In 1916, Charles Chaplin signed with the Mutual Film Corporation for $10,000 a week, with a signing bonus of $150,000. He went straight to work and by May 15, he released his first of  the 12 films he was to do with them from 1916-1917, “The Floorwalker”. In my opinion the Mutuals are the peak of his shorter film work, though some VERY good short things will still come later, this is where the earth is felt by Chaplin to be firmly and solidly beneath him, so he ends up lifting the world. His innovations in cinema technique, his variations on comic standard gags, like board gags, slips, and finally, where he truly transcends and does what another scholar called “transposition”, essentially the application of one set of specific behavior to a wholly other application, usually chosen ironically or at least subversively. Examples of this can be found in the swept-up-rope-tight-rope-routine in “The Pawnshop” and later, the dinner rolls in “The Gold Rush”.

No one had ever been paid such sums of money, and it is mentioned one way or another in every interview with Chaplin at the time. You got a problem with how much Brad Pitt or somebody gets paid these days, “star’s salaries”, you can thank 2 people: Thomas Ince (Who created “the star system” as the central focus of the birthing Picture business) and Charles Chaplin. It must also be said though, that even at that price, in those times, or at any time, Chaplin is valuable to humanity beyond any dollar amount. It’s like when I would be on a family trip to Canada, and we’d be looking at some antiquities in a museum, and I would ask “How much does something like this thing cost?” “Priceless”, says Mom. “What the hell does that mean?” retorts the 10 year old. “It means it’s worth more than money” says Dad. Being an American Rust-Belter, it took me the better part of 20 years to figure out what the hell that meant, and I am still not ABSOLUTELY certain I know now, but I at least have a working definition!

The Floorwalker (May, 1916). We now start all the films with a title card, followed by credit cards. Some slight decoration is in evidence of the cards themselves. “The Big Store” Albert Austin is a clerk, Charlie is the Tramp, a Chaplin lookalike (Lloyd Bacon – who goes on to Direct 128 films between 1922 and 1954)is the store’s strict manager, and Eric Campbell is the store owner who is conspiring with the manager to rob the store. Edna Purviance is of course, the object of Charlie’s affections, a secretary to the bosses.

As our play opens, we are treated to a CU Pan on Campbell’s entrance into his outer office, where we meet Edna, then on to the inner where we meet the Chaplin double (in a respectable suit of course). There are a series of water fountain gags with Charlie in the main area of the store, then the famous escalator gags. The set is 2 pieces for the store floor – one with the escalator to the balcony which accesses the offices, and a counter on screen left. The other half is ostensibly the “right” half of the store, centered around 2 counters set angled to vanishing point, screen center. This section will be used for Y Axis movements, where the other half will be using Y AND Z axis movement (when adding in the escalator). The balcony has limited X axis potentials, but mostly X axis movement is achieved through what I call the 3 E’s: Exits, Entrances, and Editing. Upstairs is strictly X axis movements with a minor variation made possible by chases around the desk.

“They are on our trail, let’s grab it and go!” the first title is from Eric, he has been shadowed by a preposterously obviously sneaky woman in a big hat and drenched in furs, very “mysterious”. Now we have Chaplin doing a fantastic gag at the cosmetic counter with Albert Austin doing his fantastically “watching and figuring it out” bit, which is really his forte, and it is underrated how difficult it is to just “listen” or “watch” someone believably, speaking as an Actor myself. Charlie ends up fully washed up, manicured, perfumed, and refreshed by “sampling” EVERYTHING. This gets a kick in the ass, because Albert has “figured it out NOW!”, AA(Albert Austin) gets an elastic in the face, and AA chases him to the other side of the store. “Bargain Seekers” women in a parade steal practically everything off the cosmetics counter (except the rack). Now Chaplin is chased back and “Detectives” show up. Charlie finds the empty rack, drops a coin, and takes the rack to go, when he is seized upon and blamed for ALL the theft! The women, meanwhile are looting the OTHER half of the store. Charlie mulekicks Austin and takes it on the lam.

