ARTIE'S HEADLINE
"There is some doubt as to whether you will be going on a long return Journey."
HE ALONE KNOWS GLASS SECRETS
From
Robert Robinson
T
Canterbury.
HE same pools of red and blue light that shine and wink here this morning
on the grave cold stone of Canterbury Cathedral once stained the floor beneath the feet of St Thomas a Becket eight centuries ago.
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER ··· 1952.---
THE CHAPLIN STORY – SIXTH WEEK
CHARLIE TALKIES
By Colin Frame
R
"THE
of
made that
EVOLUTION came that his art had no need
to Hollywood. Stars words. For no one understood the words he used-but.every- fell overnight from one understood the song. filmdom's glamorous It was not until he skles; reputations
Great Dictator broken; fortunes were lost; Chaplin could be said to have
made a truly "talking pleturo. heroes and heroines went back to school to learn how to talk.
were
For the "talkies" had ar- rived. Secret experiments of the Warner brothers, Harry, Jack and Albert, had linked sound to the silent screen and in future music, song and speech were to be a vital part of cinema entertainment,
He Stayed Calm And Resolute
Then people learnt what his friends had always known - that Chaplin has a light, clear, accentless voice, dramatic in range and that he is a colner of vivid phrases.
Early talkies were of соцве Artistic and extremely crude.
must musical Chaplin shuddered, as others did when have
he heard the poatry of the Eng-
reduced tongue lish scratchy, nasal whine,
to
For by Now Chaplin, 扭 supreme example of self- developed talent, was a musi clán of the frat rank. Sir Henry Wood, of the Proms In the panle that followed visited him about this time and the success of "The Jazz told reporters that Choplin Singer," when audiences for seemed to know more about the first time heard as well as music than he did. saw a film, Chaplin stayed calm and resolute.
Was he not the acknowledged, mime whose sceptre
king of
was golden as silence?
To those who assured him
This was not diehard conset-
In
Lonely House In Beverly Hills
sad.
оп
DEFIES
THE
The Tramp (Charlle Chaplin) dolled up and the Eccentric Millionaire (Harry Myers) in
asked when the picture would be finished, replied with some feeling: "I don't know but I hope it will be while I'm, still young."
"City Lights,”
Mémorial To The
..Dumb Days
ly on stroking it.
There is, too, a
without
bitter-sweet
end as the flower girl, her sight restored
his little tramp rasping out in It Introduced a wealthy stock- words the love that so patently broker who was generous when ond mean when sober shone in his face for the poor drunk
and this led to surely the most blind flower girl
With the touch of the true ludicrous of all Chaplin, scenes They played ducts together She had been discovered by artist he had introduced sounds the tramp riding in the stock-
Chaplin's huge and now Chaplin at
help the picture here and broker's Rolls-Royce a prize, fight. He to that "Sonny Boy" was bound to lonely-house in Beverly Hills, spent most of the lime watch- there the music, the shuffle of the price of a cigarette.
He stops the Rolls, swoops to not the boxers but the his famous feet, the peep-peep bawl down The Kid and all where Japanese servents padded ing
gutter to seize a stub end similar pictures, he said: "The about rooms emply of child fair-haired eager girl near him of a whistle which he accident- the
the held ally swallowed before having from -china-blue
of a passing eyes
grasp complete. volces and where there was a whose art of pantomimo is
hobo and then rides majestical- which such
hiccups, far-away- look. more magnificent organ Films need dialogue no
hours,
And it was this that decided symphonies Chaplin would play for than Beethoven's
and it seemed need lyrics."
solitory
a little
him to sign her up to play the A le old gentleman
The lad for whom the musical part of a blind girl in "City
Lights."
through the tramp's This was the lost of the great endeavours, waits to see her stands by my side in the vatism on his part. He accept-
ed that some sound effects in heavens first opened in Ken-
She was # Chicago society silent Alms and it seems fitting hero mouth
for the first time. And cathedral, as the light fil-films had come to stay but he aington when he heard
girl who knew nothing about that Chaplin who transformed when he comes -clad and ters through the ancient could not Imagine that his style orgon and a clarinet playing acting but as he had done with film comedy from custard-plo comic, she laughs at him.
benefit in ony popular
June, stained glass colouring our of film could
found soloce in others Chaplin moulded her to to classic should have been the clothing as it once coloured way from the introduction of musical composition conduct- she never made much success in as a memorial to the cinema's the part he desired. Afterwards man to make what may stand He counted not only ors like Sir Henry Wood among A Gesture Can
actor She married 'film films.
dumb days. drad his friends. He had played
for Cary
Grant and, after divorce.
