1952-11-08 — Page 11

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1952.

The Chaplin Story 7-Lionised By The Great

CHARLIE'S TRIUMPH IN

LONDON

B

By Colln Frame

Y the time Charles mime of the way he met Lady

Chaplin paid

hia 80-and-So or how to fight a bull

to

second visit Britain he was the and darling of the rich famous, not only, as he had been ton years earlier, of the humble and poor.

This time it was in 1931 -as well as the pilgrimage to his old Kennington haunts he went to Chequers to lunch with the Prime Minister, Mr Ramsay Mac- Donald, and to a private dinner party which the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, attended.

-a pet performance of his.

There was nothing particularly old or and about his first perfor- mance,

He went to the "Cuckoo School" at Hanwell, the work- house school he had attended 35 years earlier it is now a com- munity centre-and on a class- room dals swung his cane and

swaggered about as a hundred children famous Old Boy.

cheered their most

Bags Of Sweets

Ho gave the school a Dir projector. And for each child there was a bag of aweets and a packet marked a shilling In "Best wishes, Charlie Chaplin." A week later as host to 20 people, including Ave peers.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN IN “THE GREAT DICTATOR.»

This refusal

led to the first

memory which, in. an instant, can conjure up the details of ‘a scene or a conversation.

And it is probable that this talk with Gandhi was to have its effect, averet, years later when he sought a new theme for a

nim.

I told Mr. Gandhi I could not understand why he was to op posed to machinery," he said- afterwards. Then he explained this to me. I found him a tremendous personality,"

Five years later the next Chaplin film "Modern Times" was interpreted as a brillanti satire of the machine and an indictment, despite all the fun Charlie get out of it, of the inhumanity of the machine.

World Tour

Qua

He read a great deal during this year of holiday-Schopen- hauser, Carlyle, Macaulay and Plato-strange and heavy stuff for a comedian and even n“ film, producer,

The excitement of his visit died down. He began to travel the country

unmolested by crowds. Then, as he had done in

192 1921, he left abruptly for winter sports in Switzerland-and that was the last London saw of him.

But his holiday werk

he watched for the first time lunch. With Sir Philip Sassoon He sent instead £200 for the Charlie had become Charles, in his life the premiere of one he lunched at the House of Variety Artists Benevolent The knockabout comedian had of his own films in his native Commons. He went to the Old Fund. been superseded by the flim land. Near him sat the Countess Balley and had lunch with Mr

He Lady Astor, Ber- Justice Roche.

went to to be lonised.

nard Shaw, the first genius of Alms, was He went to Wandsworth Prison next to him. Fred Karno, the and had tea with the Governor. man who never quite realised He went for a day's hunting.

had had under what a genius he

Ten thousand letters for him contract, sat nearby.

reached his hotel at the rate of 600 a post.

genius. He was a society lamb of Oxford and arded him as Eton and had tea with the boys. harsh criticism of Chaplin from through Egypt and Singapore,

Cheers & Kisses

itis shipmates in the Mauret- ania included Jockey Bleve Donoghue who had been on They saw "City Lights," which holiday in the States, and was to take £150,000 in its first (later. Sir) Malcolm twenty weeks in London, and at Captain Campbell, who had been busy the end of it Chaplin went on pushing the land record up to to the stage and said: 240 mph.

Chaplin left the

at ship Plymouth to give Campbell all the limelight of the Southamp- ton reception.

"I must confess tonight is a great triumph for me. To come into my own home town and receive the love and affection that has been accorded to me is But his own when he reached more than ample return for all Paddington was a repeat of that I have done."

ten years earlier. He was drawn. Then he went on to a midnight through cheering crowde to supper and cabaret party at the which he blew Itisses as he sat Carlton, where 200 people drank on the top of a car twirling his his health, proposed by Mr new bowler.

Churchill with the characteristic With him WOR Kano, his words, "He has spread the fame

Then he went to Berlin for the premiere there of "City Lights.” a significant journey as it turned cul.

.

on-

his fellow-countrymen. Some through the Dutch East Indies Tegarded it as an insult to the and Japan until he found himseit Some felt it back in Hollywood in June, 1933. Royal Family. showed lack of feeling for his old He had been away eightcer muale-hall colleagues who had months. He icarly never went

back at all not enjoyed his success.

wore

while

His Sons' Future

It sounds far-fetched. But it was a sign of the important place Charlee Chaplin held in the Far

Easti

A few months later ten Jap- Their criticism provoked anese Chaplin into a typical outburst. charged with the assassinailou

tiaval

officers They say I have a duty to of Premier Inukai and it emerged England, but I wonder just in the evidence that what is that duty," he mid,

Chaplin was in Tokyo they had "No ont wanted mo or also planned to assassinate him Reviled By Hitler cared for me in England seven- in the hope that it would start a teen years ago, I was just as war between Japan and the About the same time another good an artist but I slaved and United States. little man with a little black worked and starved for a few moustache who had been born shilings a week, I doubt whether within a few days of Chaplin I made £200 in my last two was beginning to make his years,

in England. presence fell,

"Well, I have just sent that amount for the variety artists." And in years to come Adolf He stayed on the Riviera, fell Hitler was to revile the Chaplin in love with it and even planned whom Berliners now applauded, to transfer his affections from

