The Fool
Minor silent film actor Rudolph “Rudy” Robbins was first discovered while working in the Tennyson Big Top Circus as part of the trapeze group, the Golden Flyers. He served as the group’s leader, executing impressive aerial stunts and making audiences laugh with his off-the-cuff jokes. During one of these performances, film producer Martin Cray was in attendance and immediately approached Robbins to see if he was interested in performing stunts in Cray’s movies. Robbins was getting close to the end of his contract with Tennyson and jumped at the chance to move to Hollywood.
At first, Robbins enjoyed his stunt work duties, but longed for more time in front of the camera. After the seventh film had wrapped, he approached Cray and asked him for a starring role. The producer inexplicably agreed to give him a shot with a romantic comedy called The Fool. Many speculate that Cray and Robbins had entered into a bizarre relationship and this was Cray’s way of placating Robbins, to keep him from exposing Cray. In the film, Robbins played Henry, a man who spots a woman in the city square and is immediately smitten with her. He then spends the rest of the film trying to catch up with her to introduce himself, only to get into many various predicaments along the way.
The film played to Robbins’s strengths, with him performing many different pratfalls and tumbles as he tries to meet the mysterious woman. At one point, Robbins walks a tightrope above the city square, because he believes he’s spotted the woman in a nearby building. This sequence allowed Robbins to break out some of his former trapeze work and flail around on the wire in a particularly funny moment. Robbins acquits himself well to the screen, his eyes dancing around the crowds for a fleeting glimpse of the woman of his dreams. The film follows a relatively simple path toward its inevitable conclusion, but with Robbins at the forefront, it’s an entertaining way to spend an hour.
In a later interview, Robbins was quoted as saying that he “loved every second of that movie. I felt like a real star.” Unfortunately, while The Fool delighted audiences, Robbins was quickly sent back to being a bit player and stunt man. When Cray was asked why he didn’t utilize Robbins as a major player in more of his features, he said, “It was an experiment and it didn’t pay off quite like we’d expected.” Cray and Robbins soon had a falling out (along with some charges of blackmail) and the would-be star headed back to the circus, where he finished his career as one of the top trapeze artist in the country.
Robbins did appear on the silver screen again when a few of his trapeze performances were shown before feature films. It’s a shame that Robbins wasn’t in more full-length features because he had an expressive face and impressive physical skills that might have made him a star. At least we have The Fool to look back on fondly, and remember what could have been.
Recent Comments