ABSTRACT
The silent clowns of yesterday were still popular, even in 1952, when James Anderson was preparing for cinema audiences a film devoted entirely to memories of the past. In Chaplin’s own words, the film was about ‘some of those Biblical people of the theatre, the simple, trusting children of God in a wild world’. It was a melodrama of tears, with only a little of the old Chaplin humour. As the scene was not scheduled for two weeks, Collie Knox— tremulous though proud—had to reject what he called his ‘first, and last, chance of screen immortality’. Many others there are, stretching back through the years of motion picture history, too many to remember. The figures at the back of the looking-glass watch silently, approvingly, as Chaplin pats back his white hair, and rising from his chair picks up his script.