Upstairs, the manager has double crossed EC (Eric Campbell), and Knocked him out. He runs into Chaplin in the outer office (Edna has left) and they do a great bit of “mirror gag”. Then, the manager hits the bright idea of switching places with Charlie – ”
You need a job, I need a change.” “Change will do me good.” They swap clothes and the Manager takes off with the case full of stolen cash. Of course, when he gets downstairs, the manager is set upon by AA and the Detectives! And the fight is on!

Chaplin is now into his role as assistant manager, and while facing suspicious and hard eyed scrutiny by both AA and the Detectives, Chap realizes that his only salvation is acceptance of his new role, which he accepts fully, chiding both AA and the detectives. When his double is set upon, he finds the bag of cash! Upstairs, EC has revived and is ANGRY, looking for the assistant manager.

Now, what we have carefully established here is a comedy phenomenon I call “the multiple trains”. Imagine, if you will, a railroad switching yard at night, you are in the middle of all the different tracks. A light and siren start coming at you, but it is blinding so you have no idea which is the “safe” track to be on, no matter where you go, that train is going to hit you. You dodge, left and right, to no avail. That is precisely the situation Charlie is in with his multiple identities, if he is the Tramp then AA and the detectives will get him, if he is the asst. manager EC will get him! This is a CLASSIC comedy structure, the converging parallels, just off kilter enough to guarantee an intersection of chaos. It is wonderful, but perhaps inevitable that it should find a home in cinema, because with the application of cross-cut editing it reaches perhaps it maximum effective expression.

Edna discovers the cash in the case that Charlie has now returned to the upper office, using the elevator this time with a fresh set of elevator gags, and left after a FIGHT with EC in the inner office. Charlie, meanwhile is downstairs officiously watering the fake-flower décor hats. Suddenly a lovely catches Charlie’s eye and he is off to the shoe section to flirt with her, and “attend to her shoe needs” –foot fetishists will absolutely roll as though tickled at this sequence!- EC has revived again and emerged from the inner office to the outer and taken the case of cash from Edna, intending to flee the store. The Mysterious Lady stalker however, stops EC cold with a fisheye, and he ditches the bag by accident in the luggage section, whereupon Charlie, acting as manager then proceeds to SELL to a customer! The sale is interrupted by EC, but Charlie discovers the money! Back to the office to return it, pursued by EC and a subsequent fight. Now the real assistant manager, previously given the Bum’s Rush, has returned, apparently in league with the mysterious lady, and rallies the detectives and AA to the cause of getting Chaplin and especially EC! However, the whole thing ends with a furious chase that results in Chaplin, knicked by the detective and held up by his collar, sealed behind the bars of the elevator. END!

Terrific stuff all through this one, the escalator and elevator gags are completely new, I have not seen it anywhere else, which is no surprise as I can tell you that these gags are TREMENDOUSLY physically demanding to do, and actually very dangerous. The usual theme of the underdog dealing with adverse situations (gotten into through seeking “easy solutions”) like switching identities, and then an intersection of both the real identity and the assumed, or performed identity, which will be constant, and to this day perhaps more than ever in a postmodern world without meaning, will continue throughout Chaplin’s body of work.

My God this man is a beautiful humanist.

The Fireman (6/12/1916) stars as usual, Eric, Edna, and Charlie, with the “usual band of idiots” as Kurtzman might say, behind and around them. This piece is HEAVY slapstick. EC is the Chief, Charlie is an excitable Fireman, Edna is a conspirator to Arson who is accidentally jeopardized by her  own scheme.

We start with a firedrill, which Charlie basically sleeps through. At the end, Charlie bolts upright and shoots into action, down the pole from the bedroom, into the main garage, grabs the horses, hitches them and is GONE down the street before EC and the rest can stop him! Charlie then REVERSES THE FILM to get “back” into the garage and the horses unhitched. A hell of a feat of physical acting, tell you what, you try and move backwards and have it look realistic when played the other way! EC is pissed, needless to say and gives Charlie a hell of a beating.

