Charles Burchfield, Journals, August 4, 1946

Aug. 4 (Sun.)

All of us, but Red, (who has a new job at the Lafayette Hotel & cannot come) to church. (Rev. Neeb away at Rochester as guest speaker) young Vedder preached.

When we came home from church, Pal looked for Red.

He became almost frantic going from one door to another, and then going to Sally and just begging her to either produce Red or tell him where he was. It was really pathetic.

Late afternoon B & I to Mercury to see a bill of old movies. They were all interesting except a 1928 [possibly wrong year, same movie is listed now as being 1931] version of “Ten Nights in a Barroom” which was so terrible as to make one squirm. It had nothing of naïve primitive quality of the other films to make it funny. The early “dramatic” films are simply unbelievable. At the time most of felt they were moronish and overdone, but we did think the actors &actresses were charming – and that is what is so hard to understand, the violent shift in standards of beauty and style, these women seem more incredibly homely and dirty. The other films faired better – aside from technical [word unintelligible], the slapstick was still funny.  John Barry still had charm, as he did then. Fatty Arbuckle, who was vulgar & repulsive then, still seemed so now. [unintelligible] was the Dempsey Willard fight of 1919. A brutal exhibition, not because one might think prize fights are brutal, but because it was such an unequal battle. Willard never had a chance from the first second, & for four rounds Dempsey beat him mercilessly. Willard, saved from a knockout by the bell, refused to give in, and somehow managed to stand up for the other three rounds, and the fight only ended when, at the bell in the fifth round, he could not rise from his chair. It made me squirm to watch it.

To Watson’s sandwich shop on Allen & Main afterward for a snack. 

Charles Burchfield, August 4, 1946