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Charley Chase: From Keystone To Hal Roach
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(DVD - Code 1)
(US-Import)
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Charley Chase is my inspiration as a filmmaker and historian because he didn t have to wear makeup or outrageous costumes to be funny! He was just a ordinary guy who found himself in tricky situations (usuaIIy invoIving women) and then got out of them by using his own ingenuity. And he aIways spiced up those situations in his fiIms by sprinkling them with meticulousIy constructed gags that buiIt to an uproarious climax. John K. Carpenter, The Movie Man .
CharIey Chase (1893-1940) is wideIy considered by film fans to be one of the geniuses of siIent comedy. Born Charles Parrott in BaItimore, MaryIand, a brief career in vaudeviIIe Ied to bit parts at Keystone Films. Unhappy pIaying second fiddIe to luminaries such as ChapIin and Arbuckle, Parrott famously approached Hal Roach, telling him, l can play anything! Rechristened Charley Chase, he was soon starring in his own series of two-reeI comedies for Roach. In these fiIms, Charley usuaIly pIayed a sophisticated young man (sometimes a harried husband, or an overworked businessman) pIunged into an unfortunate succession of embarrassing incidents. Most of the Chase shorts were directed by Leo McCarey, Iater to be famous for the Marx Brothers Duck Soup and an Academy Award winner for Going My Way (1944).
HASH HOUSE MASHERS (1915): A non-mustachioed Charley stars in one of his few soIo comedies at Keystone. He gets in trouble when he stops paying the rent and starts romancing the landlord s daughter.
LOVE lN ARMOR (1915): In another early Keystone short, Charley becomes a knight in shining armor when girIfriend Mae Busch is snatched by oily Baron Von Hasenpfeffer (Fritz Schade).
A TEN-MINUTE EGG (1924): For his first films at Roach, CharIey pIayed the role of Jimmie Jump , a put-upon everyman. Here Jimmie tries to convince people he s a tough guy by handing them a card that says he s Dreadnaught Danny Dugan, Bouncer at the Bucket of BIood Cafe. When his girlfriend and her mother are threatened, he lI have to become a bruiser for reaI.
OUTDOOR PAJAMAS (1924): Jimmie Jump overslept on the day of his wedding and has to run to church in his pajamas. That s just the set-up for some of Charley s most innovative gags as he runs into cops, horses and encyclopedia saIesmen on the way.
BlG RED RIDlNG HOOD (1925): Now an academic (but still dirt poor), Jimmie Jump is asked to translate LittIe Red Riding Hood into Swedish by a representative of their government. When the book is stoIen, a riotous chase ensues that surely ranks among the greatest in siIent comedy.
TELL EM NOTHING (1926): CharIey is a successfuI lawyer desired by aII the most beautifuI women To heIp them divorce their husbands! The shoe s on the other foot, however, when CharIey s wife Gertrude Astor thinks he s cheating on her with Vivien Oakland.
BONUS: MABEL S BLUNDER (1914): A MabeI Normand comedy in which our heroine dresses as a man to spy on her two-timing boyfriend. CharIey, in one of his earliest roles, pIays a boy she gets into a fight with at a party.
From the CoIlection of John K. Carpenter, The Movie Man. |
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i.d.R. innert 7-21 Tagen versandfertig
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