Poster Artwork for Boudu Saved From Drowning

Whatever you’ve heard about the French cinema’s New Wave, the truth is that the real Golden Age of French cinema was a period between 1929 and 1939. It was bookended by the advent of sound at the cinema and the outbreak of World War II. The men (for they were always men) who heralded this age were Jean Vigo, Marcel Carné and Jean Renoir whose magnificent 1937 war satire La Grande Illusion is out this year for its 75^th anniversary (one month before ITV/Park Circus’ timely rerelease of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, its closest British equivalent). But for every pompous general there should always be an anarchic tramp and for Renoir, this benighted incarnation came years before in his remarkable 1932 class war comedy Boudu Saved From Drowning.

Set in and around Paris, Boudu Saved From Drowning tells the story of a Parisian tramp Boudu (played by the physically gifted Michel Simon), who is pulled out of the Seine by a bourgeois bookseller Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval) after a suicidal plunge. Boudu is brought into Lestingois’ home, a rambling maze-like Left Bank apartment, which overlooks the river. Lestingois, his wife and maid/mistress (Séverine) adopt Boudu as their underprivileged pet in an attempt to reform him from his scruffiness and social ineptitude. However, his gratitude for this sees him shake the household to its foundations, challenging their meaningless principles from conventional society and then seducing both women with his anarchic charm.

Boudu is a defiant farce, one driven by the ferocity of Simon’s characterisation and Renoir’s mise-en-scène. Simon was given free reign for his character’s portrayal and the result is pure chaos. Boudu is someone who does not belong in the city, especially not within the confines of a book-filled apartment (one scene portrays Boudu spitting into a book by legendary French novelist Balzac, epitomising the difference between his values and those of the bourgeois Lestingois – this was also a previously lost scene restored in Park Circus’ DVD and Blu-ray issue). Renoir’s skills lie best in his eye for detail and depth of field when using the camera. There are scenes within scenes here and a layering that engrosses you as a spectator and in this case, brilliantly demonstrates Boudu’s claustrophobia as someone who should be out in the open.

There is a great contrast in the way Renoir films his central character in Lestingois’ narrow apartment or in the bustling streets of Paris to when Boudu traipses around parks and the countryside seemingly freer and more content. Similarly to the recently praised Le Quattro Volte (2010), this is a spiritual film about a man more at ease surrounded by water, pastures and animals, not humans and an ironically disruptive city atmosphere.

There can be little doubt that Renoir was influenced by his impressionist painter father Pierre-Auguste in creating films where actors and objects were placed with precision. In a film with such a vivacious actor as Michel Simon, the blend of this measured approach to one that is unpredictable marries fantastically well.

Much copied but never bettered Boudu Saved From Drowning remains an early gem from Renoir’s esteemed oeuvre and offers light relief to his other more dramatic works from the period (Renoir did though always maintain a tone of optimism in his films). On its 80^th anniversary, this is one title worth storing in your collection or one to watch out for in cinemas near you this year.

Boudu Saved From Drowning is now available to download from iTunes and is available on both DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.

James Frain as Jean Vigo

Cinema’s current climate is undoubtedly at the mercy of new and exciting technologies, yet the international success of The Artist and Hugo bears witness to a dynamic nostalgia in audiences and filmmakers. Fascination with the magic found in early cinema is nothing new and there is no one more magical than Jean Vigo. His 1934 masterwork L’Atalante has just been re-released by the British Film Institute. Having made a grand total of four films, any self- respecting cineaste knows that Vigo is still, and always will be, one of greatest filmmakers of all time, with both L’Atalante and Zéro de conduite, in particular, standing out as exceptional examples of the craft. It wasn’t for nothing that legendary film preservationist and archivist Henri Langlois went on record to state: ‘Vigo is cinema incarnate in one man.’

It is with this in mind that Park Circus wishes to reintroduce you to Julien Temple’s 1998 biopic Vigo – Passion for Life. What makes Vigo’s frustratingly limited filmography intriguing is the tragic backdrop of his life. Temple’s passion for Vigo the man and his art shine through.

