The Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films, with two of them (Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera) in the top twelve. They are widely considered by critics, scholars, and fans to be among the greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classic Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be inducted collectively.
The group are almost universally known today by their stage names: Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo. The core of the act was the three elder brothers: Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. Each developed a highly distinctive stage persona.
Harpo and Chico "more or less retired" after 1949, while Groucho went on to begin a second career in television. The two younger brothers, Gummo and Zeppo, did not develop their stage characters to the same extent. The two eventually left the act to pursue business careers at which they were successful, as well as a large theatrical agency for a time, through which they represented their brothers and others. Gummo was not in any of the movies; Zeppo appeared in the first five films in relatively straight (non-comedic) roles. The performing lives of the brothers were brought about by their mother Minnie Marx, who also acted as their manager.
The Marx Brothers were born in New York City, the sons of Jewish immigrants from Germany and France. Their mother Miene "Minnie" Schoenberg (professionally known as Minnie Palmer, later the brothers' manager) was from Dornum in East Frisia, and their father Samuel ("Sam"; born "Simon", nicknamed "Frenchy") Marx was a native of Alsace and worked as a tailor.^[1][2] (His name was changed to Samuel Marx, and he was nicknamed "Frenchy".)^[3] The family lived in the poor Yorkville section of New York City's Upper East Side, centered in the Irish, German and Italian quarters. The brothers are best known by their stage names:


Another brother, Manfred ("Mannie"), the first-born son of Sam and Minnie, was born in 1886 and died in infancy.^[10][11][12]

"Family lore told privately of the firstborn son, Manny, born in 1886 but surviving for only three months, and carried off by tuberculosis. Even some members of the Marx family wondered if he was pure myth. But Manfred can be verified. A death certificate of the Borough of Manhattan reveals that he died, aged seven months, on 17 July 1886, of enterocolitis, with 'asthenia' contributing, i.e., probably a victim of influenza. He is buried at New York's Washington Cemetery, beside his grandmother, Fanny Sophie Schönberg (née Salomons), who died on 10 April 1901."^[13]

The Marx Brothers also had an older sister, actually a cousin, born in January 1885 who had been adopted by Minnie and Frenchie. Her name was Pauline, or "Polly".^[14] Groucho talked about her in his 1972 Carnegie Hall concert.
Minnie Marx came from a family of performers. Her mother was a yodeling harpist and her father a ventriloquist; both were funfair entertainers. Around 1880, the family emigrated to New York City, where Minnie married Sam in 1884. During the early 20th century, Minnie helped her younger brother Abraham Elieser Adolf Schönberg (stage name Al Shean) to enter show business; he became highly successful on vaudeville and Broadway as half of the musical comedy double act Gallagher and Shean, and this gave the brothers an entree to musical comedy, vaudeville and Broadway at Minnie's instigation.^[15] Minnie also acted as the brothers' manager, using the name Minnie Palmer so that agents did not realize that she was also their mother. All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, the only person who could keep them in order; she was said to be a hard bargainer with theatre management.^[16][17]
Gummo and Zeppo both became successful businessmen: Gummo gained success through his agency activities and a raincoat business,^[18] and Zeppo became a multi-millionaire through his engineering business.^[19][20]

Stage beginnings

1911 newspaper advertisement for a Marx Brothers appearance (l–r: Harpo, Groucho, Gummo)

The brothers were from a family of artists, and their musical talent was encouraged from an early age. Harpo was particularly talented, learning to play an estimated six different instruments throughout his career. He became a dedicated harpist, which gave him his nickname.^[21] Chico was an excellent pianist, Groucho a guitarist and singer, and Zeppo a vocalist.
They got their start in vaudeville, where their uncle Albert Schönberg performed as Al Shean of Gallagher and Shean. Groucho's debut was in 1905, mainly as a singer. By 1907, he and Gummo were singing together as "The Three Nightingales" with Mabel O'Donnell. The next year, Harpo became the fourth Nightingale and by 1910, the group briefly expanded to include their mother Minnie and their Aunt Hannah. The troupe was renamed "The Six Mascots".