WEB In 1950 "City Lights" Caruso. Yehudi Menuhin and he she became the Tell All
Countess of
of shown again and the silent He could already say all he play was, perhaps, not therefore failed, and
violins together.
Jersey That marriage too Chaplin became a new genern
she is now Mrs tion's clown.
of "A surprising that Chaplin found in Florian, Martini, wife
the
taikle technique art Polish engineer whom she met This him will
with its under- outlet for his musical talent to In England during the be added to those of his acting when he flew with the Pollah Vintage Chaplin. Its theme was and direction.
attempts to get money to Squadron.
Weck in, week out, Virgila help the flower girl to live and Cherrill watched the
funtastic regain her sight. business of film-making with
the martyrs. Without him
the light would have gone out,
4
For Mr Samuel Caldwell, DI- year old artist in stained glass, is the only man alive who knows the exact disposition of every single pane of coloured glass in Canterbury Cathedral-and is all in his head.
OUT, IN, OUT
it
During the first World War the valuubić glass was taken out of the cathedral and scaled in a special dug-out under Mr Cold- well's charge. By 1939, as the last window won being Atted, he was told that it must all come out again.
It will take 20 years to replace, „hough, most of the more anclent
parts are already back.
As we strolled through the great echoing nave, Mr Caldwell told me that the secret of the most beautiful jigsaw puzzle in England was passed to him by his father, who had it from his uncle, George Austin, who is buried in the cathedral.
words.
it this way.
desired by a gesture.
He put beautiful girl silhouetted in the moonlight cah be anybody's
new
མ
were
un-
sweetheart in any town in any city in any part of the world. But the minute
Words, he fell, sho turns
but musle which had round, opens her mouth and necessary; cays, 'Gee, ain't this moonlight always been recognised as the swell?' the Illusion is gone.'
accompaniment for There spoke not only Chap- in the artist but also Chaplin the business man,
proper
silent film might be more suit- ably wedded to his films.
Charlie Makes His Point
The world was his oyster and rich was the pearl harvest. Fiji Islander, Zulu, Hawaiian.
So while Hollywood chatted Chinese, Japanese, French, Rus
talkles he set to work to sian, German
all these form of ed his audiences, understood compose an original score for loved the film which he had begun--- him just as much as those who "City Lights." spoke his tongue..
his atories, laughed and
Chaplin.
dear
Zurrent, of
war
his
It was as if he knew that this silent venture in a world of noise would either make of break him and he took immense pains to make sure thut in
"City Lights" his genius would shout above the talkies in actions louder than words,
The Success Of "City Lights"
He spent more than £300,000 there was proving that
There is A story that to satisfy"
But a Chaplin who spoke friends. like. Douglas Fairbanks strange language, whose comic and Mary Pickford who still on gestures were homstrung by insisted that any further silent what would films would flop, he shot 10,000 needless words, they make of him?
Gibberish In
still
a market for his sort of
film.
By December, 1930, he.
"
feet of "City Lights" with a had Anished. The Alm was sound-track on which he spoke. boxed; the cast dismissed. Then "This is to convince you, not a week later he recalled both 'Modern Times" me," he told them when he film and cost and re-shot a
No wonder he burst out with remarks like "Talkies? They fascinate me, frighten me and anger me. I shall never appear in one."
Austin was the urchitect in 1820 of the Northwest Tower and was Caldwell's great-uncle. It was twelve years before
scene
with which he was dis
showed the film privately. know that if I talked I'd kill satisfied. Charlie.”-
Was there ever such An defini. And the friends agreed he example of the various bad made his point..
tions people give of genius - This was by no cons the "an infinite capacity for taking "But I've lived with the glass he did. And as if in defence only strip of ilm wasted during pains" or "ten percent inspira- of this cathedral since I was an and as a gesture against
tion, ninety percent perspira- apprentice, and it's all in my
hateful invention that reintro- the making of "City Lights."
More than two years
were tion head now," said Mr Caldwell.
duced the Tower of Babel to an
have need not Perhaps he art universal In its language, spent by Chaplin searching for At the age of
voice was perfection of story and picture, worried qulle so much but it the first time his
it was experimenting every day with was all typical of the man and making his first efforts to draw heard from the screen
this stene on glass, and at 10 was ap-raised in absolute gibberish.