The film begins in a tuberculosis sanatorium surrounded by a beautiful mountainous landscape in the south of France. The son of a neglectful mother and a Catalan anarchist father (named Almereyda, an anagram of ‘y’a la merde’, literally meaning ‘there is shit’) Vigo’s lonely childhood is laid bare in Temple’s film as we witness the early stages of an illness that will become a fatal condition that ultimately affected his filmmaking. What follows is an intense, romantic and energetic account of Vigo and of those around him. From his brittle yet passionate relationship and marriage with the wonderfully named Lydu (pronounced lee-doo) to his collaborators Boris Kaufman (cinematographer who later won an Oscar for On the Waterfront and who is the brother of Dziga Vertov who made the influential Man with a Movie Camera) and composer Maurice Jaubert, the film’s evocation of the bohemian existence is both romantic, nostalgic and immensely fitting.

The magic behind the camera

Vigo’s life was fraught with the difficulties of containing and treating his disease yet during this film and his life there was an unerring passion that can only inspire cinephiles and filmmakers alike. Lindsay Anderson, Bernardo Bertolucci, François Truffaut and Jean Renoir (whose work Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932) stars the anarchic and effervescent Michel Simon that later starred in Vigo’s L’Atalante) have all been influenced by Jean Vigo. More precisely, Vigo was the main precursor to poetic realism and had a posthumous influence on France’s New Wave cinema, as themes of rebellion and youth were picked up again.

There are many reasons to fall in love with the cinema of Jean Vigo and ultimately it is his slim oeuvre that stands as his true testaments. Where Temple’s work succeeds is in his warm portrayal of the director and his life’s story and in his representation of the magic Vigo created behind the camera, and in the editing suite. Take one scene from Zéro de conduite, a film set in a boarding school where authority is challenged and youthful playfulness is wonderfully personified by children Vigo hand-picked from the streets of Paris. The scene has the boys start a pillow fight in their dormitory. Kaufman then plays back the film in order to create a dream-like sequence that stays with you forever. Composer Jaubert accentuates the trance-like scene by playing the music backwards at the same time. This fun, innovative and influential scene in cinema history is wisely represented by Temple in the film.

Jean Vigo died from rheumatic septicemia at the age of just 29 on 5 October 1934. He leaves a legacy of films that reflect a young imagination full of ideas and innovation. There are not many who managed to bring so much magic to the screen and through such a personal yet immediately relatable message. Vigo – Passion for Life stands as an excellent reminder of a very individual talent whose passion for the magic of cinema is what we at Park Circus remain dedicated to.

Vigo – Passion for Life is available to book theatrically and is available on DVD from Amazon.

The links in this article relate to titles available for theatrical booking through Park Circus.

Our 70th Anniversary Casablanca Poster

Here’s a lovely retro treat for fans of Casablanca, the greatest love story ever told, which Park Circus is reissuing in selected cinemas from Friday 10 February 2012. What follows is an original press release for the imminent release of Casablanca back in January 1942. Written in a rich, highly charged style that signals urgency and a sense of just how important this film is going to be, these notes make fascinating reading. They certainly don’t write ‘em like this anymore. We have not doctored this document, everything is as it would have looked back in those war-torn days, including a few typos. Enjoy and remember to revisit this great film at the cinema for Valentine’s Day this year.

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CAYNE DEXTER            DIRECTOR OF PUBLICITY

PAT O’CONNOR

REFUGEES ESCAPED FROM GESTAPO IN CASABLANCA AND BROUGHT ITS STORY TO SCREEN

Rush Release Ordered for Timely Warner Picture Throughout World. Dual

Premiere for “Casablanca” at Warner and Regal Theatres, London, Friday, January 15, 1942

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While Lisbon has always worn the dress-suit of international intrigue or the fairy godmother’s gossamer of escape, according to whether you’re a foreign agent doing a spot of dirty work or a Nazi-hunted fugitive seeking freedom overseas, the roundabout road to Lisbon is dotted with strange stopping-places.

Throughout three years of war many eyes in imprisoned Europe have turned towards that great embarkation point — the Needle’s Eye to the Americas; but not everybody could get to Lisbon directly. So a tortuous refugee trail sprang up: Paris to Marseille, across the Mediterranean to Oran, then by train, car or foot around the rim of North Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here money, influence or luck secured exit permits for the fortunate ones who hurried on to Lisbon and from there to the new world. The others could only wait in Casablanca and hope.

Their numbers grew to thousands as the Axis strengthened its grip on Europe. Political fugitives, escapees from German concentration camps, members of the underground movements of all Occupied countries were dammed up. With the connivance of Vichy the Gestapo chose its prey.

