March 8, 2008
Saturday, 6:00 pm
 

Join us in commemorating the 85th anniversary
of Charlie Chaplin's The Pilgrim!

A Celebration of Chaplin will begin in William S. Hart Park's Hart Hall with a lecture on filming in the Santa Clarita Valley. The festivities continue in the Hart Museum for a tour and talk on displayed Charlie Chaplin film memorabilia. Following the discussions and a catered dinner, guests will find themselves in the Saugus Train Station where The Pilgrim was originally filmed and where guests will enjoy a screening of the film.

 
              FILM SYNOPSIS
The Pilgrim, is Chaplin's last film for First National Pictures. It's a little more expansive than his prior three, a four-reeler which represents a reworking of the ideas that Chaplin had for Life, a feature he had wanted to make back in 1915. Charlie is a convict ("Slippery Elm") who just escaped from prison. He immediately steals the clothes of a bathing minister (it could happen). He buys a ticket to Devil's Gulch, Texas, where, coincidentally, the local congregation is expecting the arrival of a new minister, who, also coincidentally, has been delayed.
Charlie is welcomed with open arms by the senior minister Mack Swain, along with his entire congregation. According to Joyce Milton, in "Tramp", her 1996 biography of Chaplin, Charlie intended to show the church in Devil's Gulch struggling with a declining congregation. It seems the locals prefer good times to the gospel. As the new minister, Charlie sets out to fight fire with fire, installing roulette wheels and featuring sexy choir girls to lead the parishioners away from sin instead of towards it.
Unfortunately, the infamous Fatty Arbuckle rape case was underway, prompting Hollywood's first great spasm of morality. Chaplin jettisoned the "new model" church plot, although he still exposes Mack as a secret tippler. The real set piece of the film is Charlie's sermon on the subject of David and Goliath. In wonderful pantomime, Charlie shows us a prissy little David assaulting Goliath with his tiny sling. The giant, provoked rather than slain, promptly beheads the little snot. The congregation stares in horror, but a little boy in the front pew bursts into delighted applause. At last, some honest insight into how the world works! Reality, not myths!
Charlie is installed at the home of Mrs. Brown and daughter Edna. At a "social" hosted by the trio, another little boy, "Dinky Dean" Riesner, shows up and proves to be a relentless terror, harassing Charlie and the other guests without mercy. Charlie has bigger problems than Dinky, however. He crosses paths with one of his old prison buddies, played by Dinky's father Charles Riesner, who figures Charlie must be running some sort of hustle with the preacher thing and wants in on it. Charlie, of course, has fallen in love with Edna by this time and has turned his back on crime.
Riesner successfully invites himself into the Brown household and is even accepted as an overnight guest. He takes the opportunity to steal the mortgage money, despite the best efforts of Charlie, who takes off in hot pursuit. While Charlie�s gone, the sheriff shows up, bearing the bad news about Charlie — he's an escaped con. Charlie's cover is blown but he doesn't know it. In a hurried and confused sequence, Charlie brings retrieves the cash from Riesner and returns it to Edna. Unfortunately, the sheriff is listening in. He allows Charlie a brief farewell to Edna, who is then taken away, he thinks, to prison. Instead, the sheriff, perhaps the only merciful lawman in the Chaplin film, lets Charlie walk, but he had to do it south of the border. As Charlie steps into Mexico, a couple of bad guys start shooting at one another. He hops back into the U.S., but then, recalling the sheriff's instructions, starts racing away, one foot on either side of the dividing line.


Seating is limited and ticket reservations are required.
For more information and ticket reservations
please call the William S. Hart Museum
 (661) 254-4584

 Ticket price: $40 per person ...


Money raised from memberships is essential to the continuing restoration and preservation of the Park and Museum.
One can never have too many "Friends."
Friends of Hart Park and Museum is a California Non-Profit Corporation Section 501 C-3

The William S.Hart Park and Museum
24151 San Fernando Road in Newhall
Open Wednesday through Friday
10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
 Weekends from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Tours Every Half Hour
 
Admission is free !

For more information, call (661) 254-4584
or visit the museum's website at
www.hartmuseum.org


copyright
    2007
            WEBMASTER                        

THE NEXT GENERATION'S WILLIAM S.HART

A CELEBRATION OF CHAPLIN - William S. Hart Park & Museum