The Clown

Just a kid when I saw this movie. Red Skelton should have got a good review for his part. To have made me cry, as a kid, not bad for a comic.

I used to watch The Red Skelton Show every Tuesday night at 9:30, with my dad. And every Tuesday night we'd laugh and hope that Red would perform as Freddy The Freeloader... which he often did.

I only knew Skelton as a comic on TV. When The Clown played at our neighborhood theater, I asked my mom if we could go see it. "Sure can"..says she, and that weekend we were off to the movies.

I walked into the theater fully expecting to leave with a belly ache caused by my laughter. To my great surprise, and later even greater delight, The Clown featured Skelton as a SERIOUS actor. And as a serious actor, Skelton excelled! I've never forgotten his performance.

As dramatic actor Red Skelton reached the height of his career with this remake of The Champ. It's not pugilism that this film deals with rather another grueling profession show business. Skelton being the son of a man who was a druggist and former circus clown was the perfect choice to play The Clown.

The Clown has Skelton as a former top comedian and star of Ziegfeld Follies having let bad habits get the better of him. He travels with his young son Tim Considine and it's Considine sometimes you would think was the grownup in the relationship.

If you've seen Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper in The Champ then you know exactly how this one comes out. Skelton reaches down no doubt into some of the experience of both his childhood and early years in show business though in his case that blends quite a bit as he started young. He gets down in the depths and drags up a dramatic performance that he never did before or since. I think once was enough for Red Skelton who thought of himself as a clown who great fortune smiled on. In the case of his character Dodo Dolwyn he took quite a few knocks and fortune eventually smiled on him, but too late.

Jane Greer and Philip Ober are fine as Skelton's former wife and her new husband. But the scenes with Skelton and Considine are special.

A must for Red Skelton fans.

When I plunked down my half-dollar at Washington DC's most deluxe Loew's Capitol Theatre in 1953 --- for a matinée of THE CLOWN plus their Stage Show --- I had no idea the powerhouse of raw emotion and dramatic excellence waiting on the screen inside.

THE CLOWN is without a doubt the finest work of one of America's best comedy actors. This film is loaded with belly-laugh humor, drama, tragedy, hope, redemption, pathos. More than 50 years later I can still feel the emotion of this great film.

Skelton plays a down-and-out comedy star who's drifted into a daze of alcoholism. He's given up on reconnecting with his ex-wife, but has hopes of a relationship with his young son. IF ONLY... if only he can stay off the sauce.... if only he can find somebody who'll let him perform again......

Red Skelton does a great job in a straight role as a former vaudeville star, now an alcoholic drifting from one gig to another, and raising a son. Skelton's Dodo depicts an alcoholic quite well - he continually makes promises not to drink, to get steady work, etc. And then sabotages his own efforts, leaving Dink to clean up after him. Dink - a child forced to grow up sooner than he should - adores his father, even though he is frustrated by his behavior as well. The movie is pretty much a remake of Wallace Beery's "The Champ," but even so, the pathos stays intact. This ranks as a minimum two-hanky feature, and is well worth watching.