Life as a a Fireman is tough on Charlie, as he is totally on the bottom of the totem pole around the station, and Charlie is on KP (Kitchen Patrol) most of the time. However, when the lunch bell goes, Charlie thinks it the alarm and races to the horses. He continually illustrates how DESPERATE he is to Get Into Action.

Before returning to the meal room, Charlie fills up coffee and cream out of a spigot on the back of the pumper truck – another example of “transposition” – only to rush back out at the sound of the bell, the milkman’s bell, and the milkman gets a punch for his trouble! Of course, this time he has covered EC with soup, and EC beats hell out of him for it, so Chaplin takes cover upstairs, UP the POLE, just in time for Edna to arrive with a “swell” who bribes EC to let his house burn down!

During a game of checkers, there comes “An honest Fire”, complete with burning house and crazed owner who RUNS all the way to the station to get help after some choice phone gags with Charlie who manages not to hear the guy at all! When he gets to the station, they all spring into action, including Charlie who manages to KO EC with a fire ax! Then when they get to the fire, there are great firehose gags. Meanwhile, the Swell has set fire to trash in his basement, not knowing Edna has also come home and is upstairs. He leaves the building burning, only to discover Edna upstairs and take off for help. Charlie immediately leaves Fire 1 and takes off WITH the firewagon to Fire 2, destroying it totally on the way, so he climbs 3 stories up the front face of the building, throws Edna around his neck and climbs down (Edna doubled by a dummy on the way down) and faints. He is now a big hero, a fallen hero, and as his celebrating colleagues leave, he sits up, apparently unharmed, makes sure they are gone and kisses Edna. END!

The Vagabond (1916) begins in a bar, with Chaplin as a wandering fiddler. He plays outside the bar then goes in to pass the hat, unsuccessfully. Thinking they couldn’t hear him, he sets up by the back/side door, but while he does, a 5 piece brass band sets up at the FRONT door and drowns his lowly fiddle out, to the pleasure of the patrons, when Chaplin comes in to pass the hat, the patrons are generous, thinking it for the band! This is soon sorted out and a chase commences, all vs. Charlie! Here the set design makes the scene, because the outside wall of the bar roughly splits the screen along the X axis, with the “front door” screen right, and the “back/side” door in the back distance screen left. The chase moves mostly along this X axis loop to great effect, and introduces the first “pause-while-the-chase-passes-then-rejoin-the-chaos-gag” which Chaplin uses to reorient the chase positions so he can avoid them by always being where they AREN’T. He slips away out the back. Of course, he has already beat up 2 band members and ruined at least 3 of their instruments!

“The Gypsy Drudge” An Evil Mom, her abused (beaten and berated) daughter (Edna), and a rotten dad (EC). Charlie wanders up after the folks have left, and trying to cheer up (and maybe make some change) Edna, he plays vigorously to her delight, only once stepping in her wash bucket and upsetting her laundry tub by going into it ass first. He finishes with mock curtain calls, which the Mom sees and doesn’t like. When Chap tries to leave, the girl persuades him to stay, “I will now play the Hungarian Goulash”, but before he can he is knocked out (and back into the tub) by a raging EC who then WHIPS (like, with a WHIP) Edna, chasing her to another gypsy caravan with some gypsies by it. One old one tries to stop EC and gets knocked out for his trouble, soon Edna is beaten unconscious but Charlie is revived, and pissed. He searches for a weapon, selecting a hefty log, and creeps up on the assembled gypsies. He KO’s EC, then climbs a tree and KO’s the rest as they investigate one at a time why there are so many knocked out people by the tree! He then saves Edna and carries her body off.