Comedy

One evening in 1912, a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas, was interrupted by shouts from outside about a runaway mule. The audience hurried out to see what was happening. Groucho was angered by the interruption and, when the audience returned, he made snide comments at their expense, including "Nacogdoches is full of roaches" and "the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass". Instead of becoming angry, the audience laughed. The family then realized that it had potential as a comic troupe.^[22] (However, in his autobiography Harpo Speaks, Harpo Marx stated that the runaway mule incident occurred in Ada, Oklahoma.^[23] A 1930 article in the San Antonio Express newspaper stated that the incident took place in Marshall, Texas.^[24])
The act slowly evolved from singing with comedy to comedy with music. The brothers' sketch "Fun in Hi Skule" featured Groucho as a German-accented teacher presiding over a classroom that included students Harpo, Gummo, and Chico. The last version of the school act was titled Home Again and was written by their uncle Al Shean. The Home Again tour reached Flint, Michigan in 1915, where 14-year-old Zeppo joined his four brothers for what is believed to be the only time that all five Marx Brothers appeared together on stage.^[25] Gummo then left to serve in World War I, reasoning that "anything is better than being an actor!"^[26] Zeppo replaced him in their final vaudeville years and in the jump to Broadway, and then to Paramount films.

Sheet music (1917) for one of the songs from Home Again; from left: Harpo, Groucho, Chico, Gummo

During World War I, anti-German sentiments were common, and the family tried to conceal its German origin. Mother Minnie learned that farmers were excluded from the draft rolls, so she purchased a 27-acre (110,000 m²) poultry farm near Countryside, Illinois — but the brothers soon found that chicken ranching was not in their blood.^[27] During this time, Groucho discontinued his "German" stage personality.
By this time, "The Four Marx Brothers" had begun to incorporate their unique style of comedy into their act and to develop their characters. Both Groucho's and Harpo's memoirs say that their now-famous on-stage personae were created by Al Shean. Groucho began to wear his trademark greasepaint mustache and to use a stooped walk. Harpo stopped speaking onstage and began to wear a red fright wig and carry a taxi-cab horn. Chico spoke with a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal with neighborhood toughs, while Zeppo adopted the role of the romantic (and "peerlessly cheesy", according to James Agee)^[28] straight man.
The on-stage personalities of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo were said to have been based on their actual traits. Zeppo, on the other hand, was considered the funniest brother offstage, despite his straight stage roles. He was the youngest and had grown up watching his brothers, so he could fill in for and imitate any of the others when illness kept them from performing. "He was so good as Captain Spaulding [in Animal Crackers] that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience," Groucho recalled. (Zeppo stood in for Groucho in the film version of Animal Crackers. Groucho was unavailable to film the scene in which the Beaugard painting is stolen, so the script was contrived to include a power failure, which allowed Zeppo to play the Spaulding part in near-darkness.)^[29] In December 1917 the Marx brothers were noted in an advertisement playing in a musical comedy act "Home Again".^[30]
By the 1920s, the Marx Brothers had become one of America's favorite theatrical acts, with their sharp and bizarre sense of humor. They satirized high society and human hypocrisy, and they became famous for their improvisational comedy in free-form scenarios. A famous early instance was when Harpo arranged to chase a fleeing chorus girl across the stage during the middle of a Groucho monologue to see if Groucho would be thrown off. However, to the audience's delight, Groucho merely reacted by commenting, "First time I ever saw a taxi hail a passenger". When Harpo chased the girl back in the other direction, Groucho calmly checked his watch and ad-libbed, "The 9:20's right on time. You can set your watch by the Lehigh Valley."
The brothers' vaudeville act had made them stars on Broadway under Chico's management and with Groucho's creative direction—first with the musical revue I'll Say She Is (1924–1925) and then with two musical comedies: The Cocoanuts (1925–1926) and Animal Crackers (1928–1929). Playwright George S. Kaufman worked on the last two and helped sharpen the brothers' characterizations.
Out of their distinctive costumes, the brothers looked alike, even down to their receding hairlines. Zeppo could pass for a younger Groucho, and played the role of his son in Horse Feathers. A scene in Duck Soup finds Groucho, Harpo, and Chico all appearing in the famous greasepaint eyebrows, mustache, and round glasses while wearing nightcaps. The three are indistinguishable, enabling them to carry off the "mirror scene" perfectly.


