with which he could not help knowing he had lost all connection...
Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux is a sophisticated gentleman, quite unlike the character with the big feet and the penguin walk, but for the most part his face is as alive, his movement as adroit, his spirit every bit as poignant as that of the wonderful little tramp. Yet there is a savage distinction: Verdoux is a multiple bigamist and mass murderer. He marries rich women, murders them, quickly counts his money, expertly disposes of the bodies...
...aimlessness that hangs so heavily around Playtime is thickened by the fact that Hulot cannot be said to be a character in the sense that Chaplin's Tramp or Keaton's Great Stone Face was. He is passive where they were active-even revolutionary-in their relationship to the things and the people who tormented them. Chaplin was insouciantly defiant when pressed, Keaton manically inventive. Both were also incurable romantics. They were people of dimension, people with plans and aspirations and a wide range of feeling. One could identify with them, suffer and exult with them...
Usually kept at bay by eight Alsatian dogs and forbidding signs, the public was invited to tramp through house and grounds for the benefit of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. While Getty stayed closeted in his private quarters, the visitors saw few clues to his notoriously private life except for photos of his grandchildren, his books (including Richard Nixon's Six Crises) and his lions, Teresa and Nero, with whom Getty likes to spend an hour...
Limelight. Chaplin keeps reminding us of his earlier films -- not of the little tramp he used to play but of the range of emotions his skilled movements could bring forth and of the warmth in his eyes. Yet this recently re-released 1952 film is a disappointment because it is so insistently verbal and thus undercuts the very basis of Chaplin...