STRAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 331, 17 April 1928, Page 15

STRAND

CHARLIE IN “THE CIRCUS” Laughter is still the password at the Strand Theatre, where Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus” is enjoying a most triumphant season. Lay after day. and night after night, the popular Strand Theatre is filled to the utmost, with enthusiastic patrons, who leave, delighted with this latest and most laughable comedy of this great comedian. Abandoning symbolism and subtlety Charlie Chaplin offers broad comedy of the old days in ‘ The Circus. '

Chaplin, in the role of the tramp he has made familiar to the world, blunders into a shoddy circus and largely through accident becomes its star clown. In protecting the bareback rider from the brutality of her stepfather, “The Tramp” first pities and then loves the girl. Her admiration for “Rex,” the tight-rope walker, leads Charlie to practice rope-walking in secret, that he may win the admiration and perhaps love, of the girl. “Rex” rejoins the circus, and does his act with spectacular success, whereupon Charlie tries to outshine him.

This is the high light of the picture. Chaplin has never devised a scene in which comedy and pathos and the unexpected were more evident. The rope holding him becomes undone and he clowns in mid-air, unmindful of danger; monkeys swarm over him as he labours through his stunt, one of them getting his tail in ‘‘the tramp’s” mouth and nearly strangling him. But he finishes in a blaze of glory, mounts a bicycle and dashes down the inclified wire with such enthusiasm that he crashes through a building outside the tent. All this will never be forgotten. The conclusion of the picture is typically Chaplinesque. “The girl,” blissfully ignorant of “the tramp's* love, promises to continue with the circus if her stepfather will take “the tramp” back, but as she leaps into the wagon and is driven off with “Rex,” “the tramp” is unknowingly left behind, a pathetic, helpless little figure against a misty background of uninhabited space.

A picturesque British film, “Memories of the Old Country.” is also in- | eluded on the programme. ! Preceding the screening of the i photoplay is “The Tiny Tots’ Circus,” a miniature show, presented by the talented little pupils of Valeska. and introducing “Chaplin Junr.” and “Jumbo,” their intelligent beast. A delightful musical programme is rendered by the Strand Symphony Orchestra under the conductorship of Eve Bentley.