The stage names of the brothers (except Zeppo) were coined by monologist Art Fisher^[28] during a poker game in Galesburg, Illinois, based both on the brothers' personalities and Gus Mager's Sherlocko the Monk, a popular comic strip of the day that included a supporting character named "Groucho".^[31] As Fisher dealt each brother a card, he addressed him, for the very first time, by the names they kept for the rest of their lives.
The reasons behind Chico's and Harpo's stage names are undisputed, and Gummo's is fairly well established. Groucho's and Zeppo's are far less clear. Arthur was named Harpo because he played the harp, and Leonard became Chico (pronounced "Chick-o") because he was, in the slang of the period, a "chicken chaser". ("Chickens"—later "chicks"—was period slang for women. "In England now," said Groucho, "they were called 'birds'.")^[32]
In his autobiography, Harpo explained that Milton became Gummo because he crept about the theater like a gumshoe detective.^[33] Other sources reported that Gummo was the family's hypochondriac, having been the sickliest of the brothers in childhood, and therefore wore rubber overshoes, called gumshoes, in all kinds of weather. Still others reported that Milton was the troupe's best dancer, and dance shoes tended to have rubber soles.^[34] Groucho stated that the source of the name was Gummo wearing galoshes. Whatever the details, the name relates to rubber-soled shoes.
The reason that Julius was named Groucho is perhaps the most disputed. There are three explanations:

• Julius' temperament: Maxine, Chico's daughter and Groucho's niece, said in the documentary The Unknown Marx Brothers that Julius was named "Groucho" simply because he was grouchy most or all of the time. Robert B. Weide, a director known for his knowledge of Marx Brothers history, said in Remarks On Marx (a documentary short included with the DVD of A Night at the Opera) that, among the competing explanations, he found this one to be the most believable. Steve Allen said in Funny People that the name made no sense; Groucho might have been impudent and impertinent, but not grouchy—at least not around Allen. However, at the very end of his life, Groucho finally admitted that Fisher had named him Groucho because he was the "moody one".^[35]
• The grouch bag: This explanation appears in Harpo's biography; it was voiced by Chico in a TV appearance included on The Unknown Marx Brothers; and it was offered by George Fenneman, Groucho's sidekick on his TV game show You Bet Your Life. A grouch bag was a small drawstring bag worn around the neck in which a traveler could keep money and other valuables so that it would be very difficult for anyone to steal them. Most of Groucho's friends and associates stated that Groucho was extremely stingy, especially after losing all his money in the 1929 stock market crash, so naming him for the grouch bag may have been a comment on this trait. Groucho insisted that this was not the case in chapter six of his first autobiography:

I kept my money in a 'grouch bag'. This was a small chamois bag that actors used to wear around their neck to keep other hungry actors from pinching their dough. Naturally, you're going to think that's where I got my name from. But that's not so. Grouch bags were worn on manly chests long before there was a Groucho.^[36]

• Groucho's explanation: Groucho himself insisted that he was named for a character in the comic strip Knocko the Monk, which inspired the craze for nicknames ending in "o"; in fact, there was a character in that strip named "Groucho". However, he is the only Marx or Marx associate who defended this theory, and as he is not an unbiased witness, few biographers take the claim seriously.

Groucho himself was no help on this point; he was discussing the Brothers' names during his Carnegie Hall concert, and he said of his own, "My name, of course, I never did understand." He goes on to mention the possibility that he was named after his unemployed uncle Julius, who lived with his family. The family believed that he was a rich uncle hiding a fortune, and Groucho claimed that he may have been named after him by the family trying to get into the will. "And he finally died, and he left us his will, and in that will he left three razor blades, an 8-ball, a celluloid dicky, and he owed my father $85 beside."^[32]

Herbert was not nicknamed by Art Fisher, since he did not join the act until Gummo had departed. As with Groucho, three explanations exist for Herbert's name "Zeppo":

