If you want a drinking game that will get everyone drunk in 20 minutes, agree to take a shot every time someone gets kicked in the butt in a Charlie Chaplin comedy short. Be sure to have a lot of liquor on hand, because there’s a whole lot of ass-kicking going on.
And that’s about it. I know every time a Chaplin movie shows up I seem not to have much good to say about it, but really, his early shorts are very simple, repetitive, formulaic affairs. Sure, he’s good at falling down, but so were other actors of his day. I’m waiting, waiting, waiting to become enthralled by him the way seemingly every other person on the planet was during his heyday.
Plot-wise, this is about what I expected based on the title alone. Chaplin’s an inept fireman who spends most of his day falling down, kicking people in the butt, getting kicked in the butt, and generally disrupting life at the fire station. Naturally, at the end he heroically rescues a woman from a fire that had been deliberately set as an insurance scam. Chaplin climbs down the side of a building in that scene in what is the highlight of the film, and the film ends with Chaplin and the girl he rescued walking off together. He was a good fireman after all!
I watched this on the same Blu-ray set that included The Floorwalker, one of a dozen of the comedy shorts Chaplin made for Mutual in 1916 and 1917. You can purchase a copy by clicking on the photo below.
Next I’m watching East Lynne [1916], directed by Bertram Bracken.
Share this post