Victims were surrendered and dragged back to Dachau or tossed into savage internment in the desert. A black market trafficked in forged visas at fantastic prices. Czechs, Dutch, Norwegians, anti-Nazis operated secretly to smuggle their leaders away and checkmate the Axis by counter-espionage. The psalm of life contained all the discords of danger, despair and double-cross, yet Casablanca held no more dramatic value than a thousand other border towns until a few fugitive artists wriggled through to the outside world.

Eventually they reached America. The international swarm of writers and players in Warner Bros. studios heard bits of their tale and word was passed along to Jack L. Warner and his associate producer Hal B. Wallis. They seized on the idea and location as something new. Action followed fast.

Three ace scenarists, Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, who gathered the material and wrote the script for ”Sergeant York,” were assigned to track the story down. Michael Curtiz, who had just finished “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” was called in to direct. Then backing their judgement of screen values with the highest sum allocated for any production in 1942, Warner splurged on stars – Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre all in one cast.

That was last July. When production started Casablanca meant so little on the map that the first publicity stories had to explain where and what it was. Four months later Casablanca shot into the headlines of the world, and on the very day that the American Expeditionary Force marched in, the Hollywood laboratories were delivering to Warner Bros. the first prints of their latest picture — “Casablanca.”

Call it producer’s sixth sense, or call it his incredible good luck — it’s what makes show-business, just the same.

Because of its timeliness, release of “Casablanca” has been marked urgent in every country where Warner Bros. operate. Air-borne prints have gone throughout the world. In London it will have a simultaneous premiere at the Warner and Regal Theatres on Friday January 15 — the first time these two cinemas have played a picture concurrently. Provincial centres will follow immediately. But even without its added force of topicality, Warners still would have an outstanding picture in this drama of a hunted woman and six desperate men who keep a date with destiny in Casablanca.

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Some Like it Hot - The End Credits

We hope you all enjoyed taking part in our 2011 Park Circus Christmas Quiz. It was certainly fun making it and there were great numbers participating. With the winners to be announced, here are the answers as promised!

1) White Christmas (Michael Curtiz, 1954)

2) The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)

3) Dr No (Terence Young, 1962)

4) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)

5) Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)

6) Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thomson, 1961)

7) The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)

8) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

9) From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann, 1953)

10) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1948)

11) It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)

12) Mean Streets (Martin Scorsese, 1973)

13) For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1967)

14) From Russia with Love (Terence Young, 1963)

15) Charade(Stanley Donen, 1963)

16) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

17) Black Narcissus (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1947)

18) Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)

19) Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette) (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)

20) The Bishop’s Wife (Henry Koster, 1947)

There we are, the wait is finally over! We hope you had a great year in 2011 and, with lots to look back on fondly, have a read of our Review of the Year on this very blog. We welcome your pick of these Park Circus releases, and in the mean time, happy 2012!

The African Queen

Park Circus had a fantastic year in 2011. Between the acclaim that greeted the cinematic returns of The African Queen and Taxi Driver and the ghoulish goings on in 1980s New York in Ghostbusters we just couldn’t stop putting classic gold back in cinemas. Before we move forward into what promises to be another killer year with the 70^th anniversary re-release of Casablanca, the complete digital restoration of Powell and Pressburger’s wartime masterpiece The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and the original and best tragic cruiser movie, A Night to Remember – let us pause a moment to glance back.

In 2011 Park Circus was very proud to become Miramax Films international library distributor and also to extend our relationship with MGM to handle their catalogue internationally. We also put these amazing films back in cinemas, each one looking as good as ever:

The African Queen (John Huston, 1951)

Man of Aran (Robert Flaherty, 1934)

The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Cutter’s Way (Ivan Passer, 1981)

Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)

Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)

West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961)

La Piscine (Jacques Deray, 1969)

Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman, 1984)

The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978)

Hannah and Her Sisters (Woody Allen, 1986)

Zelig (Woody Allen, 1983)

La Piscine

If that wasn’t enough the good folk at Park Circus Towers toiled night and day to bring you the very best classic cinema on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2011 Park Circus restored and reissued the following on DVD and Blu-ray:

The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway, 1996)

Der Rosenkavalier (Paul Czinner, 1962)

Boudu Saved From Drowning (Jean Renoir, 1932)

Orphans (Peter Mullan, 1998)

Man of Aran (Robert Flaherty, 1934)

The Phantom of the Opera (Rupert Julian, 1925)