Shortly, EC awakens, finds Chap and attacks him, trying to drown him in the tub, but now Edna KO’s him with the log. Charlie climbs up into the caravan, and then we CUT to a CU of him determinedly grabbing the horse’s reins (BUT WE NEVER see ANY horses!), then a wide shot as the caravan takes off. EC gets up and chases, along with the other gypsies, and the camera inside the racing caravan really puts some action into the chase (another new angle!), until Edna KO’s EC again from the back door and he trips all the other gypsies.

“Safe and Sound the Next morning” Charlie wakes up under a too small blanket and proceeds to wash up in a bucket. “Spring Cleaning” and Chaplin now thoroughly washes the urchin girls whole head (hair, face, neck). A wandering painter finds her in search of water, and, inspired, paints her picture, “I’ll paint you as the living Shamrock”. While this is happening, Charlie is making breakfast. With a hammer.

The girl invites the Artist to food, making Charlie jealous and sad. When he has left, the girl is disconsolate. “I’ll learn to paint, Kiddie” offers Charlie, but to no use, she is sad. At the Artist’s show however, the painting is a big hit, and it is noticed by a society woman who is convinced that this is her long lost baby (possibly stolen by the Gypsies though this is not stated as such) and she has the painter take her to the girl. When they arrive, Charlie is out, and there is a joyful reunion, mother has come to save her from “this life”. When Charlie arrives, he is first confused, then sad, then resigned. The best thing for the girl is to go where the best life for her is possible, and that obviously won’t mean staying a vagabond with Charlie. The woman offers Charlie money for his trouble, which he refuses, preferring a heartfelt goodbye to the girl. This is also the first appearance of a hardtop automobile, which the society crowd leaves in. “The awakening of the Real Love”, in the car, and here Chaplin shoots into the backseat of the car as it flys down the road (another innovation/first), Edna realizes she loves Chaplin, they come back and get him as he is sitting forlornly on the backstep of the caravan, “You come too” says Edna, and they all leave together in the cars. END

This film has yet more camera innovation, the backseat shot, the edited out Horses, the supremely spare use of Closeups which became almost a religion for the masters of the “studio style” that would come later. The set design is also getting better, getting farther and farther away from the pure Y axis, theater style, Sennett/Keystone layouts, with rooms and exteriors basically put in a Y axis row, with cuts placed only on “walls”. Chaplin is starting to use the X axis more, and it is really helping, and MUCH more interesting.

ONE A.M. (August 7, 1916). A solo effort by Chaplin, that is a sometimes brilliant, sometimes semi-cliché piece of virtuosic physical comedy. Particularly involving the carpet on the stairs, and a spinning tabletop, there is some amazing acrobatics that flesh out this extremely simple plot line: It’s 1AM, I’m drunk, I’m home, I want to go to sleep.

This time, Chaplin plays a man of means, as they used to say, and a DRUNK one at that. It is perhaps to be considered that when he DOES portray some wealth, he makes it stay alone and isolate, in a private turmoil. Essentially this is the old Karno Vaudeville “funny drunk” character trotted out again to be used for more experimentation. He starts with some great gags involving getting out of the cab’s back seat “They should build these handles nearer the door”. And then, a revelation! Chaplin, trying to figure out the fare from the meter, “Sees” and this is REALLY innovative, the actual numbers on the meter SPIN as Charlie “watches” them. This is very different from previous slapstick because the “viewer” is limited to only ONE character, AND it is an objective display of a subjective reality. WOW. Albert Austin, the cab driver, is only puzzled when Charlie only leaves one coin, because the meter keeps coming up as 0000! Charlie leaves, and, not finding his key, creeps through the front window of his house – and here exactly reverses “The Line” by cutting to a set of the house, with carpeted stairs leading up to a balcony (expanding into Z axis potential!) – finds his key, then creeps back OUT AGAIN and lets himself in with his key!

