King of Fools

[Gary D Macabre]

The Year is 1482 and city of Paris is in celebration. Here in a great square before the Notre Dame Cathedral it is the Festival of Fools. High above it all we are introduced to Lon' Chaney's Quasimodo, "Deaf - half-blind - shut off from his fellow men by his deformities the bells were the only voice of his groping soul. To the towns people he was an inhuman freak, a monstrous joke of Nature and for their jeers he gave them scorn and bitter hate."


His heart was cold and black with spite for all humanity. But there was one whom he would open his heart to. To her he would offer his love, his devotion, his protection and in the end ultimately his very life.

Esmeralda, a gentle and fair beauty. A champion for what is good and pure. To the unjustly condemned Gringoir the poet she would offer justice and release from his fate. To beautiful and charismatic Phoebus de Chateaupers, Captain of the guard she would offer her heart and desire. So what would she offer one such as Quasimodo?

To him she offered pity and nothing more. The same as she would likely offer to a flogged nag, or a beaten mongrel. She would eventually look upon him kindly but that would be all she was willing to give. And when Quasimodo died, she was enjoying a happy ending in the arms of another and only the bells and his one true friend the Cathedral's minister mourned him.

Perhaps he was the King of the Fools after all.

[Wich2]

Another -



(Can anyone I.D. him? Meek? Elder?)

Best,
-Fool-ish Craig W.

[typhooforme]

Hmmm.  Not W.C. Fields, is it?  You got me, Craig!

[Wich2]

Jack Barrymore as Francois Villon, "Beloved Rogue."

[Meek]

   Craig:

   Are you talking the stage version or the silent movie? My first thought was the same as Elder Robert's---W.C.Fields in his tramp juggler period--he was much leaner back then.
If that's supposed to be Villon, then why is he wearing a hat that is not medieval in style? It looks like a little captain's hat to me.

   "Meek"(perplexed in Pixley)

[Wich2]

Meek-

It's from the Silent.

Not sure about the hat; but the scene where Jack, in this makeup as Fool King, is banished from the Paris he loves by King Conrad Veidt and takes it off, is heartbreaking.

-Craig W.

[Meek]

    Well, it has been decades since I've seen "Beloved Rogue" but I do know that Barrymore and Veidt hit it off real well during the filming of that movie. Veidt's daughter remembers Barrymore and few other stellar persons coming over to their house and lifting a glass or two--the booze was buried in a near-by lot and every-so-ofter Veidt would get up, grab his shovel and go out to dig & replenish the bar.

     "Meek"

[Meek]

   I've just had another thought---Barrymore and Fields were very good friends, drinkin' buddies in fact---who knows that this King of Fools make-up wasn't inspired by Fields tramp juggler?


    Discuss amongst yerselves.

    "Meek"