Word: tramp
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...character establishment she gets from the lyricist. Mankiewicz has seen fit to define her by use of the word "shit"; and, by surrounding Meredith with men in the number "Just for the Ride," director Peter Hunt turns the character from the sophisticated, bitchy slut she should be into a tramp. Meredith is not a charming human being, but neither is she filth...
...time he has turned his back on the U.S. He saw his work picketed in the '50s and his verbose new talkie (A Countess from Hong Kong) panned in the '60s. Though such indisputable masterworks as The Gold Rush and Modern Times have been sporadically revived, the tramp is now customarily seen in scraps and splices in anthology films. They seldom probe an aspect of the clown that was once the most universally acknowledged: his genius...
...imbalance. Refurbished with a new score and an opening song croaked personally by the 80-year-old director/ composer/ producer/star, the film is incontrovertible proof of Chaplin's protean ability to eliminate absolutely everything outside the confines of the screen. Armed with nothing but cane and bowler, the tramp sets out like Quixote with lance and armor. His enemy is the cruel owner of the big top; his love, the villain's misused stepdaughter (Merna Kennedy...
Voilà! Each of Charlie's intentions is given a variety of interpretations, like a sunbeam hitting a prism. A pickpocket on the lam deposits a stolen watch in the tramp's trousers. Charlie looks at the watch-which the original victim spots as his own. A policeman gives chase-and corners Charlie in a hall of mirrors, where an infinity of cops vainly pursues an equal number of tramps. Disappearing into a tent, Chaplin seeks cover during an act. A top-hatted prestidigitator covers a girl with a cloth, walks to a large wardrobe, opens...
...Circus an architectural discipline. Chaplin would spend minutes on-screen setting up a single gag or pratfall, and even longer giving his comedy the true roots of pathos. At the finale, Charlie has caused the owner to stop abusing his stepdaughter, but at a terrible price: the tramp has stepped aside so that the girl can marry a tightrope walker in a claw-hammer coat. Charlie watches the circus wagons wheel off, then once more turns and waddles away...