We go through some rug/slippery floor gags, a great gag involving some animal furs on the floor, to finally end at the spinning table top with the bottle on it. Now Charlie gets all Komenice on it, RUNNING on the table top, spinning around the room, chasing the bottle on the top to hilarious result! “That’s the fastest round of drinks I ever saw!” an actual JOKE INTERTITLE, something not previously seen. Prior to this it is clever pun or innuendo on the intertitles. Unable to get a drink, Charlie now needs a smoke, and we go into gags involving the cigarette, the ashtray, his hat, and a spittoon, great stuff, before it is time to TRY to go upstairs to bed. From the cigarette gags on, Charlie breaks the “fourth wall” and shares his agony directly with the audience, mostly in medCU shots.

Now, the stairway and carpet gags are absolutely spectacular, but what really takes it over the top is the clock with the fast, VERY oversized pendulum on the wall on the balcony. This keeps knocking Charlie in the TEETH right back down the stairs, until he finally decides to climb the coatrack like a tree and go directly to the balcony. Of course, he continues to get hit until he submits to time, and crawls through the doorway on his knees.

Now in the bedroom we have Murphy bed gags of all type. If you don’t know what a Murphy bed is, LOOK IT UP! This is some funny stuff, that ends with total destruction, and Charlie flung into the shower in the adjoining bathroom. After a series of shower gags, Charlie sleeps in the tub! End.

It is like watching a concert violinist of say, Kennedy’s quality, practice all the variations on a theme that seem to be able to be done, and then doing one more. I keep thinking of how George Stevens described Chaplin’s secret:

” With Charlie Chaplin, you felt that you knew what was going to happen. Except that Charlie always out-guessed you. When he was surely going to punch the man in the nose, the man punched Charlie in the nose. They’re in communion with one another.” (from Cinema, Dec-Jan 1964-65. “Stevens Talks About Movies” by James Silke, reprinted in “George Stevens Interviews” from the Conversations with Filmmakers Series, edited by Paul Cronin, University Press of Mississippi, 2004).

Chaplin was also a fine musician, and he scored many of his pictures. A film like this is absolutely musical, and it is this constant experimentation and exploration of variation that sets him on the par with a great soloist. You are SURE that he is going to take a scale to a Bflat, and he goes right on up to an F! You will hear this gift in Rachmaninoff and Jimmy Page and Hendrix, you will see it in Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy, and, I ALMOST hate to say this, but later in Jerry Lewis (NO, I am in NO WAY French!!).

The Count (9/4/1916) brings the gang back together, Charlie, Eric, Edna, Albert, Charlotte Mineau, and Henry Bergman. This time Charlie is a tailor, Edna is Miss Moneybags, Eric is Charlie’s boss – the head tailor, Albert is a tall guest at Miss Moneybags Society ball in honor of a visiting count, and Mineau and Bergman are Mom and Pop Moneybags.

The story begins in the Tailor’s shop where Charlie is flirting with a woman while elaborately measuring her every part. Eric moves in, and Charlie is banished to the ironing table, though not before he hilariously sneaks in a few last odd measurements! Of course, preoccupied by his thoughts, he burns a stack of pants, gets fired, AND the Bum’s Rush (waistband and collar heave-ho, for those that have been previously puzzled by my use of this vintage handtooled and well worn comedic slang term).

Charlie flees to visit a sweetie, a cook at Miss Moneybags house. She sets out some very stinky cheese, though it is never clear if it is the famous “limburger” (which actually does stink to high hell, my Dad used to eat it once in a while, he thought it was great on Ritz.), it may be the first use of the stinky cheese gag! Very exciting. The kitchen set is very wide, though sparsely outfitted only with chair and table, a sink/counter combo on screen right, and a dumbwaiter in the background ¼ left screen, we are led to believe that there is an exit to the rest of the house in the far back left corner. There is a large linen basket in the right foreground, and a backdoor in the background center. So, as Chaplin is eating the stinky cheese off a tableknife, holding his nose, suddenly the butler is heard approaching (he ALSO is hot for the cook!), the cook stuffs Charlie in the Linen basket and throws in the cheese, he immediately tries to escape from the cheese! The butler sits down, and Charlie ejects the cheese onto the floor behind him. PEEW! The butler complains, cheese goes Back in the basket! Now Charlie ejects it right into his face, knocking him out of the chair, the butler is mad at the cook! He thinks she did it! The butler leaves and Charlie is out only long enough to have to dive into the dumbwaiter as a COP comes through the backdoor, ALSO hot for the cook! This cook really cooks, looks to be a big bouncy German girl!

