Dichotomy of the Clown

Related Content

• Bonsai Opens at Tower Theater May 18
  May 17, 2012
• Clifton Childree: Carnival Barker
  November 24, 2011
• Pinko Dramedy
  March 17, 2011
• Best movies of the decade
  December 24, 2009
• The Sound of One Spine Cracking
  August 21, 2008

More About

• Virginia Rappe
• Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
• Howard Hawks
• Silent Movies
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

A clown has two faces: the smiling, cherry-cheeked joker and the dangerously depressed, homicidal boozer. One makes us laugh, and the other makes us crap our pants with fear. Silent film funnyman Fatty Arbuckle was a perfect case in point. The guy was so hilarious that he actually invented the whole pie-in-the-face gag. However, he also might or might not have raped and killed a wannabe actress named Virginia Rappe in 1921. (He was eventually acquitted after three manslaughter trials.) So forgive us if we find it kind of hard not to imagine the fat man lurking in the dark, armed with a Coca-Cola bottle and a cream pie.

Not that Arbuckle’s buddy, Buster Keaton, was any less conflicted — marrying repeatedly and frequently embarking on extended alcoholic blackouts. This Sunday, see these split-personality clowns side-by-side in the 20-minute silent comedy classic “Butcher Boy,” screening at Cinéclub 24 as part of the Comedy Time program. Two talkies will also show that afternoon: George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight and Howard Hawks’s The Twentieth Century.
Sun., Sept. 12, 3 p.m., 2010