Taking Off (Milos Forman, 1971)

Charade (Stanley Donen, 1963)

Charlie Chaplin The Collection (Various, Various)

La Piscine (Jacques Deray, 1969)

Finally 2011 was also the year Park Circus launched this blog page to give exhibitors and fans of classic cinema a little bit extra. In 2012 we hope the Park Circus blog and website will grow and blossom into a thing of great beauty and usefulness. As a bit of fun we asked some of the contributors to the Park Circus blog in 2011 to list their favourite films of last year:

Jonathan Melville (Blog editor and writer from February-November 2011)

1. Deep End (BFI) Forgotten 1970 British drama from Jerzy Skolimowski resurfaced on Blu-ray in 2011.

2. Black Pirate (Park Circus) Douglas Fairbanks’ 1926 epic arrived on DVD and proved that action films don’t need 3D or CGI to entertain.

3. I Went Down (Touchstone) Set in Dublin’s seedy underworld, the real crime at the centre of Paddy Breathnach’s I Went Down is why it’s taken 14 years to arrive on DVD.

4. Harakiri (Masters of Cinema) Masaki Kobayashi’s 1962 film finds an ex-Samurai asking if he can commit suicide in the courtyard of a rich clan.

5. His Kind of Woman (Odeon) John Farrow’s 1951 feature is part film noir and part noir-spoof, and I’m still not sure which part I enjoyed most.

Matt Palmer (Screenwriter and curator of Psychotronic cinema events)

I’ve got a lot of films from late 2011 to catch up on. In terms of what I’ve seen I only have a Top 2.

1. Drive (Icon)

2. Cutter’s Way (Park Circus)

Eddie Harrison (Screenwriter, film critic and communications officer at the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival)

1. Drive (Icon)

2. Taxi Driver (Park Circus)

3. Bridesmaids (Universal)

4. Black Swan (20th Century Fox)

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Studio Canal)

Ian Hoey (Writer and critic)

1.    Drive (Icon)

2.    Hobo With A Shotgun (Momentum)

3.    Submarine (Optimum)

4.    Essential Killing (Artificial Eye)

5.    Taking Off (Park Circus)

Taxi Driver

Jack Bell (Park Circus multi-tasker, lover of all things French)

1. The Tree of Life (2oth Century Fox)

2. Midnight in Paris (Warner)

3. The Last Picture Show (Park Circus)

4. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Artificial Eye/Paramount)

5. La Piscine (Park Circus)

DVD and Blu-ray

1. Boudu Saved From Drowning / Boudu sauvé des eaux (Park Circus)

2. Chaplin: The Collection (Park Circus)

3. Of Gods and Men / Des hommes et des dieux (Artificial Eye)

4. Mammoth (Soda)

5. L’age d’or / Un chien andalou (BFI)

Paul Greenwood (Film critic)

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Warner)

2. NEDS (E1 Entertainment)

3. West Side Story (Park Circus)

4. Drive (Icon)

5. Tangled (Walt Disney)

So there you have it, at Park Circus we love great cinema and in 2012 we are going to carry on the good fight to share it with you, in cinemas, at home or on your computer. Stick with us kid – it’s a hill of beans out there otherwise…

Visit http://www.parkcircus.com/now-showing/ to find out what Park Circus films are showing where you are now.

Dirk Bogarde in Despair

Park Circus is reissuing Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s strange and mesmerizing 1978 psycho-thriller Despair at cinemas in the UK in a lovely new high definition digital transfer. That’s because at Park Circus we see the cracks between the cult and the classic, the psychedelic and the profane and we want to mine these exposed seams for cinéaste pleasure and encourage the slow descent into madness that so much time in the dark will ultimately bring.

Based on Vladimir Nabokov’s book of the same name, Despair is all about insanity, it’s about madness born of disassociation from one’s homeland, madness born of delusion, excess, sexual confusion, cuckoldry, chocolate and the drip effect of placating fundamentalist regimes. Adapted by Tom Stoppard, Despair was Fassbinder’s first English language film but more importantly it was the one and only film that former British film idol Dirk Bogarde made with Fassbinder. For both men it was a watershed experience.

In 1978, despite having forged a post pin-up career with controversial roles in Victim, Darling, The Servant, Death in Venice and The Night Porter, Bogarde was still closeted about his homosexuality and his relationship with long-term partner Anthony Forwood. Fassbinder’s virulent, nihilistic and casual approach to his sexuality would have been a total anathema to Bogarde, and yet these two men, in the twilight of their careers, loved the experience of working together.