• Harpo's explanation: Harpo said in Harpo Speaks! that the brothers had named Herbert for Mr. Zippo, a chimpanzee that was part of another performer's act. Herbert found the nickname very unflattering, and when it came time for him to join the act, he put his foot down and refused to be called "Zippo". The brothers compromised on "Zeppo".
• Chico's explanation: Chico never wrote an autobiography and gave fewer interviews than his brothers, but his daughter Maxine said in The Unknown Marx Brothers that, when the brothers lived in Chicago, a popular style of humor was the "Zeke and Zeb" joke, which made fun of slow-witted Midwesterners in much the same way that Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes mock Cajuns and Ole and Lena jokes mock Minnesotans. One day, Chico returned home to find Herbert sitting on the fence. Herbert greeted him by saying "Hi, Zeke!" Chico responded with "Hi, Zeb!" and the name stuck. The brothers thereafter called him "Zeb" and, when he joined the act, they floated the idea of "Zebbo", eventually preferring "Zeppo".
• Groucho's explanation: In a tape-recorded interview excerpted on The Unknown Marx Brothers, Groucho said that Zeppo was so named because he was born when the first zeppelins started crossing the ocean. He stated this in his Carnegie Hall concert, around 1972. The first zeppelin flew in July 1900, and Herbert was born seven months later in February 1901. However, the first transatlantic zeppelin flight was not until 1924, long after Herbert's birth.

Maxine Marx reported in The Unknown Marx Brothers that the brothers listed their real names (Julius, Leonard, Adolph, Milton, and Herbert) on playbills and in programs, and only used the nicknames behind the scenes, until Alexander Woollcott overheard them calling one another by the nicknames. He asked them why they used their real names publicly when they had such wonderful nicknames, and they replied, "That wouldn't be dignified." Woollcott answered with a belly laugh. Woollcott did not meet the Marx Brothers until the premiere of I'll Say She Is, which was their first Broadway show, so this would mean that they used their real names throughout their vaudeville days, and that the name "Gummo" never appeared in print during his time in the act. Other sources reported that the Marx Brothers went by their nicknames during their vaudeville era, but briefly listed themselves by their given names when I'll Say She Is opened because they were worried that a Broadway audience would reject a vaudeville act if they were perceived as low class.^[37]

Charles Spencer Chaplin

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th, 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field.
Charlie was thrown on his own resources before he reached the age of ten as the early death of his father and the subsequent illness of his mother made it necessary for Charlie and his brother, Sydney, to fend for themselves.

 Having inherited natural talents from their parents, the youngsters took to the stage as the best opportunity for a career. Charlie made his professional debut as a member of a juvenile group called “The Eight Lancashire Lads” and rapidly won popular favour as an outstanding tap dancer.

 When he was about twelve, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as “Billy” the page boy, in support of William Gillette in “Sherlock Holmes”. At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company.


He scored an immediate hit with American audiences, particularly with his characterization in a sketch entitled “A Night in an English Music Hall”. When the Fred Karno troupe returned to the United States in the fall of 1912 for a repeat tour, Chaplin was offered a motion picture contract.
He finally agreed to appear before the cameras at the expiration of his vaudeville commitments in November 1913; and his entrance in the cinema world took place that month when he joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company. His initial salary was $150 a week, but his overnight success on the screen spurred other producers to start negotiations for his services.


At the completion of his Sennett contract, Chaplin moved on to the Essanay Company (1915) at a large increase. Sydney Chaplin had then arrived from England, and took his brother’s place with Keystone as their leading comedian.
The following year Charlie was even more in demand and signed with the Mutual Film Corporation for a much larger sum to make 12 two-reel comedies. These include “The Floorwalker”, “The Fireman”, “The Vagabond”, “One A.M.” (a production in which he was the only character for the entire two reels with the exception of the entrance of a cab driver in the opening scene), “The Count”, “The Pawnshop”, “Behind the Screen”, “The Rink”, “Easy Street” (heralded as his greatest production up to that time), “The Cure”, “The Immigrant” and “The Adventurer”.

