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The Continuing Curse of the Return of the Monday Movie Quiz

Filed under: Imported

After the weird incident two weeks ago, where I nearly made Psycho the mystery movie on the very day Janet Leigh�s death was announced to the world, I was hopeful that my posting problems were over and that the quiz was back on the road to regularity. Alas, no, although this time the problem was a dead modem which kept me off-line for the entire day. So we�re back, but not on Monday, and continuing problems will keep the quiz from returning with a fresh round until next week. Forgiveness, please.

I�m not sure it matters anyway, since last week�s quiz had only two winning answers, out of a total of two attempts. I thought it was an easy one, myself, but was corrected in no uncertain terms by old friend TCB I (�I� as in �the first�), who closed by saying, �You�d better hope Wayne Palmer knows you�re back!� (Fortunately, he did�for old readers of this weblog, Mr. Palmer was its nearly unstumpable Movie Quiz champeen.) Anyway, last week�s movie was the immortal Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin, who of course also wrote and directed it, as well as composed the score (which includes his most famous song, �Smile�). To say that it�s his all-time best is to slight his other great films, but I�m not sure he ever made a better one, or stretched quite as much as a filmmaker.

I now have to go on the record with a shameful confession: while I�ve been a diehard fan of all the great comedy acts of the �30s nearly all my life and a film collector since my teens, I never really liked Charlie much. I gave him plenty of opportunities to convert me, even owning 8mm prints of The Gold Rush and several of the Mutual 3-reelers, but I just never �got� him. (Those prints may have been part of the problem, however�thanks to the wonderful DVDs of his work now out, I see how important it is to see him clearly, because you get so much from seeing everything that he does, literally from head to toe.)

But I get him now, and there has never been a better time to rediscover his work than the present, with the amazing and beautiful-looking series of two-disc sets now available of all his best features. (And hallelujah, The Gold Rush was released with Chaplin�s original uncut version intact as a �bonus� with his inferior re-edited one.) And none looks better than Modern Times; in fact, the clarity of the DVD looks better (to me) than the restored 35mm print that was re-released last summer. I never thought that I�d find a new cinematic love at my age (50), but I can watch these films over and over with fresh joy. And thanks to the DVDs, I�ll be doing just that, for months to come. Join me!

So congratulations to the quiz�s first two winners since its troubled resurrection: the mighty Wayne A. Palmer (welcome back, champ) and C. L. Lavorato. Now . . . join us again next week to see what new disaster befalls the quiz. See you then, movie trivialists!

Posted by Steve Monaco at October 19, 2004 3:52 AM

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