OPERA HOUSE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10710, 6 October 1928, Page 6

OPERA HOUSE

CHARLES CHAPLIN IN “THE CIRCUS.” SEASON TO COMMENCE ON MONDAY. Charlie Chaplin’s , “'The Circus” miens next Monday at the Opera House. “The Circus” is one of the best and most amusing cf all Chaplin’s pictures, largely because of the fact that it is cast in the same old mould in which so many of his earlier triumphs were cast. In form and method it is pleasantly familiar, because in it there, are many brushfuls of soapsuds, chases, and animal cage®. The same general typo of excruciatingly runny situations, with crag on gag, in which Chaplin dealt in the old days, and which are now edged and glossed with all the fine sharp shadings, the value of which he knows so well: The story tells of n hungry tramp who meets the sideshow gang of a circus. The stepdaughter of the owner, an abused and neglected bare-back rider, discovers him, and eventually he is given a job as a handy man. Quite by accident tile tramp finds himself before the audience one day., and his preposterous gestures, his appearance and his mental wit immediately take the house hy storm. Chaplin does not realise it, but he is the sensation of the troupe, and the . owner, taking quick advantage of thin, puts him into a number of acts. The young -woman is attracted by a. tight-rope walker, and the tramp, himself deeply in love with her, hut still too grateful for his friendship to speak for himself, eventually arranges matters so that the girl and the tightrope walker may prosper and marry.