The Snub Pollard Connection

Had a little sad clown double feature didn't I? THE COMIC followed by LIMELIGHT. THE COMIC had some good parts. Mickey Rooney underplayed (!) his later scenes as an old man. He and Dick Van Dyke had some good moments as two creaky survivors. If you want to see what McNeil and I will be like in a few years, watch the last half of THE COMIC. And recent object of "blog"templation Calvin Coolidge had a lengthy cameo via newsreel footage. I guess I should also mention the scene in which Dick Van Dyke's character explains how much people love him in France. Plus THE COMIC had one of those late-sixties endings where you go, "Huh?" Like, "Was that the ending?" Like, "What just happened?" Like, "That's it?" I love those. And a couple of the gags actually made me laugh. And then somehow I was in the perfect mood for LIMELIGHT and I watched it again and it was good. I was primed to sit back and say, "Self-indulgent? Who cares? Who deserves to be self-indulgent more than Chaplin?" Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon if you're me, but you're not me, so what can I tell you? There was a Snub Pollard reference in THE COMIC and then Snub Pollard was IN the movie LIMELIGHT. I am going to show you a picture of Snub Pollard so you can rest easy tonight. Don't know where he fell on the sad clown/happy clown spectrum. I'll check wikipedia for you. It's reliable sometimes!