BOOKS

‘Indifferent Horseman’ scrubs

whitewash off a great writer

LERIDGE had one of the most

- active, ingenious and profound
brains ever to inhabit the thick
skull of an Englishman. And he
was a poet of tremendous power
—The Ancient Mariner is proof
of that.

- By temperament he needed a
society which would encourage
his great powers and employ
them usefully. But he had the
misfortune to live at a time which,
in the words of Karl Marx, was
“the most reactionary epoch of
English history.”

The Tories were trying to blot
out English liberty. Trade unions
‘were illegal, police spies ranged
everywhere, and the great indus-
trial cities were a hell upon
earth for the working class.

The government even set a
police spy to watch Samuel Tay-
jor Coleridge, the poet. They
saw in him a young man who had
lectured the staid businessmen of
Bristol, trying to arouse their
enthusiasm for the French Revo-
lution, and persuading them to
reSist attacks on liberty and op-
Pose war against the French.

‘The Tories made’ extraordinary

IE Chaplin once explain-

‘ed why he would not drop an
ice cream down the back of a
poor housewife in one of his
films.

It would not be amusing, he
maintained, because poverty is
not amusing, and the audience
would probably sympathise with
the unfortunate woman.

With a rich woman it would be
a different matter.

“To let ice cream fall down a
_ rich woman’s neck is, in the pub-
lic opinion, to let-her have what
she deserves,” said Chaplin.
‘This conversation is recalled by
the veteran British film-producer
R. J. Minney, a personal friend of
Chaplin’s, in Chaplin the Imortal
Tramp. ; 3

Perhaps that idea in varying
degrees and different forms is
the one that has dominated his
work. To ridicule luxury, pomp,
false dignity and bigotry is his
aim. :

In developing as an artist he
has done it with a greater subtle-
ty than dropping ices down rich
Jadies’ backs — but the basic idea
remains. :

It is this that has endeared him
to ordinary people throughout the
' world. He is in the great tradi-
tion of the folklore hero, who can
‘tilt at authority and always get
‘away with it.

efforts to intimidate, buy or break
the intellectuals who opposed
tyranny and war.

Some of the tncorists of ro-
manticism and human emancipa-

tion succumbed — Wordsworth.

took a soft job, Southey became
an apologist for the government.

Those like Hazlitt and Blake
who remained true to ideas of
human progress had to live from
hand to mouth, while the turn-
coats prospered. And the future
looked hopeless.

oa seca 3

In The Indifferent Horseman,
Maurice Carpenter shows vividly
how Coleridge himself confronted
this situation.

His was the tragedy of a mag-
nificent brain and powerful
imagination directed by an irreso-
lute will — his lack of resolve
matching the mood of the class
which he had urged to political
action. :

His glorious dreams of a hu-
man commonwealth could not be
realized in actual life—which, on
the contrary ,became daily more
hellish. past

The dreams existed only inside

A generation of film-goers has
grown up which knows the orig-
inal Charlie CHaplin (baggy
trousers, bowler hat and cane per-
iod) only as a legend.

They have seen him as the

suave lover in‘Monsieur Verdoux -

or the pathetic clown in Lime-
light during the full flowering of
his artistic genius. The “little
man” they know only through all

‘too rare re-issues.

Yet the “little man” is the es-
sential Chaplin, who must be seen
and enjoyed before the true fla-
vor of his humor can be ‘appreci-
ated.

At the end of this month Mod-
ern Times—the last film in which
he wore his bowler hat and bag-
gy trousers — is to be re-issued.
Minney’s book is a useful “trail-
er” to this and the other early
Chaplin films.

Minney tells in fascinating de-
tail the stories of these early
films in an effort to find the es-
sence of Chaplin’s humor. He
leaves it to Charlie himself to
explain what his art attempts.

With over 120 photographs
from Chaplin’s* great films, it is

a book for those who want to un-

derstand the boy from Bermond-
sey (for Minney claims he was
not. born in Kennington) who be-
came the star of all the world.
—LEON GRIFFITHS.

hero.

the poet’s head, and Coleridge fed
them with opium to keep them
alive’ and glowing when the hope
of .ever bringing them to pass
had faded.

When the opium had sapped
his moral strength he wavered
and compromised in minor ways.
Yet day after day he kept. his
brain at work, now furiously, now
more sluggishly.

His was the back-sliding hero-
ism of the well-intentioned weak
man who is not cut out go be a
The “strong” men of his
day, turncoats who looked down
their noses at Coleridge because
of his opium addiction, appear
in the end to have done less for
human progress.

Carpenter, a poet writing with
sympathy and insight of another
poet, gives a living picture of
the man himself, by weaving to-
gether the known facts in a way
that plausibly account for all. of
them.

The Indifferent Horseman
scrubs the disfiguring whitewash
off a great Englishman. It should
be in every library.

