Clowns

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David Denton
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Clowns

Postby David Denton » Fri May 17, 2013 12:03 am

A week or so back I posted, on N-Ville, a German musical from 1943 that starred Charlie Rivel, legendary Spanish clown. His performance is almost entirely non-verbal, so in essence, he's a silent clown ( in a sound film). Not in the Walter Kerr sense, but an actual clown. I've talked with some of the comedy gurus in the past and we've come up with a few who were clowns before they entered film (not always in the circus).

So far:

John Lancaster, worked at Selig, starting with the Katzenjammer Kids, was a "Master" clown
Frank "Spook" Hanson, supported Pokes and Jabbs, Hardy and Ruge at VIM
Harry LaPearl, had a series at MinA, supported Mae Marsh in POLLY OF THE CIRCUS
Toto (Armando Novello), we saw one of his Roach's at Slapsticon
Joe Jackson, a few films at Sennett or Triangle Keystone or whatever it was called @1916
Poodles Hanneford, the cream of Weiss Brothers (was he a horse clown?)
Grock, a Swiss clown, one of his films from 1926, is at LOC

Ford Sterling was Keno the boy-clown, does that count?
Wallace Beery started with the circus, did he clown, or just follow the elephants?
Did Marceline ever make any films? All I know is that he performed at the Hippodrome and died in 1927

If interested, here's the link for AKROBAT SCHO-O-ON with Charlie Rivel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om2wLrBfXV0

Ed Watz
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Re: Clowns

Postby Ed Watz » Fri May 17, 2013 4:35 am

I believe Mark Jones (who appeared in mid-twenties Roach silents and starred in the excellent Educational short FAMILY LIFE) had previously been a circus clown. He's very funny in Stan Laurel's MAN ABOUT TOWN as a cross-eyed barber whose parter is George Rowe -- 'nuff said. Jones was a small comic, but with a comedy scowl to rival Eric Campbell.
"Of course he smiled -- just like you and me." -- Harold Goodwin, on Buster Keaton (1976)

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Clowns

Postby Richard M Roberts » Fri May 17, 2013 5:23 am

Ed Watz wrote:I believe Mark Jones (who appeared in mid-twenties Roach silents and starred in the excellent Educational short FAMILY LIFE) had previously been a circus clown. He's very funny in Stan Laurel's MAN ABOUT TOWN as a cross-eyed barber whose parter is George Rowe -- 'nuff said. Jones was a small comic, but with a comedy scowl to rival Eric Campbell.



Mark Jones is one of the great unsung supporting comedians and a terrific acrobat, who does some absolutely breathtaking somersaults in Roach shorts like LOOKING FOR TROUBLE (1919) with Snub Pollard, and THE SLEUTH (1922) with Paul Parrott (he also plays the acrobat Harold Lloyd hires to fake falls on the street so he can send people to Mildred Davis's Chiropractor boss).

Has anybody ever found out for sure what happened to Jones? He seems to dissapear from films around 1925 ane he died in 1965. I always had a feeling he returned to the Circus, but have never found anything concrete.

Chester Conklin also started out as a Clown I believe, didn't Clark and McCullough as well?



RICHARD M ROBERTS

Steve Massa
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Re: Clowns

Postby Steve Massa » Fri May 17, 2013 11:09 pm

Rube Miller had also been a circus clown. He started at Keystone in 1912 and eventually directed there as well as acted in 1914. After that he moved on to Kriterion, Kalem, Vogue, and L-KO, plus can be spotted as support in shorts such as Arbuckle's BACK STAGE ('19) and Billy West's A ROLLING STONE ('19). After 1920 or 1921 he disappears from films and may have returned to the circus world.

Uli Ruedel
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Re: Clowns

Postby Uli Ruedel » Sun May 19, 2013 6:52 am

The Rivel film (available on DVD in Germany) is also intriguing as its finale records the trapeze act which originated as Rivel's acclaimed Chaplin impersonation -- here, for obvious reasons, without the Chaplin costume. Here's a description I found the other day, from when he presented the tramp trapeze routine in London after WWII:

Then follows something that is a good deal more than just "ingenious" - Charlie Rivels takes the air as Charlie Chaplin. Fighting a losing war of movement against his trapeze, Rivels looks the picture of insufficiently-prehensile Man falling continually between two stools; the pathetic embodiment of a human race caught perpetually with its pants down. Finally, with fists on his fingers and gloves on his toes, he rides a vertical ladder out of the ring, whacking his own buttock with his cane, so's to get just that little bit of extra pace out of the ladder.

(Picture Post, January 11, 1947)

As to clowns in comedy, always worth mentioning Pierre Étaix in this context, whose path was the opposite one - from 'silent' comedy auteur to circus clown - and who counts Rivel as his mentor. Both Étaix and Rivel (as well as the brilliant and enchanting Victoria Chaplin & Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée) are in Fellini's Clowns, by the way.

Re. the great Grock, he starred in three features -- and his 1931 talkie feature used to available on DVD in two alternate language versions, French and German.

Uli

Rob King
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Re: Clowns

Postby Rob King » Sun May 19, 2013 11:54 am

Following on from Ulli's point: were there other comedians who followed Étaix's passage from film comedy to circus?

I was posed this question a few months ago and didn't have a satisfactory answer. I pointed to Buster Keaton's circus appearances in France in the 1940s, touched on Poodles Hanneford as a famous trick rider who starred in some Weiss Bros. shorts in the midst of a significant circus career. But that was about it.