 When his contract with Mutual expired in 1917, Chaplin decided to become an independent producer in a desire for more freedom and greater leisure in making his movies. To that end, he busied himself with the construction of his own studios. This plant was situated in the heart of the residential section of Hollywood at La Brea Avenue.


Early in 1918, Chaplin entered into an agreement with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit, a new organization specially formed to exploit his pictures. His first film under this new deal was “A Dog’s Life”. After this production, he turned his attention to a national tour on behalf of the war effort, following which he made a film the US government used to popularize the Liberty Loan drive: “The Bond”.
His next commercial venture was the production of a comedy dealing with the war. “Shoulder Arms”, released in 1918 at a most opportune time, proved a veritable mirthquake at the box office and added enormously to Chaplin’s popularity.

He followed “Shoulder Arms” with “Sunnyside” and “A Day’s Pleasure”, both released in 1919. In April of that year, Chaplin joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corporation. B.B. Hampton, in his “History of the Movies” says:

“The corporation was organized as a distributor, each of the artists retaining entire control of his or her respective producing activities, delivering to United Artists the completed pictures for distribution on the same general plan they would have followed with a distributing organization which they did not own. The stock of United Artists was divided equally among the founders. This arrangement introduced a new method into the industry. Heretofore, producers and distributors had been the employers, paying salaries and sometimes a share of the profits to the stars. Under the United Artists system, the stars became their own employers. They had to do their own financing, but they received the producer profits that had formerly gone to their employers and each received his share of the profits of the distributing organization.”

However, before he could assume his responsibilities with United Artists, Chaplin had to complete his contract with First National. So early in 1921, he came out with a six-reel masterpiece: The Kid, in which he introduced to the screen one of the greatest child actors the world has ever known - Jackie Coogan.
Later in 1921, he released “The Idle Class”, in which he portrayed a dual character. Then, feeling the need for a complete rest from his motion picture activities, Chaplin sailed for Europe in September 1921. London, Paris, Berlin and other capitals on the continent gave him tumultuous receptions.

 After an extended vacation, Chaplin returned to Hollywood to resume his picture work and start his active association with United Artists. Under his arrangement with U.A., Chaplin made eight pictures, each of feature length, in the following order:

A Woman of Paris (1923)

A Woman of Paris was a courageous step in the career of Charles Chaplin. After seventy films in which he himself had appeared in every scene, he now directed a picture in which he merely walked on for a few seconds as an unbilled and unrecognisable extra – a porter at a railroad station. Until this time, every film had been a comedy. A Woman of Paris was a romantic drama. This was not a sudden impulse. For a long time Chaplin had wanted to try his hand at directing a serious film.

The Gold Rush (1925)

Chaplin generally strove to separate his work from his private life; but in this case the two became inextricably and painfully mixed. Searching for a new leading lady, he rediscovered Lillita MacMurray, whom he had employed, as a pretty 12-year-old, in The Kid. Still not yet sixteen, Lillita was put under contract and re-named Lita Grey.


Chaplin quickly embarked on a clandestine affair with her; and when the film was six months into shooting, Lita discovered she was pregnant. Chaplin found himself forced into a marriage which brought misery to both partners, though it produced two sons, Charles Jr and Sydney Chaplin.

The Circus (1928)

The Circus won Charles Chaplin his first Academy Award – it was still not yet called the ‘Oscar’ – he was given it at the first presentations ceremony, in 1929. But as late as 1964, it seemed, this was a film he preferred to forget. The reason was not the film itself, but the deeply fraught circumstances surrounding its making.


Chaplin was in the throes of the break-up of his marriage with Lita Grey; and production of The Circus coincided with one of the most unseemly and sensational divorces of twenties Hollywood, as Lita’s lawyers sought every means to ruin Chaplin’s career by smearing his reputation. As if his domestic troubles were not enough, the film seemed fated to catastrophe of every kind.
In the late 1960s, after the years spent trying to forget it, Chaplin returned to The Circus to re-release it with a new musical score of his own composition. It seemed to symbolize his reconciliation to the film which cost him so much stress.