Despair was the most well-financed film Fassbinder ever made, but by all accounts the real rewards of making Despair for Fassbinder were all about the creative partnership with Bogarde. Working in a psychedelic register that budgetary restraint had usually denied him, Fassbinder and his brilliant cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (The Departed, Gangs of New York) filmed Bogarde with an investigative intensity usually reserved for ingénues and muses. As deluded chocolatier Hermann, Bogarde seems to be caught in a cinematic smooch, albeit one delivered by a hairy, bespectacled Teutonic madman.

Fassbinder and Bogarde never worked together again. Despair was to be Bogarde’s last great film role and for Fassbinder, Despair marked a moment of rare creative indulgence before the workaholic insanity of his last few years which included the epic Berlin Alexanderplatz and the commercially successful The Marriage of Maria Braun. Of Despair, Fassbinder said ‘It is the most hopeful movie I’ve made.’ Bogarde maintained Despair was the highlight of his acting career to his dying half-paralysed day. Theirs was a friendship snatched from the filthy rubble of post-war European cinema history.

Despair will be released at BFI Southbank and selected cinemas from Friday 6 January and on DVD later in the year.

For more details on Despair: http://www.bavaria-film-international.de/htmls/bfi/index.php?site=program&id=297

As the year draws to a close, we’re celebrating the end of a great year with the ultimate, fiendishly difficult, Christmas quiz. The theme of this quiz is ‘The End’ and in celebration of that magical moment when the end credit card comes up and the curtains began to move, we want to know if you can name films from our catalogue from just their final moments!

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the clues which we’ll be giving out over the next few days.

THE PRIZE: The Ultimate Park Circus Christmas present.

• Charlie Chaplin The Collection box set (please note: this is region 2)
• Romy Schneider Dans L’Enfer book
• A pair of West Side Story t-shirts (one with ‘Jets’ and one with ‘Sharks’)
• Kes cinema poster
• The Last Waltz cinema poster
• West Side Story cinema poster
• A t-shirt featuring the poster artwork for A Fistful of Dollars

Deadline 31 December.

The answers will be announced along with the winner early in the new year.

ENTER THE QUIZ

Filed under: Competition ]]> http://parkcircusblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/the-park-circus-christmas-quiz/feed/ 0 parkcircus We're not that daft. No clues here. http://parkcircusblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/scottish-operas-derek-clark-on-der-rosenkavalier/ http://parkcircusblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/scottish-operas-derek-clark-on-der-rosenkavalier/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:33:13 +0000 Jonathan Melville http://parkcircusblog.wordpress.com/?p=1651 Continue reading →]]>

Inspired by the recent DVD and Blu-ray release of Paul Czinner’s 1962 adaptation of Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, Derek Clark, Head of Music at Scottish Opera, looks at how the filmmakers went about adapting stage performances for the big screen.

This is an absolute treat; a live performance of Strauss’ best-loved opera from the Salzburg Festival conducted by Herbert von Karajan and featuring some of the finest singers of the day, in a production (by Rudolph Hartmann) faithful to the spirit of the piece with sumptuous sets and costumes which match the opulence of the score, played with great elan and polish by an orchestra at the peak of its form.

Sung in the original German, the film is subtitled and the recorded sound is very good, considering the age of the film, with plenty of orchestral detail, though the singers are never overwhelmed.

Sometimes, though, the recording levels seem to have been evened out, resulting in a certain similarity of volume, but this is a small price to pay in view of the quality of the overall performance. In particular it is good to see Elisabeth Schwarzkopf performing the Marschallin, her singing more natural and less mannered than in the famous studio recording she made with Karajan in the late 1950′s.

The Ochs from that recording, Otto Edelmann, also sings here, and his larger than life portrayal of the role is a real tour de force, complete with thick Viennese accent, which only rarely interferes with his singing.

The Octavian is Sena Jurinac, who made the role very much her own in the 1950s and it is good to have her interpretation preserved, even though she looks very feminine throughout. Her vocal partnership with the Sophie of Anneliese Rothenberger, another artist experienced in her role, is one of the musical highlights of the performance.