Still, I wonder if there might be a more substantial pattern here, especially in the US during the 1930s. With the notable exceptions of, say, RKO and Columbia many of the major studio short subject depts were cutting back their 2-rl slapstick product lines from mid-decade on. And Educational wasn't exactly thriving in its relation with Fox. Might the circus have provided opportunities for comedians finding dwindling opportunities for work in short subjects?

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Clowns

Postby Richard M Roberts » Sun May 19, 2013 12:12 pm

Rob King wrote:Following on from Ulli's point: were there other comedians who followed Étaix's passage from film comedy to circus?

I was posed this question a few months ago and didn't have a satisfactory answer. I pointed to Buster Keaton's circus appearances in France in the 1940s, touched on Poodles Hanneford as a famous trick rider who starred in some Weiss Bros. shorts in the midst of a significant circus career. But that was about it.

Still, I wonder if there might be a more substantial pattern here, especially in the US during the 1930s. With the notable exceptions of, say, RKO and Columbia many of the major studio short subject depts were cutting back their 2-rl slapstick product lines from mid-decade on. And Educational wasn't exactly thriving in its relation with Fox. Might the circus have provided opportunities for comedians finding dwindling opportunities for work in short subjects?


No pattern as the ones who were clowns returned to being clowns in the 20's rather than the 30's.

And Educational was doing just fine in it's relation with Fox, what hurt it was becoming a part of the whole Grand National fiasco. That brought everything down. If they had remained supplying product through Fox, Educational would probably have survived into the 1940's.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Rob King
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Re: Clowns

Postby Rob King » Sun May 19, 2013 1:45 pm

Re. Educational: granted that the Grand National fiasco was the death-dealing blow. But I wonder whether the distribution deal with Fox perhaps failed to yield the kind of advantages that Hammons had presumably expected - specifically, the kind of access to top-of-the-line first-run theaters that Educational had enjoyed before the major studios had all started jumping into short-subject production.

To judge, for instance, from the Herald's "Short Subjects on Broadway" listings: there's a brief spike in Educational's presence in NY theaters following the deal with Fox, but it just as immediately evaporates. (Admittedly, though, this isn't the strongest evidence, since NY wasn't a Fox stronghold. Still, it's notable, I think, that Fox and Fox-affiliated theaters don't show a very sustained commitment to Educational product in the NY area.)

But back to the issue: what was the pattern of "clowns returned to being clowns" in the 1920s? David Denton's original post seemingly suggests that "hiring and firing" period for clowns in the film industry was primarily during the 1910s, with people like Toto, Joe Jackson, etc., signed for brief periods and then not working out.

Uli Ruedel
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Re: Clowns

Postby Uli Ruedel » Sun May 19, 2013 2:46 pm

For what it's worth, Harald Madsen (Patachon) did return to circus clowning as well, after comic partner Carl Schenström (Pat) had died -- but from documentation I've found, in the early 40s appeared as the popular comedy team character rather than as a typical circus clown. Not sure about his later tours referenced in the obituary here though:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RUUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT57&lpg=PT57&dq=harald+madsen+circus&source=bl&ots=ENL6MakY5B&sig=JsteslrrQV7HllnssXmK_ZgTHsQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ryGZUd_-OrOg0wWbtoCYBQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBA.
And, of course, there was a later attempt to team him up with another tall partner, as Calle & Palle, in film later on.

I suspect we have a tendency to see the worlds of film, stage, music hall/vaudeville and circus too much as if they were entirely separate realms. Grock, for instance, launched his international career largely as a music hall clown. And Étaix started as illustrator and gag-man before becoming the great comic auteur, but has professed he always loved the circus, from his childhood days - and after a 2010-12 music hall tour (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVScaCb6ATc), he returned to the circus arena as recently as the last holiday season. The excellent 2011 documentary Clowns by Yves Riou & Philippe Pouchain tries to look at clowns and comedians across all these different worlds, and addresses everyone from Dan Leno and Grock to the great slapstick film comedians -- but, for instance, of course does emphasize Keaton's Medrano appearances and Laurel and Hardy's music hall tours in the process.

Speaking of Keaton's Medrano routine -- any news or clues as to the whereabouts of Un duel à mort (1952)?

Uli

David Denton
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Re: Clowns

Postby David Denton » Mon May 20, 2013 12:10 am

Rob,

I didn't mean to suggest any time frame in particular, nor to attach any success/failure label to anyone mentioned. They were the folks I thought of at the time, and my favorite period of film is 1909-1921. It was more of a 'what do you know about that?' kind of thing. I had assumed that for the still active clowns/circus folk, they made movies in the off-season to stay busy, and then returned to the arena/road for the rest of the year. It may also have been a form of promotion. For those who did not have sustained film careers, maybe it was just as much about comfort levels, language barriers and shooting out of sequence as their film personality establishing rapport with an audience. Perhaps their vagabond natures found it hard to remain in one place.

Ulli,

Pat and Patachon are a 'holy grail' for me. I've only seen a few clips on you-tube; I'm surprised that more has not shown up, even on European Film Gateway or the now-defunct Europa Film Treasures. The clip from 'William Tell Jr.' was very amusing and I know it's just a matter of time until I see more of them. Actually, it was talking with you at an early Slapsticon that I found out LOC had the Grock film (WHAT FOR?), and I watched it the next year.


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