*—JACK BEECH.

His formula for laughs-ice cream
down a rich woman's neck —

CHARLIE CHAPLIN

Torn perforations cut value

'ANADA is said to have. the
‘highest proportion of stamp
collectors of any country in the
sworld. But even those Pacific
Tribune readers who don’t know
anything about philately can get
‘jp on the stamp collecting game.
‘: The PT has ‘been asking its

readers for several vears to save.

Stamps off their mail and send
them to the paper. Although
‘they may be sometimes of little

value, they can be sold in bulk
“ ‘and the money applied to ‘the
paper’s Sustaining Fund.

Here’s a memo to those read-
ers: Handle stamps with. care.
Postage stamps are fragile and

easily damaged. Rough handling |

can cut the value of a stamp in
half. F

Bent or ‘torn perforations -

around the edge of the stamp are
one of the chief forms of damage.
Perforations are of great import-
ance to the future value of the
stamp.

Best rule to follow if you are
Sending in stamps to the paper:
Don’t try to take the stamp off the

envelope or wrapper. Cut around
iv with the scissors, being care-
ful not to cut the perforations.

Stamps pictured are two recent
Swedish issues,

'

!

Many flags have played a living role in Canadian history. Above
is shown the flag the Patriotes fought under at St. Eustache during
the Rebellion of 1837. It displays a branch of maple and a fish.

No cliche left unturned

in intontile

PJOLLYWOOD may be losing its
grip in many directions, but
in one department of film enter-
tainment it still’reigns supreme.
Nobody else can make a film sa
richly and magnificently absurd.

Only in Hollywood will they
assemble enough technical and
artistic resources for the making
of a major drama — and then
turn out something that a child
of ten would find embarrassingly
infantile.

Adults are likely to find Johnny
Guitar hilarious. It tells of a lady
in black sweater and tights, . by
the name of Vienna, who owns
a saloon and gambling joint miles
from anywhere in the wilds of
Arizona. ’

Naturally customers are few.
but Vienna — it is our indomit-
able, long-suffering friend Joan
Crawford—caleulates that when
the railway arrives a new town
will be built on her land and
she’ll be rich.

Upon this scene there enters a
tall man with a guitar whom
none but the most unexperienced
fiimgoer will take to be anything
but a gunfighter who has laid up
his pistols. He is followed by .a
quartet of silver miners led by
one of Joan’s ex-boy friends and
a posse of heavy-breathing: citi-
zens: led ‘by a feuding’ woman
bank proprietor.

The guitar player, having an-
noyed the locals by playing his
instrument, is: soon much’ too
busily engaged in fisticuffs, trick
shooting, ‘reviving an old love
affair with Joan, cutting her down
from a lynching rope at the last
moment, escaping with her from
the burning ‘saloon,- getting in-
volved in a shooting match and
similar chores to have any time
for music, and we never see the
guitar after the opening scenes.

The silver miners turn bad, the

‘posse of citizens turn mean, and

the mad woman bank president
finally shoots it out with Joan.

With her big red mouth and.

tigress eyes, Joan Crawford do-
minates the film as magnificently

as ever. Her arrogance when the.

mob arrives to find her in a white
ball dress playing a contemplative
number at the piano is superb.

The look of concentrated con-
tempt with which she surveys the
posse never varies, even when she
is trussed up on a horse, still in
her white ball dress, with a rope
around her neck awaiting lynch-
ing. No wonder the embarrassed
character who adjusts the rope
explains: “This isn’t my idea, Vi
enna!” : i

The dialogue throughout is of
the basic kind that the average
film-goer can supply for himself
about 20 seconds before the char-
acters get round to delivering it,
which they mostly do after long,
heavy pauses. ;

gE 8
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JULY 9, 1954 — PAGF

western

Old Tom, the aged retainer, -
found dead after trying to sho?
it out instead of escaping. !
all know there is only one thine
to say in, such circumstances:
Sure enough, after a suitab®
pause, Joan mutters throatily:
“Why did you do it, Tom?”

JOAN. CRAWFORD. '
The wild, wild west

Sometimes, however, the iat
logue has a touch of inspiral”
As when one evil character, ihe
ing knifed his comrade 1
back, observes more in S0
than in anger: “Some people
won’t listen.” awo-

eset by lunch-mobs, m@ i
men, discarded lovers, and 4 é é
ration of shooting and purma
Joan never loses her poise 0% ”~
dress sense. Her ball dress ese
inspired idea of what the W uid
dressed saloon kéeper shot
wear to her lynching. Me-

Sterling Hayden, Mercedes ©
Cambridge, Scott Brady, dine
Borgnine and John Carra vad
give this piece of highly colo ap
nonsense much better acting eR
it deserves—THOMAS SPENC™

United Labor

SUNDAY, AUG. 8

just

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