City Lights (1931)

City Lights proved to be the hardest and longest undertaking of Chaplin’s career. By the time it was completed he had spent two years and eight months on the work, with almost 190 days of actual shooting. The marvel is that the finished film betrays nothing of this effort and anxiety.
Even before he began City Lights, the sound film was firmly established. This new revolution was a bigger challenge to Chaplin than to other silent stars. His Tramp character was universal. His mime was understood in every part of the world. But if the Tramp now began to speak in English, that world-wide audience would instantly shrink.
Chaplin boldly solved the problem by ignoring speech, and making City Lights in the way he had always worked before, as a silent film. However he astounded the press and the public by composing the entire score for City Lights.


The premieres were among the most brilliant the cinema had ever seen. In Los Angeles, Chaplin’s guest was Albert Einstein; while in London Bernard Shaw sat beside him. City Lights was a critical triumph. All Chaplin’s struggles and anxieties, it seemed, were compensated by the film which still appears as the zenith of his achievement and reputation.

Modern Times (1936)

Chaplin was acutely preoccupied with the social and economic problems of this new age. In 1931 and 1932 he had left Hollywood behind, to embark on an 18-month world tour. In Europe, he had been disturbed to see the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation.
He read books on economic theory; and devised his own Economic Solution, an intelligent exercise in utopian idealism, based on a more equitable distribution not just of wealth but of work. In 1931 he told a newspaper interviewer, “Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work”.

In Modern Times Chaplin set out to transform his observations and anxieties into comedy. The little Tramp - described in the film credits as “a Factory Worker”- is now one of the millions coping with the problems of the 1930s, which are not so very different from anxieties of the 21st century - poverty, unemployment, strikes and strike breakers, political intolerance, economic inequalities, the tyranny of the machine, narcotics.

The Great Dictator (1940)

When writing The Great Dictator in 1939, Chaplin was as famous worldwide as Hitler, and his Tramp character wore the same moustache. He decided to pit his celebrity and humour against the dictator’s own celebrity and evil. He benefited – if that is the right word for it, given the times – from his “reputation” as a Jew, which he was not – (he said “I do not have that pleasure”).
In the film Chaplin plays a dual role –a Jewish barber who lost his memory in a plane accident in the first war, and spent years in hospital before being discharged into an antisemite country that he does not understand, and Hynkel, the dictator leader of Tomania, whose armies are the forces of the Double Cross, and who will do anything along those lines to increase his possibilities for becoming emperor of the world. Chaplin’s aim is obvious, and the film ends with a now famous and humanitarian speech made by the barber, speaking Chaplin’s own words.

Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

The idea was originally suggested by Orson Welles, as a project for a dramatised documentary on the career of the legendary French murder Henri Désiré Landru – who was executed in 1922, having murdered at least ten women, two dogs and one boy.
Chaplin was so intrigued by the idea that he paid Welles $5000 for it. The agreement was signed in 1941, but Chaplin took four more years to complete the script. In the meantime the irritating distractions of a much-publicised and ugly paternity suit had been compensated by his brilliantly successful marriage to Oona O’Neill.


In the late 1940s, America¹s Cold War paranoia reached its peak, and Chaplin, as a foreigner with liberal and humanist sympathies, was a prime target for political witch-hunters. This was the start of Chaplin’s last and unhappiest period in the United States, which he was definitively to leave in 1952.

Limelight (1952)

Not surprisingly, then, in choosing his next subject he deliberately sought escape from disagreeable contemporary reality. He found it in bitter-sweet nostalgia for the world of his youth – the world of the London music halls at the opening of the 20th century, where he had first discovered his genius as an entertainer.

With this strong underlay of nostalgia, Chaplin was at pains to evoke as accurately as possible the London he remembered from half a century before and it is clear from the preparatory notes for the film that the character of Calvero had a very similar childhood to Chaplin’s own. Limelight’s story of a once famous music hall artist whom nobody finds amusing any longer may well have been similarly autobiographical as a sort of nightmare scenario.
Chaplin’s son Sydney plays the young, talented pianist who vies with Calvero for the young ballerina’s heart, and several other Chaplin family members participated in the film. It was when on the boat travelling with his family to the London premiere of Limelight that Chaplin learned that his re-entry pass to the United States had been rescinded based on allegations regarding his morals and politics.
Chaplin therefore remained in Europe, and settled with his family at the Manoir de Ban in Corsier sur Vevey, Switzerland, with view of lake and mountains. What a difference from California. He and Oona went on to have four more children, making a total of eight.

