1936-05-09 — Page 10

THE KONGKONG TELEGRAPH, BATURDAY, MAYX 'D, 1918,

ENTERTAINMENT

A PAGE ABOUT

"Modern Times” Took Hongkong By Storm While... "MODERN TIMES", Charlie Chaplin and

Paulette Goddard arrived in Hong- kong on the same day this week.

So this entertainment page to-day is largely devoted to them. Chaplin is the biggest single personality in world entertain. ment and deserves every inch. "Modern Times" is worth pawning your toothbrush 'to sec. It is the first Chaplin picture in five years, and may be the last for a decade, Charlie in future will concentrate on direct- ing pictures of other people and in between. times making some of his own sans the famous toothbrush moustache and Size 15 boots.

Five years he laboured to make "Modern Times" while. Intelligents of five nations (pick your five) sneered goatly. He broke every rule known to picture-minking. Yet "Modern Times" is the best he has done since "The Gold Rush."

TOP HAT PARADE

FOURTEEN HUNDRED enthusiasts stormed the doors

of the King's Theatre on Thursday night, waving tlekets priced $2.50 downwards, Not more than half-n- dozen sents in the house was given away. A record for first nights only equalled by "Cavalcade."

Charlie Chaplin in Hongkong:- Staff Photographer,

Chaplin makes the film acrewing up two nuts that pass witherlag Indictment of the In kim on the belt. He goes mind, dustrial system (not the capitalist comes out of hospital broke. He system Stalin's Five-Year Plans Is caught in an unemployed de- ara stood in the corner too). He monstration, goes to jail. ridicules mass production, shows After that the old Chaplin bits the unemployed shot down in the are resurrected-the meeting with streets, suggests that jail is the the girl, the pathetic play-house- only place for a self-respecting keeping in an old shack ("Gold citizen.

Rush"). He gets a job as a sing-

RED FLAG INCIDENT ing waiter, but just as things seem to be going right the girl is

Charlie's

CHAPLIN

Hongkong Has Taken Its Stars By Storm..

Costume

Was Born In A Panic

ONE scene, the second best in arrested, and they are on the bum HOW did Charlie Chaplin become

the film, shows him picking ngain,

up a red flag dropped from the There are scenes in the course tail of a lorry, getting arrested as of all this which are worth pawn- a Communist lender, and ending ing your last toothbrush to acc. Best of all is the sequence in the

up down a sewer.

It has been a standing rule of factory, where a new lunch-hour-

film actor?

a

What is the real origin of his famous character and costume?

These and many other questions Hallywood since the Flood that eliminating automatic feeder is "Previewer" can answer to-day, as a re- social propaganda is box-ofico tried out on Charlie. It gets out sull of Charlie Chaplin's visit to the poison. Charlie's film will proof control, slops the food all over Colony. bably make more money on ac- Charlie, and starts feeding him After the famous Mack Sennett

count of it.

steel nuts.

his

PICK

Says "FIRST NIGHT”. DURING the four weeks that have clapsed

since he last visited Hongkong, Charlie Chaplin, who returned on Thursday, has written six thousand words of the script of his next picture.

As I think I have mentioned before, Charlie has a soft spot in his heart for our thrice-visited Colony, a liking that embraces the Fourth Estate.

Hongkong newspapers have treated him "decently," he avers.

You'll recall that Hongkong was the only part of the Far East in which sensa- tional reports-reports that seem to have been born.of particularly vivid imagina- tions were not published regarding his "marriage" to Paulette Goddard.

HONGKONG newspapers have respected

his wishes regarding "private affairs” and the only reports that have been published here have been those emanating from other centres.

Thus, Charlie likes Hongkong.

He likes it so much, in fact, that he broke his home. ward journey here instead of at Shanghai,

Ile ken it so much that much of the 6,000 words already written for Paulette Goddard's next starring vehicle-written and directed by Charilo--centres

around -life in this part of the world.

"I haven't thought of a title and I haven't anlahed the plot," he told me in an exclusive interview yesterday. "But the pleture will have a Far Eastern background and will be half serious, half comedy.

"I'm going

to Hollywood, That

to commence production as soon as I return

Charlle is staying in Hongkong only three days is due not to any desire to hurry back to Hollywood, but

to the U.S. Immigration laws.

"I was born in England and I am still English,” he

told me. "But if I overstayed the six months allowed under the American Immigration laws I would have to get a special permit.

"You see,

I am an alien in America."

He disclosed to me, however, that he would qulto

likely return here next year,

As soon as Miss Goddard's picture is completed he

intends to go to England, where he will remain for six or eight weeks.

Quite conceivably I will return to Hollywood via the East," he said.

YOUR OWN PICTURES

It has been a rule, too, that Only one part of it, goes on work- formed Keystone he went to Cali- revivals always Hop. Charlie, ing with serene smoothness till fornia with Ford Sterling as tired of his essay on individualiam, nearly the end-the automatic chief comedian.“ Sterling refused turns half his film Into a serious mouth-wiper. repetition of some of the funniest Another magnificent bit of busi- to renew his contract and Sennett gags of his very early Keystone, ness, at once uproarious and had to find a new comedian. - tlays. There is the roller-skating pathetic, in where Charlie the He remembered having seen an bit from "The Rink. The double- waiter tries to steer with a tray English comedian in "A Night in moving stairense from The through a solidly packed dunce- an English Music Hall." When he Floor-walker." That famous cor-and all you can gee of waiter scene from I forget what Charlie is the tray, which he wields spoke to the comedian of films he

was sceptical, and when offered AT THE STAR comedy. Lampposts still lurch with all the genuine grace of £26 a week an enormous salary in bit when Charlie bumps into them. a dancer's fan. These and one of those days-he thought Sennett NEXT MONTH

And, of course, there is the two more passages surpass any was trying a cheap trick to get him gibberish song Charlie sings, thing Charlie ever did,

breaking silence, as they say,

That song ls Charlie's long nosa ut the talkies. The words

ure

THE SONG

gibberish, the actions are every. CHARLIE sings an extraordinary

thing.

to work for a few weeks. Reluct antly he agreed. It was Charlie Chaplin.