He returned home to fight two and Chaplin in his turn was

Hollywood and

mare legal actions. One was to I make Aims there.. to use his art to make Hitler the immer word oo. Ho preven KANTOR:WHELIN' Grej", " world's laughing stock in "The played golf and bathed. He from putting his small sons into Great Dictator,"

dined with the Prince of Wales a film with her. Ho succeeded,

"I had to choose my profession He went to Vienna, Venice and at his chateau at Biarritz (He not Parts (lunch with M. Briand the spent a great deal of time in the at an early age," he said, "but return to the States as Sir French Premier,

Czech they need not do so. I want them and a day's company of a beautiful Charles Chaplin..

to run and play and enjoy their only decoration Westminster); then on to Nice

boar hunting with the Duke of girl called Mizzi Muller.

childhood." At 42 his hair was grey, up-

In fact, his

With Churchill Cross French, the

of the and North Africa. proaching white. He talked long. and knowledgeably about Legion d'Honneur.

"Just He was there when he was economies

But on this holiday he was for the slump way on in Britain and the unemployed honoured in other ways. It was sent an invitation to appear at sald-and with September they ey was income tax. For the au- could be numbered In mijloas, a case of "Clap hands, here the Royal Variety Show, but he But his tiny hands and feet comes Charlie" as he rode in the replied to George Black, "Very were constantly on the move and two - horse brougham with-sorry cannot appear at Falladium it needed only a faint cue to liveried servants which the Lord have made it a principle never send him off on a boyish bout of Mayor of London sent to bring to appear on stage since I have Joolery, a little cameo of perfect him to the Mansion House for been associated with screen,"

His Decoration

Japonese valet, shadow and of England through the world." bodyguard, whose impassive face hid knowledge of all the Chaplin ··· secrets of twelve years, but who -was soon to leave him to return

Japan and a simpler life. 10

London in 1931 saw what his lifelong friand Hannen Swafter called "an older, wiser and sadder Charlie.

Grave

In that year there was con- siderable public speculation whether Chaplin would

Is

Danger In The Sudan

From SEFTON DELMER'

Khartoum, not dismissed overnight to make of British

relatives serious HE Sudan's new self room for friends and

of the new rulers, government constitu-

THE

withdrawal is most Without British. administra These powers the Governor- tors they could not even hold their elections and they know tion is in gravest danger, General clearly could not exer- And it has not even been cise if he officially promulgated yet. veto, as some reports have ant Budanero have

The Sudanese leaders are ar by the five-man commission. riving back in Khartoum from

There was certainly no need

for the Chaplin children to work. Their father's other legal wor-

both friends," they

said goodbye and Chaplin Fes thorities had assessed his hold- ot ings in the United States at £1,- turned to Britain to stay Chartwell with Mr Churchill to 340,000............... go to Ayol St Lawrence to talk with Bernard Shaw and to visit a house in the East End of London where another remark... able little man was staying Mahatma Gandhi.

This visit must have

pro-

duced one of the world's

strangest pictures that-have- never-been-taken.

Gandhi, the great Indian mystic, in his white robe and loin cloth, was attending the Round Table Conference which was to pave the way for the end of British rule in India.

The two had a long talk, Gandhi's Ideas chiefly about on Indian rule and his hatred of

with Ainco mrrival here

talked the call The came for evening prayera. If, however, the commissions most perturbed at the overhale they

pace of

in his great mystic talks with General Nagulb in is to have advisory powers only,

simple robe, and the world's Cairo.

With them come the this would be less objectionable

"Sudahization?" one of them great camit, in grey suit with his first reasonably authentic to though cumbrous, unnecessary sald. "Certainly. But gradual-bowler in his hand, knelt side ly, by stages. Otherwise we by side as prayers were said. ports of an agreement patched and Inemcient.

Evist shell Sudanice hway our Sudan Then they continued taiking. the hottest-headed of and the prosperity the British One of the secrets of Chaplin's Party and the Mahdi's hitherto rationalist politicians, the threat have given

is his photographic anti-Egyptian Oumma Party,

is to be subject to it. That is why many.pokea machinery...

up

between the Egyptian, Sudan's pro-Egyptian

.

One thing is contain.

for Ashigga

And this agreement appears

to be based on a scheme which

not undoes the year's work of constitution drafung by the Sudan Parliament, but has caused British officials discuss- ing it with Sudanese friends to exclaim:

you pushing this through we shall Icaro the service. You'll have to get along without

insist

on

The scheme as reported proposes to cut down the powere and prerogatives of 比 Govembe-Geberul In the teatisi- ilonal: parfod by superimposing on him a five-man commission consisting of two Budanese, one Egypilan, ohé Pákistani or Hadith, and one Briton.

Horrified

ས་

Nataly: the Brilish, but re- presentatives of primitive tribes men in the southern provinces are horrified at the idea of the Governor-General being at the mercy of a five-man comuniston, for they distrust the northern-

The

ment

southerners fr Parlia

inaisted Coneral

that the be riven the

responsibility in Dabelitution for safeguarding protesting the special in-

and

the

terests of the southerners, and,

way, he is pro with special, powers

the

interests of public

to

sw to onetre, for in stance, than width (ho mavent of pallicians to power l

they arb

HERE LIES

NAZISM

BED

increaministrationisation World's

in the

brilliance

SPMP 10 BITTER HOLD IT,DEAR"

NEXT SATURDAY Charlio'w societ mar- ringe to Paulette Goddards No is attacked by the Nazis and makes "The Great Dictator."

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