A King in New York (1957)

 With A King in New York Charles Chaplin was the first film-maker to dare to expose, through satire and ridicule, the paranoia and political intolerance which overtook the United States in the Cold War years of the 1940s and 50s. Chaplin himself had bitter personal experience of the American malaise of that time.

To take up film making again, as an exile, was a challenging undertaking. He was now nearing 70. For almost forty years he had enjoyed the luxury of his own studio and a staff of regular employees, who understood his way of work. Now though he had to work with strangers, in costly and unfriendly rented studios. The film shows the strain.

 

A Countess from Hong Kong

 In 1966 he produced his last picture, “A Countess from Hong Kong” for Universal Pictures, his only film in colour, starring Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando. The film started as a project called Stowaway in the 1930s, planned for Paulette Goddard. Chaplin appears briefly as a ship steward, Chaplin’s son Sydney once again has an important role, and three of Chaplin’s daughters have small parts in the film. The film was unsuccessful at the box office, but Petula Clark had one or two hit records with songs from the soundtrack music and the music continues to be very popular.

 Chaplin’s versatility extended to writing, music and sports. He was the author of at least four books, “My Trip Abroad”, “A Comedian Sees the World”, “My Autobiography”, “My Life in Pictures” as well as all of his scripts. An accomplished musician, though self-taught, he played a variety of instruments with equal skill and facility (playing violin and cello left-handed).

He was also a composer, having written and published many songs, among them: “Sing a Song”; “With You Dear in Bombay”; and “There’s Always One You Can’t Forget”, “Smile”, “Eternally”, “You are My Song”, as well as the soundtracks for all his films. Charles Chaplin was one of the rare comedians who not only financed and produced all his films (with the exception of “A Countess from Hong Kong”), but was the author, actor, director and soundtrack composer of them as well.
He died on Christmas day 1977, survived by eight children from his last marriage with Oona O’Neill, and one son from his short marriage to Lita Grey.

2012 - so far it's been quite a year

I an off to a record start, in terms of movie watching this year, and so I am thrilled to share what I have seen, and also what I still hope to see.

Hunger Games

Dark Shadows

MIB3

Sherlock Holmes 2

Prometheus

Can I rank these, sure I can:

In order of best seen,

1. Prometheus
2. Avengers
3. Sherlock Holmes 2
4. Hunger Games
5. Men in Black 3
6. John Carter

Still to see are The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit and Dark Shadows.

Best Pix and Flix

True Grit was in my mind a better overall movie than Inception, and Inception is the best movie not named True Grit. 

So in the order of best I have seen, my top choices.

1. True Grit
2. Inception
3. The Town
4. Dinner for Schmucks
5. Toy Story 3
6. Social Network
7. Alice in Wonderland
8. Harry Potter 7
9. Date Night
10. Despicable Me

Did not see the King's Speech, looks boring, honestly, and will see Tron Legacy ( an eye candy special )

Best Movie of 2009

My choice has not wavered.





My opinion has not changed, and I have seen many moivies this year, and one has stuck with me for the past 6 months, and I cannot shake the images.



Kathryn Bigelow's dramatic look at US soldiers in war torn Iraq, searching for bombs, trying deactivate them, and how they try and handle the stress of their impossible situation. You keep expecting the inevitable, you sweat when they sweat, and you cannot help holding your breath.

The movie has a few 'name' actors sprinkled throught out the movie, such as Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, and TV veteran David Morse ( St Elsewhere, House, etc ). But the movie is dominated by the core group led by James Renner, and he singularly defines the essence of the American GI , part thrill seeker, part psychotic, part patriot.

To date it has picked up 5 critics awards, and id nominated currently for the Golden Globe where it's chief competition will be Nine and Up in the Air.