Later they were making a film song in a sort of illegitimate called "Mabel's Strange Predica; Spanish-French. It is quite amua- ment". Charlie Chaplin was told g, but probably was only put in to to to the dressingroom, to put to get the words of the song. He to give the film a "Chaplin Talks!" on the first clothes he could find, sales angle. Otherwise he re- and to gel ou the set at once and mains obstinately, in my view to be funny..

. or else! the old nllent technique.

A representative of this paper anw the picture twice in an effort

brought

*verяck:

back these precious

La spinach, or la tuke Ciperefto, foto forlo Erusho papalette,

Je le tu le tu le twaa,

In der la ser pawnbroker,

Lucru neprer how mucher, BACK, coufcas a potcha, Ponka walia ponga waa. Not funny? Wait till you see the film...

Still, Chaplin is Choplin,. and perhaps it does not really matter. Asin clown he is the only genius. Hollywood ever produced, and I challenge any one who веся "Modern Times" with an open mind to deny it. His humour and ** pathos are international.

Paulette Goddard is the best leading woman he has ever dis- covored. She works impeccably

REVERENTLY inscribed the with Chaplin because she obvious- "actual container", in which ly understands his technique and Chaplin's new alm travelled from philosophy, as Chaplin, in his and Hollywood, to Hongkong arrived ittle way, understands the world's here a fortnight ago. It was a oppressed people to whose tragl- battered old tin that had probably comedy he holds up a mirror. erntained that print of "The Gold Ruah."

The trousers he borrowed from Roscoe Arbuckle, the shoes betonged to Ford Sterling, and the coat and hat were used by a midget.

Chaplin began to paint on a moustache, but Sennett yelled at him so much, and he was in such a panic, that he came rushing out with the moustache in complete.

That was the actual begin: ning of the most famous charac- ter In films. He was born in a panic,

TEWSWORTHY is scheme

announced by Manager Goldin of Star Theatre that cinemaddiets can choose their own programmes for month of June from list of Old Favourites published by contemporary "Previewer" of South China Morning Past.

Star Management has submitted list of 20 old-time box-office record breakers, asked you to choose which ten you'd like to see screened. Popular vote through 'Previewer's" column will determine programmes for next month.

"Back Street" (Universal); "Barretts of Wimpole Street" (Metro); "Cimmarron" (Radio); "Count of Monte Cristo" (United Copperfield" Artists); "David

(Metro); "Gny Divorcee" (Radio); "Forty Second Street” (Warner); "If I Had a Million" (Paramount);

(bia); "Just Imagine" (Fox): "King Kong" (Radio); "Madam Butter- fy" (Paramount); “Madam Satan" (Metro): "Naughty Marietta". (Metro); "One Night of Love" (Columbia); "Private Life of

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS SENR. "It Happened One Night" (Colum

GIVES UP ACTING

Before proceeding to the inevit ‚able pæan stage, it should be said that Chaplin's painstaking and laborious methods are not alto- gether to the advantage of his work. I had the feeling in certain passages of "Modern Times" that they had been made and remade too often. Every scene cannot possibly or beneficially be a high- light, and in its less spectacular moments the film drags because it lacks the elusive quality of apon-R DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS making a film that the actor never

taneity.

Other scones are matchless gema of cinématic timing, I may be wrong, but I imagine that these! were the ones that came out right

of the

"Call

Me a

Hollywood, May 8.

Producer Now"

"There are thrills in actually

sen. stated to-day that comes across. ho has definitely decided to and his film-acting carcer. He is 51.

for all time. me a film producer..

Henry VIII" (United Artists);

"Roberta" · (Radio); "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (United Artists); "The

Thin Man" (Metro): "Trouble in Paradise" (Paramount); "Viennese Nights" (Warner).

"Some actors any they are going to Anish their neting career and then stage a return. You don't have to limit yourself That will not happen to to Since he arrived here he has

above-mentioned films, for after the first few tries, and did had several conferences with

me. I am finished with acting there's prints of many others avail- not have to be done over and over Samuel Goldwyn, and the out-

Henceforth callable. "Previewer suggested, for -again until the maestro.

Instanco, that many people might bowler hat and cane declared him-come is that he intends now to "I have a good reason for giving like to vote for such excellent pro- self satisfied. "

devote all his time to film pro- up acting. You cannot be a good ductions as "Private Lives", "Teil duction.

film actor and a good producer Me To-Night", "Dr. Jekyll and OFF TO JAIL

too. One has got to go... Mr. Hyde," "The Scoundrel", "The "It is not that film acting no "Perhaps the best reason of all Bengal Lancers", THE opening of the story is new tonger apponts to me," said Fair why I should devote myself en- "House of Rothschild", "Little Miss "Cavalcade", around for Chaplin. The little banks; "the truth is that I like tirely to film.producing is that my Marker", "Publle Hero No. 1 tramp works in a stool factory.nlm producing botter.

wife approves of it."

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