Now here comes another interesting innovation, Chaplin cuts from the wide kitchen shot to a medium CU of Charlie in the dumbwaiter with the cheese and a “Oh Crap, what do I do with this NOW?”, Back to the wide, the butler is coming again so the cop has to go in the basket. Back to the MedCU in the dumbwaiter, he throws the cheese off the right side of the screen, and cuts to a CU of the cook shoving the cop down into the basket, and the cheese flies into the basket from offscreen left! Throwing things across edits is one thing, throwing from one focal length, across an edit, into a different focal length, is NEW!

So now Charlie is in the dumbwaiter, the cop is in the basket, and the butler is flirting with the cook again. Charlie takes the dumbwaiter “up” to the lobby and pops out to find Eric Campbell, wearing one of the real Count’s suits, and POSING as the Count. “Sh, I’m supposed to be the Count! You can be my Secretary!”. Chaplin laughs and laughs at the set-up. When the butler takes them in, Chap scoots in front, and now HE is introduced as The Count, and HE presents EC as HIS secretary! This occurs in the ballroom, and now Mom and Pop move everyone into the Dining room since the Count is arrived, they can all eat. Edna gets seated next to Charlie, or rather, Charlie seats HIMSELF next to Edna, with EC on his right. Now we go to a Med 3 shot of them, slightly elevated, another cinematic rarity, and EC is a total PIG, a real slurper. We go through soup to pasta to watermelon before we finish, with great gags on all 3 items. Then it’s back to the ballroom. Is it signifigant that there are more women than men at this party?

Ballroom gags, and Dancing By Charlie, always a beautiful event, and it is. Charlie and Edna then try to slip away out back, but EC intercepts them and while he and Charlie argue, Albert Austin slips in and gets Edna dancing. Both are incensed, but it shakes out that EC and AA get in the fight and once again, Charlie spirits Edna away. Unfortunately, at this point the REAL COUNT arrives, and all hell breaks loose! Charlie is on the run from EVERYONE now, but he is so overcome by another girl in the lobby that he starts batting (using his cane) the cake into the ballroom hitting EC, Bergman, basically every male in the place! The Chase is on again, into the ballroom, with great skating gags, and a hell of a food fight, before a gun comes out, Charlie is shot in the ass 4 times before he escapes out a window, KO’ing a cop before running off down the Z Axis on the sidewalk. END.

I quite liked this one. The cheese toss editing was FRESH, and we get more of the dance/fighting/slipping technique of physical comedy that Chaplin is the MASTER of.

The Pawnshop (10/2/1916) is my personal favorite of all the Chaplin shorts. I first found it through A&E, in the eighties when these were restored they were broadcast, and I taped I think 11 of them. This is THE ONE. The Best. I am not sure about cinematic innovations, there are some as usual, BUT it is just, to me, the best, strictly personally. The story revolves around a pawnshop, owned by (I think he’s supposed to be Jewish?)Henry Bergman and his daughter Edna Purviance, with Charlie as a clerk and Henry Rand as a rival (of course) clerk. Later, Eric Campbell comes in as a Thief. Albert Austin and future Oscar Nominated Director of 1931 Best Picture “Cimmaron” Wesley Ruggles are two memorable customers.