My other favorites this year are as follows;

Star Trek
Watchman
Up
Avatar
Zombieland

David Lean

After a what has been a very long break between blogs on my all time favorite comedies, I am changing directions to talk about a director whos work I have long admired.

For painting a canvas and delivering a sweeping epic, there is no equal. I give full marks to Cecil De Mille, and William Wyler, and John Ford, no one brought to the screen more majestic tapestries of visual and viceral beauty. With the best camer work, and the best musical score, and it helps having Maurice Jarre score your master works, or Bernstein, the stage is set.

Plus which, he drew out the very best in actors, and gave them the type of leeway to develop characters to their fullest. William Holden says his work on The Bridge on the River Kwai surpasses anything he did before or after. Peter O'Toole was a veritable unknown, and he owned every scene in Lawrence Of Arabia, not easy pitted with Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn or Jack Hawkins. Sharif was at his finest in Dr.Zhivago, and John Mills delivering an oscar performance in Ryan's daughter.

For all the acting nominations, what stands out is the way Lean makes use of the soundtrack and the landscapes, as if he was laying every brushstroke down himself.

It is as if he has this great visual in his mind, he sees O'Toole atop a train willing the Arabs to overthrow the Turks, and he just has to recreate that mental picture.

He was able to pull together all star casting in each movie , right up to A Passage to India.

Comedy tours America

# 19

Lost In America. A film about finding yourself through discovering your country at the same time. Married couple decides to become free and easy after Albert Brooks quits his job after turning 30 and realising he has not lived enough before settling down. He and wife Julie Haggerty buy a motor home, and begin a cross country search for inner youth.

The discover that they are really much safer and happier with their boring lives, but it takes losing their "nest egg" of savings in Las Vegas to bring them back to reality.

Brooks tries to convince Casino owner (Garry Marshall) that he would get huge publicity if he would give back the money his wife has gambled away. Marshall explains to Brooks the hard facts of life, and Brooks has go from odd job to odd job to make ends meet.

# 18

Animal House

The insides of college frat houses is explored with this all out assault on decency.

The gang is on double secret probation, oh that John Vernon, one mean Dean. Great cast with John Belushi hamming it up as the load-mouth Bluto. When the guys are down and out, what do they do, "Road Trip", escaping college reality, actual learning, and responsibility.

Numerous great gags pulled, and they are mostly directed at "The Establishment" and the elite students, both male and female, and no one is safe, not even the livestock !!

# 17
Blazing Saddles

Give Mel Brooks an inch, and he takes the entire wild wild west, and then makes it wilder. A true farce on the sheriff saving the town from extinction, as the good citizens of Rock Ridge are shocked that new sheriff Bart, played by Cleavon Little is a black man, but begin to see beyond his colour and work with him and fast gun Gene Wilder to thwart Harvey Korman and his collection of evil doers.
Great farce, and some real slapstick action, especially when the movie breaks onto the NBC back-lot and reality confronts lunacy.


# 16

My Cousin Vinny

What makes this movie worthy of the 16 slot is perhaps it's levels, and by that I mean we have the 2 young kids trying to understand why the justice system in the deep south does not resemble New York, or even New Jersey. They are mistaken for a robbery on the basis of a false identification and a similar looking car. Flimsy , and it would be easily turfed out in a New York minute, but this is not New York.

The other level this comedy hits is the age old struggle between male and female, (Marissa Tomei and Joe Pesci), and until Pesci hits his stride as smooth talking lawyer it is a he said she said cat fight for dominance. The supporting cast of Fred Gwynne as the southern judge who painfully deals with Pesci's foul mouth, his NY accent, and his choice of clothing add a lot of spark, as Pesci is not just battling for the 2 kids, or for his girlfriend, he is battling the judge, and hoping that the judge does not discover he has no license to practise law.

His "grit" analysis and Tomei's cross examination are likely the best scenes to watch.

The 2 Yutes ( what's a Yute asks Gwynne ) seem resigned to their fate, one lawyer who can't defend them, and one keeps getting contempt charges.'

Not your typical court room.