One of the impressive sets from Der Rosenkavalier

With all the subsidiary roles well-sung (particularly the Italian tenor in Act 1) there are no weak links in the casting and the whole performance makes light of the immense difficulty of much of the music. The production is ‘traditional’ in the best sense of that word.

Some of the more intimate scenes seem a little lost on the vast expanses of the Festspielhaus stage, and present-day audiences may find it a little static and superficial. The Marschallin’s lovemaking with Octavian, for example, so graphically depicted in the music, is extremely demure, but this is a matter of changing tastes, and it certainly never gets in the way of the music.

More modern productions tend to get closer to the characters’ emotional cores, but production values nowadays are different. Although the humour of the piece is not neglected (Strauss called it ‘a comedy for music’ after all) there is a marked lack of audience reaction throughout, though they applaud generously enough at the end of each act, and maybe for repeated listening and viewing, it’s not a bad idea that you can concentrate on the music without any distracting laughter.

Perhaps Karajan’s unsmiling demeanour as he enters to conduct each act put a damper on the audience’s natural enthusiasm, but though nowadays we might expect a more unbending and ‘human’, not to say humorous, approach to this opera, there is no denying his mastery and understanding of the score.

The film is above all a testament to him and the standards he was able to achieve, and should be seen by every lover of this fascinating opera.

Der Rosenkavalier is now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk.

Derek Clark was born in Glasgow and studied at the RSAMD and Durham University. He began his career at Welsh National Opera, but since 1997 has been Head of Music at Scottish Opera where he has conducted a wide variety of repertoire from Handel to James MacMillan. He is also active as a coach, accompanist and composer/arranger, and was Assistant Conductor on David McVicar’s production of ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ for Scottish Opera. He is currently conducting Rory Bremner’s new version of ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’.

As part of our latest blogathon, Martyn Conterio at Cinemart composed an article entitled Charles Chaplin & The Greatest Cocaine Gag In Cinema History, in which he challenged the myth that silent era comedies aren’t funny.

Martyn chose a scene from 1936′s Modern Times, in which Charlie mistakes a batch of cocaine for salt, explaining that “the set up and execution are perfect”. We have to agree:

Meanwhile, over on the Kitty Packard Pictorial, Carly Johnson looked at Charlie’s love/hate relationship with sound in the fascinating Charlie Chaplin and the Sound of Silence.

Carly explained that the silent star couldn’t read or write music, even though it had been a major part of his early life in London. Quite how Charlie managed to become so well-known for his film scores is something you’ll discover over on the blog.

DVD reviewers have been discovering (and rediscovering) Charlie’s work through the box set, superlatives such as “stone-cold classics” and “cult masterpiece” used to describe his films.

Mike Chapman on Front Row Reviews describes Charlie’s influence on filmmakers such as Woody Allen and Jackie Chan in Charlie Chaplin: A Retrospective, going on to nominate The Great Dictator as his favourite of the collection.

CineVue’s John Nugent focuses on A King in New York and Monsieur Verdoux in his five-star review, describing the 12-disc set as “an ideal place to start” for newcomers to the star’s work.

Finally, what better way to celebrate Charlie Chaplin’s career than with a clip of him in action? We uploaded the following excerpt from A King in New York to our YouTube channel and we’ll let Charlie play us out…

Charlie Chaplin: The Collection is out now on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

The Little Tramp is back. Monday 14 November sees the release on DVD of Charlie Chaplin: The Collection, a gorgeous new box set featuring 11 of Charlie’s feature films digitally remastered and accompanied by documentaries, introductions, outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage.

Following on from our recent film noir blogathon, we’ve decided to celebrate this new release by asking Charlie’s fans for their thoughts on his life and career.

Do you have a favourite Chaplin film that you’ve watched dozens of times that you want others to know about? Perhaps you have a view on some of the social or political issues that can be seen in films such as The Great Dictator? Or do you just like to see Charlie falling over?

Whatever you want to blog about, we’d like to read about it. There are a few simple steps to taking part:

1. Decide on your topic – as long as it’s related in some way to Charlie Chaplin it qualifies for the blogathon
2. Blog about your topic on or between 9 – 15 November 2011
3. Copy-and-paste one of the images below into your blog post and add a hyperlink back to this page between (this just shows your readers you’re part of the blogathon)

After the closing date we’ll create a new blog post linking back to all the entries and you can then see who else took part in the blogathon.

Feel free to let us know if you’re considering taking part in the comments below or over on Twitter and we look forward to reading your entries!