“Late as Usual” and we begin with Charlie coming in late, putting his hat in a birdcage in the back, and getting to work with a feather duster, with gags galore, including dusting the running fan till no more duster! Clerk2 gives him a kick and the fight is only prevented by the owner’s entrance. They are IMMEDIATELY hard back at work (a gag which I believe begins here, but is standard material ever after!). Charlie has to clean the 3 globes out front (THE classic mark of pawnshops), and so he takes a ladder and does more variations on Board gags, he hooks Clerk2 and drags him out front, so clerk2 kicks him in the ass. Charlie proceeds to get a little kid to hold up his end of the ladder so he can dance/box clerk2 until a cop appears, then it turns strictly to a dance and he flees inside. In the execution of the ladder schtick, Chaplin perhaps most signifigantly alters the board gag by working the X axis as well as the Y axis, and even crossing cuts and rooms with a trapped man. Once the cop is cleared, the clerk is freed, and the kid is gone, Charlie mounts the ladder and starts rocking back and forth as he cleans the globes, and there are globe gags as well. Now we see the Cop again, in an INSERTED “watching” shot, scared for Charlie’s precarious position. Sure enough, Charlie falls, riding the ladder almost to the impact! The cop rushes up, as does the owner and a new round of ladder gags commences with the cop knocked flat! Charlie has to dance around the cop again to get his bucket and finish cleaning the backroom, good dance.

Charlie and Clerk2 in the backroom “toss who carries the ladder?” Clerk2 loses, and there is a fight. They slip on the wetspot made by the bucket, They fight, the owner comes in and fires Charlie. PATHOS! He is unimpressed by the brilliantly choreographed back-to-work gag! Charlie pleads, showing the height of his three children. NO! GO! As he reaches the door “I’ll give you another chance!” Grateful beyond words Charlie jumps all over the owner, who leaves, embarrassed. As soon as he is out the door, Charlie POUNCES on the other clerk and throttles and beats the hell out of him. In this fight, Clerk2 punches him in the gut, and he has to check his pocketwatch. This will be a recurring gag, that will get funnier each time, and even HAVING such a specific recurring bit of business (used only at the most absurd times) is quite innovative. As he is throttling him across the desk while standing on his chest, Edna comes in from the kitchen beyond the backroom, and Charlie flies to the floor, pleading injury!

Edna takes pity on poor Charlie, “You Brute, To Hit a Child!”, the groggy and confused Rand can only look on as Edna kisses Charlie’s boo-boo’s and make them better. He swoons, and she takes him into the kitchen for a treat snack. She gives him one of her home made biscuits, and … It’s Like A Rock! The hard roll gags he works are SO well timed to avoid her catching him, and SO self-conscious. It is just a joy to watch this one.

Throughout this picture, more than anything that has come before, Chaplin is working the eyelines of people, timing their glances for comic effect, and blocking them to create a second whole level of both parody, AND comic possibility. It is so subtly done, so naturally executed, and so apparently sophisticated in it’s planning and choreography, that it could almost be a commentary, especially if you want to talk about the 1^st Wave Feminist Laura Mulvey’s theories about “the Male Gaze”, because here what we have is Chaplin creating almost a whole language of carefully manipulative eyelines. This is not exactly what Mulvey is talking about, but it could be a fun bit of intellectual rag-chewing, the bottom line is that what Chaplin really does with this, and he does more and more of it, WORKS. It works like goddamn GANGBUSTERS!

Back to the Kitchen, plainly outfitted with a table on the Y axis, with a chair facing front, and a sink with a clothes wringer attached, on screen right, the door to the backroom is also screen right. This is typical set design, and it IS actually logical, if a bit unimaginative, you always make the “edge” sets only “open” inward. You never really create an “outside” usually speaking. You REALLY never do that if you are used to Mack Sennett type stuff. Charlie helps Edna out by doing the dishes and running them through the wringer. As Edna starts to work on some more dough, Charlie grabs a rope of it and wears it like a lei, grabs a ladle for a ukulele, and begins to serenade an amused Edna. This is all done in a Med CU.

