'I've tried 'em all-I really have-and the church that feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the church of baseball.' Although critics sometimes are accused of 'reading' too much into a film, there often is a great deal hidden in plain sight.'īaseball Diamonds Are a Girl's (and Boy's) Best (and Most Devout) Friend Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962) topped the list. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the American Film Institute selecting the 100 Greatest Heroes in cinema history. When Charlie Chaplin was denigrated by narrow-minded, history-impaired 'love-it-or-leave-it' type Americans, his victimizaiton showed, as in so much of life, that the enemy quite often is on this side of the fence.

Instead, he has been given that lefthanded compliment of creating films known for their proverbial 'wonderful workmanship.' ' ' never has received the consistency of theme status of an ameteur. 'Īuthor of The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody and other darkly comic works, humorist Will Cuppy ultimately took his own life, but not before delighting readers with his biting and, at time, nihilistic wit. ' was fairly accurate for its day, although, in the end, paints a somewhat varnished perspective.

His paintings are like cinema freeze-frames, in which the viewer feels he or she voyeuristically is stealing a fleeting private moment from an often isolated, forlorn individual under glass.

Charlie Chaplin by Wes D. Gehring