That post deserves a laurel, and hardy handshake.
Posted on 10/15/2024 3:10:52 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Compare at 4:09 et seq. of this clip from Modern Times, released in 1939
to Laurel and Hardy Busy Body, released in 1933
at approximately 15:40.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
I used to like Chaplin. But then I read a biography of him. He was an anarcho-communist who treated most of the people around him very poorly.
CC
I still like him. Robin Williams was also very left-wing. But their comedy is something for the ages. But even so, Chaplin’s speech at the end of Great Dictator was laced with all sorts of left wing BS, but it’s still universally praised because it was in opposition to fascism and militarism.
That’s the one instance where his politics stuck out too much, imho. At the Circus, City Lights, Modern Times, all had some left wing elements, but the artistry outweighed them.
In the instance of Robin Williams, I’d say almost every time, he had such wild energy that whatever politics he might have injected was lost in the sauce.
Let’s say I never understood the media attention he got.
These days, he’d have been going to Epstein’s Island regularly. He liked ‘em young. But he’d always marry his youthful conquests, and later they’d divorce. He also p!ssed J. Edgar Hoover off early and often, and in those days Hoover was a media darling.
He started his career during a time that movie stars were just becoming a big thing, and the first big scandal involving one was Fatty Arbuckle, who used to attend and hold wild parties, and a girl got killed at one of his. He did time for his role in that.
Chaplin had a checkered personal life, came from deep poverty, and was one of the greatest physical comedians and movie makers of all time. That he borrowed a scene from Laurel and Hardy and improved it speaks volumes about Laurel and Hardy’s bona fides. Laurel and he were in the same Vaudeville troupe in the early days.
Lucas did the same in Star Wars with a scene from one of Akira Kurosawa’s films, I forget what it was called. But it starred Toshiro Mifune.
He was incredibly talented. But he was also a pr!ck. Robin I felt a bit more comfortable with. I knew he was a lefty. But he had ADHD. And so do I, so I got his humor. He and I were on a similar wavelength, so to speak. I saw Robin and I saw somebody capable of being successful while being ADHD and I felt like I could be successful too.
CC
Par for the course for Englishmen of that generation.
4:09? The clip ends there.
Why don’t you fill us in on what the heck this thread is about?
From WIKI:
Arbuckle was the defendant in three widely publicized trials between November 1921 and April 1922 for the rape and manslaughter of actress Virginia Rappe. Rappe had fallen ill at a party hosted by Arbuckle at San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel in September 1921, and died four days later. A friend of Rappe accused Arbuckle of raping and accidentally killing her. The first two trials resulted in hung juries, but the third trial acquitted Arbuckle. The third jury took the unusual step of giving Arbuckle a written statement of apology for his treatment by the justice system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Arbuckle
Thank you for that. Need to laugh this morning. Cheers!
They’re like idiot savants, these phenomenal comedians and actors who are otherwise profoundly ignorant. They parlay their misfortune, their tragedy, their incurable wound into a timeless gift to humanity. One should admire a man who emerged from a broke and broken family, lifted millions of hearts, with his cinematic talents. Be grateful and leave it at that, rather than expect him to be Solomon as well as Chaplin.
Wonderful thread; thanks for posting.
Commenters should please use the name of the character you are posting about instead of “he”. Harder to follow.
He spent some time in jail awaiting trial but Arbuckle did not "do time" for the alleged murder of a woman. He was eventually found not guillty.
That post deserves a laurel, and hardy handshake.
Corrected, then. Wrecked his career, though. Chaplin, despite the paternity suit and move abroad, still made a few movies.
Same with a bunch of great artists.
Watch the clip of Chaplin, and the comic short I linked in #2.
Watch Chaplin get lost in a machine. Watch Oliver Hardy get lost in machinery. They’re very similar. Period.
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