Word: tramp
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...year of the Tramp in the Academy Awards. With the little fellow's creator, Charlie Chaplin, on hand for his honorary Oscar, the rest of the usual inanity was almost bearable. In its professional judgments, the Academy showed an unforgivable lapse: neither John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday nor Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange collected a single Oscar. The acting awards, on the other hand, were highly plausible. Most striking was Jane Fonda's citation as Best Actress for her portrayal of a call girl in Klute, showing that Hollywood is no longer totally hysterical...
...receive a special award at Hollywood's Oscar ceremonies, and the Film Society of New York City's Lincoln Center was throwing a big party for him at Philharmonic Hall. But what about the audiences? Would they respond again to the comic humanity of his Little Tramp? Would they resurrect the old resentments at the leftish leanings and marital tangles that had led Attorney General James P. McGranery in 1952 to order him detained if he tried to re-enter the U.S.? Or would they merely show indifference at the appearance of another octogenarian has-been...
...paid $10 and $25 admission, plus the 1,200 who had paid $100 and $250 apiece for a black-tie champagne reception after the films, cheered him to the echo when he appeared with Oona in the first tier, and they watched the Little Tramp on-screen with such delighted empathy that the big concert hall all but glowed in the dark. When the movies were over, the audience turned in sudden, shouting ovation toward the dignified old man looking down on them, whose spry shadow had just been cavorting on the screen...
...trousers and Chester Conklin's jacket. The rest is legend. From that moment he essayed only one role-but what a role! The low comic became a visual poet; he gave slapstick soul. Comedy derives from the Greek kōmos-a dance. And indeed, as the Tramp capered about with his unique sleight of foot, he created a choreography of the human condition. Under Chaplin's direction, objects spoke out as never before: bread rolls became ballet slippers, a boot was transformed into a feast, a torn newspaper had a new career as a lace tablecloth. There...
...brilliant assembly-line satire Modern Times (1936) had galled industrialists. When the dehumanized Charlie went crazy-when he stepped from the factory trying to tighten the foreman's nose, fire hydrants, the buttons on women's dresses-big-business executives took the gestures personally. When the Tramp waved a danger signal at a truck driver and was arrested by the police for inciting crowds with a Red flag-well, that was ridiculing authority, wasn't it? Explained Chaplin: "I was only poking fun at the general confusion from which we are all suffering." The businessmen knew better...