2 - Tramping with Chaplin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 September 2020
Summary
Those Charlie Chaplin feet,
Those funny Chaplin feet,
When he comes down the street
He starts to slip, trip,
And tumble ‘round the block.
Chorus of Those CharlieChaplin Feet by Edgar LeslieA dusty country road winds its way around the bottom of a steep, grassy hill. In the middle of the lane, a down and out looking man clumsily, yet gaily, walks towards the camera. In one hand he carries a small bindle and in the other a flimsy bamboo walking stick. His clothes are loose and ill-fitted, especially his baggy trousers. Our gaze is drawn to his feet, which are fitted with shoes that are absurdly large, the thin leather of the toe caps bent upwards. These shoes cause him to walk with an uncomfortable looking splay-footed gait, knees bent outwards. Only the heels of his shoes touch the ground with each step. As he gets closer to the camera he stops to remove something from a hole in the sole of his right shoe. A car comes up from behind and almost hits him as it passes, kicking up a cloud of dust. He falls over backwards and loses his bowler hat. Just when he picks it up, another car speeding from the other direction barely misses him, causing him to spin around and fall backwards again with hat, bindle and cane still in hand. As he gets up, he puts his hat back on, pulling a clothes brush out of his coat pocket. After cupping his mouth with his hand and muttering something to no one in particular, he begins regally brushing the dirt off of his old and battered clothes as if they were brand new. Bending over with his bum to the camera, he reaches between his legs to brush the back of his pants, revealing two holes in the back of his coat, then pulls the back of his baggy pants to the front like wing flaps to give each side a good dusting off. After wiping his brow, he glances inside the waistband of his pants, checks his bindle, shrugs his shoulder and merrily walks undefeated towards the camera and out of frame.
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- Information
- The Peripatetic FrameImages of Walking in Film, pp. 30 - 43Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020