The Boss sends Clerk2 into kitchen and a fight happens IMMEDIATELY, this rapidly degenerates into a doughfight. Boss enters and … BACK to Work gag again. This recurrent motifing is different from previous films because he is spreading it across multiple scenes, not recurring it all within one scene. A much more difficult pacing of comedy, and a key transition that will make his longer features work. In fact, this is now probably the MOST common form of comedy writing, that of the recurrent motif gag. The doughfight transition to work, by the way, ends with Chaplin using the wringer to make pie-tops for Edna, then exiting to the Safe, where he “cracks it” and then reemerges with his lunch, his precious possession, a square meal. VERY grounding.

Now Chaplin is at the counter, eating his lunch, and a parade of customers begins with the HIGHLY dramatic Wesley Ruggles, who enters like a 19^th century thespian, or a Griffith supporting role! “Her wedding ring – I must part with it or starve!” and he proceeds to tell his tale of woe and suffering, effective enough that Charlie treats us to perhaps the first Spit Take, complete with Saltine crackers for maximum visibility.

Charlie gives him $10 for the ring. “10? You want 5 change” then guy produces HUGE roll of cash and peels off 5 ones, takes the 10 and merrily off on his way! You think this gag is old or corny? Remember Chris Rock ordering “One Wing? How much for just ONE wing?” in “I’m gonna get you sucka”. Same damn gag, and a good gag lives as long as a talented person can deliver it well. Chaplin is funny. Chris is funny. It’s a good gag.

Charlie reacts in this case, by looking blankly into the camera and slapping himself. “The Crook” Eric Campbell enters by casing the joint from outside, then entering the shop, he flirts with Edna and Charlie goes to the back to sweep. Now he can not sweep up a bit of rope, so he does a tightrope on it! The owner brings EC back, and Charlie promptly does the “take the chair” gag on him. Charlie is banished to the counter again.

Albert Austin now comes in with an alarm clock, and this is a bit worthy of the dinner rolls in the Gold Rush. Charlie does a surgery on this clock, with a stethoscope, a drill, a hammer, a chisel, and a prybar. This is an absolutely priceless routine that you just have to see to believe, there is even special effects! WATCH THIS NOW. At the end of this, of course, AA and Charlie are gonna fight, AA is mad as a hornet, but Charlie has a HAMMER, and he uses it right precisely in the middle of AA’s forehead, WOP! Stunned, AA leaves, and then Charlie recurs something all the way back to his “Burlesque on Carmen”, he bends and plays with the rubber hammer head, looking into the camera MedCU and saying with eyes and face “it’s just a movie you know, it’s just harmless fun”. Then back to the action.

In the back, the owner and EC are talking about diamonds, complete with an Insert CU (which breaks “continuity” because the hand in the CU is holding the gem with tweezers, while in the master he uses his bare hands). EC is coveting the safe in the background. At the counter, Charlie is now trying to decide what to do with a bowl of fish a woman has brought in to hock. He begins to shake a bottle of Sulfuric Acid as if to add, when the owner bumps him coming through the door. Acid in the face, foot in ass, careening into backroom, head into bass fiddle POW! Clerk2 and Charlie get in a fight, with EC getting smashed in the face with the Bass Fiddle, which sends the owner after them as they fight into the kitchen. Pies fly and in the confusion, EC makes his play, disappearing into the safe. Chaos in the kitchen, and Charlie flees, after hitting the owner in the head with a rolling pin, and hides in a trunk in the back room. The others pursue just as EC comes out of the safe with loot and a gun. Holding them (they are shaking) at gun point, he backs towards the door, Charlie pops out and KO’s EC with the pin. Charlie, now the hero emerges and gets a big hug from Edna. END.

Lots and lots going on in this one. I just love it. If you are only going to watch ONE Mutual Chaplin, make it “The Pawnshop”.