Epstein Strolls Memory Lane
Jeffrey Epstein takes a stroll down memory lane, wondering the halls of Hollywood, in a Tweet from The Redheaded Libertarian.
Call Me Stormy
Finding righteous currents in turbulent times
Archive for the tag “Charlie Chaplin”
Deceptions! Manipulations!
McAllister TV offers a chapter in a new video series focusing on Hollywood’s transgender deceptions. Here, we not only see Flip Wilson and Charlie Chaplin masquerading as women, but we come to understand how much Hollywood has peddled lies and misconceptions. “None of these people are who they say they are,” says Linda Paris, host of McAllister TV.
Also, the channel apologizes for jumping the gun and misrepresenting facts Friday on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. She says she was in a hurry, and distracted by other tasks, so she failed to accurately decipher some facts, some conjecture, relating to the conflict, specifically, involving Putin and his alleged handling of the Ukraine biolabs and biochemists.
We’ll give her credit. At least she owns up to her mistakes, unlike the fake news outlets, like CBS or USA Today, that consistently and routinely spread lies without ever confessing their duplicity.
Cell Phone in the Roaring ’20s
In the DVD’s extras of Charlie Chaplin’s legendary film The Circus, people were given access to photos of the premiere in 1928. Among the photos was a shot of a woman seemingly talking into a cellphone. Skeptics claimed it was just an earphone, but this doesn’t explain why the woman was laughing and talking into the device. Celebrated sci-fi filmmaker George Clarke chimed in, stating this was proof of time travelers. Check out nine other mysterious photos in this edition of Hybrid Librarian.
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Phantom of the Opera
Today’s Trillion $ Movie, Phantom of the Opera, is the signature film of Lon Chaney, “The Man of a Thousand Faces.” Both of his parents were deaf and mute, so Chaney developed uncanny, non-verbal communication skills, rivaling comedians Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin as the silent era’s most expressive pantomime. Making the most of his mastery of makeup, Chaney gravitated toward horror. He personally created the hideous, skeletal look of the Phantom he portrays here. The original came out in 1925, but this trimmed-down 1929 restoration is less clunky, with fewer distracting sideplots.
Owing to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, and scores of remakes and parodies, most everyone knows the story. A physically deformed, emotionally stunted beast dwells in the catacombs below the Parisian Opera House. The arrival of a radiant understudy named Christine (Mary Philbin) brings the Phantom out from the shadows. He dotes obsessively on her, and is determined to make her a star. But he also wants her as a lover — a prospect that repulses her no end, leading to great melodrama and tragedy.
Although newer versions have boasted more gore and special effects, the Chaney classic remains the definitive screen adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s Gothic tale. It’s not just his macabre performance that towers above all others, but also the spectacular sets — the eight-ton chandelier, subterranean torture chambers and hidden lairs — that still command our attention.
The feature racked up $2 million at the box office, such a boffo hit that its studio, Universal Pictures, became Hollywood’s horror specialists. Truly, without Phantom of the Opera, we might not have Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man or The Invisible Man. Enjoy, and do return again next Friday for another Trillion $ Movie.