10 he
was
prenticed to his father, grinding the colours for new glass which Is now lighting the cathedral,
STILL WORKING
Despite his age he still goes to his workshop ot 10 every morning to draw on the glass the outlines of saints and angels, which are coloured in by his young apprentices.
all
"Ho comes Dut in weathers," said his friend and Arst assistant, 50-year-old Mr Easton, who has been with him since he was 13, "and we've got to look after him,'
Samuel Caldwell and his men are still producing new glass for the cathedral which has the same depth and effect as that worked In 1180.
"The Important thing with stained glass is to keep the light i out," says Mr Caldwell.
Ir light just streama through there
glare is a
and the. subtleties of the pattern are lost. Toning the way the back of the gloss is treated-is his secret.
The cost of stained glass has risen since the war. Then It was around £3.a square footi now it is as much as £15. -
Mr Caldwell stopped in front ok a longa.alendar Window "delined by his : father, - iis size. about. Bit, by Rart, and estimated its cost todayán Betwèeil
£3,000 to £8,000)
Mr. Gajdrell, who lan widower, has no sons to curry on after him. -
In "Modern Times."
the
תי
or that, torturing the artist.
which himself and his cast in an Early In 1931, both in London
New York, critles he attempt to wring the greatest and
raved
was not strictly talkio, possible fun from one tiny about "City Lights" and the
song as a comic waiter, using words of no known language.
situation and the greatest pos- public queued as itstal.
In this magnificent piece of sible pathos fron another. comic acting he underlined the
There was unanimous "gree- No wonder his now leading ment that Chaplin had been Virginia Cherrill, when right. No one could imagine
point he made at the outset lady,
M
Flafus walk társfully, szary
Suppressing Terroriam ww kúp into the kind.
of bolch we made of Ireland, iradim, Palestria (Re
BIG GAME NUNYIN.
was true
Now adding the final touch of grace. Jp all Rules Oysters in this "nge, allmilyay; hand-finished coje,
Chaplin began to reap again the golden harvest of his
Thousands of pounds silence,
back into his poured
bank account. So he took 1 year off
went round the world and which he had proved was still his market.
*
"NEXT SATURDAY Charlio's London Triumph: A World Tour: Lionised By The Great.
Page: 11
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***** He saw something pitiei in the earth; hê
stooped and-picked it up!--
Phantom Groweyewaldsproof, seta then pulled out for handi vetting
ROLEX
admark in the history o
tima veoauivemant
*
FREDI BLUEPRINT OF SUPREMACY. The fascinating expose of some of tha aterata that make Rolex one of the finest watches in the world.". Für your free copy, write tim› Rolex Watch Co., Ltd., Geneva, diwitserland,
Tà ̧proiect the intricate savement; RoleM veralumen and techniciana Jaboured for yours to „prbined ilu Oynti case. Employing the safest marked of water proofing --the infetaling me ijen of one metal baenochembe Rölen Oyster - wasīja brat, andia sili) the brambel, waterproof- watch 30 kan world., Vialula penolof scegracy 1) De Kalex Red Seal, showing that the Swiss, Deviznidan bay seated the chronotiserer 'and. nestled in a koveted Officiel Tigning Cetriácase.
Four years 'buried*
EVEN in 1945, when the war in Europe had ended, flying had ite hazards. Flight-Lieutenant "Bolton" learnt this only too well; it was May 13th when he had to crash-land in the South of England, and was badly injured. His airemst, Typhoon, was completely
21
wrecked, and—a more personal tragedy his Rolex Oyster dia appeared.
It was almost exactly four years to the day when a man who lived near where the Typhoon had crashed was digging in his garden. He saw something glitter in the earth; when he stooped and picked it up- yes, it was the pilot's watch.
The ease bad corroded and the hands
had rusted; but these were incidentals. After four years in the earth the delicate *mechanism was still unharmed; the Opiter
case had protected it perfectly.
When you remember that this watch, to -stay accurate," has to kick" exactly 432,000 times a day; and that the lubricating oil l carefully measured to 10001 of a gramnici you can realize the exquisite delicacy of a Rolex movement...
But, you may argue, most watches would never have to undergo a test like that. Trud! But all watches have enemies --ditt and damp, dest and perspiration- and the sort of watch, that will stand that fall and those four years can hardly be harmed by slighter. hazards. A perfece movement, perfectly protected is what yo wanf-and what you find in a Rolex Oyster. You find it, too, in the Tudot, the junior member of, the Rolex family, which is also protected by the Oyster esse,
★This is a crum story, taken from a letter written by the pilot In question (ex-Fligh Lieutenant W. Bolton, of Umston. La. - zashite) ja the Rolex Watch Company. Tite original_Jetler” yan be jospected at the „Difch'of_the_fofen.Watch Company at 18.
ron du Marche, Género, Switzerland.