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PLEASE NOTE: If you need an item quick, don't order from us; amazon is your best bet. We do appreciate you ordering from us directly (the author and the publisher make more from the sale this way), but due to the increased number of orders and covid-related shipping changes, our shipping takes considerably longer than it used to. Please be patient, as it can take 2 to 3 weeks to process and ship orders. Please email us about an order only if it's absolutely necessary. We REALLY appreciate your patience for this, and appreciate your business! THANK YOU!
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Motion Picture of Emil Pallenberg, with his wife Catherine and one of his "Wonder Bears" in 1928

biography circus history peggy adler wonder bears



 An avid Charlie Chaplain fan, I learned when writing "Pallenberg Wonder Bears - From the Beginning" that Chaplin's last silent film was titled "The Circus". And so I bought the DVD to add it to my Chaplin collection. Needless to say, I invited my Wonder Bear book collaborator, Dibirma Jean Burnham and her husband over to watch it with me. Since the DVD included bonus features, after the movie was over we decided to watch the lengthy, 1928, silent newsreel footage of the movie's Los Angeles premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater -- soundless red carpet interviews and all. Well it seems that Grauman ran a stage show called a prologue prior to each screening of the movie. This was not unlike what they once had at New York City's Radio City Music Hall -- a stage show that preceded the feature film. Well the newsreel included each of the acts in prologue taking a bow -- and when it came for the last one, much to our amazement, there were Dib's grandparents, Emil and Catherine Pallenberg and one of their "Wonder Bears"! Thus I copied the newsreel, now in the public domain, edited it down to less that two minutes, added some vintage music and copyrighted the resultant vid. Just follow the link, above, in order to enjoy my vid of the earliest known motion picture of Emil Pallenberg, his wife and one of the bears that he trained in the barn next door to his house in Clinton, Connecticut.  


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