The ImmigrantCharles Chaplin's next-to-last Mutual Studios 2-reeler is as funny as his other 11 Mutual entries, though there's a stronger inner lining of poignancy. En route by boat from an unnamed country, immigrant
Chaplin tries to make the best of the nausea-inducing rough seas. He then befriends fellow emigree
Edna Purviance and her ailing mother. Months pass:
Chaplin meets
Purviance in a restaurant. Quickly ascertaining that her mother has died,
Chaplin appoints himself
Purviance's protector. He even promises to pay for the meal; after all, he's just found a silver dollar on the street. But when the dollar lands on the ground with a leadlike thud,
Chaplin realizes he's as broke as ever--and now he's at the mercy of blood-in-his-eye headwaiter
Eric Campbell. But fortune smiles on
Chaplin and
Purviance when a famous artist decides to hire the girl as his model.
Chaplin negotiates an excellent contract for his bride-to-be, and everything comes up roses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The AdventurerThe Adventurer was
Charlie Chaplin's last film in his contract for Lone Star/Mutual, and it is the fastest paced, with its opening and closing chases which are the apotheosis of the Keystone-style rally. It begins with a manhunt filmed on the coast near Santa Monica, California. (During the filming
Chaplin rescued a seven-year-old girl from drowning after she had been swept into the waters from a rock as she watched). The police are after an escaped convict (
Chaplin) who appears out of the sand beside a resting prison guard (Frank J. Coleman). Soon five guards are chasing
Charlie over and through the hills and crags of the rough seacoast. The chase ends with
Charlie taking to the ocean where he steals a swimsuit from a boater.
Meanwhile
Edna Purviance and her suitor
Eric Campbell are lunching at a seaside cafe and hear the cries of
Edna's mother who has fallen off the pier into the ocean.
Edna begs
Eric to jump in and rescue her, but he refuses to risk his life and instead can only stand on the pier and cry for help.
Edna bravely jumps in, but is no better a swimmer and is soon also yelling for rescue. As
Eric yells from the pier, a swarthy seaman standing next to him yells along, and in the process breaks the railing, plunging them both in the drink.
Charlie has meanwhile swum to shore but hearing the cries for help, he swims to the pier where mother, daughter and
Eric are all treading water. The Little Fellow swims agilely between the three, deciding who to save first. He rescues
Edna, who sends him down again for her mother and then for
Eric, whom
Charlie tows along to the pier by his beard. The ladies' chauffeur (played by
Chaplin's own chauffeur, secretary and valet Toraichi Kono) aids in helping the ladies to their limousine, where
Charlie explains that he heard their cries "from my yacht." When
Eric is accidentally dumped back into the sea by
Charlie, he foils
Charlie's second rescue by kicking him off the ladder to the pier. At
Edna's orders, Kono discovers the unconscious
Charlie and carries him to the car.
Waking in a strange bed with bars on the headboard and dressed in someone else's striped pajamas,
Charlie thinks he's back in prison until the butler enters with clothes for him. A party is under way in the household. The hero of the day introduces himself as Commodore Slick and meets
Edna's father, Judge Brown, who eyes him suspiciously.
Charlie is very interested in
Edna, but also in all the free drinks. His rivalry with
Eric soon escalates into covert kicking and seltzer squirting, until
Eric finds
Charlie's picture in a newspaper article about his escape. Before
Eric can bring the article to Judge Brown's attention,
Charlie cleverly draws
Campbell's beard on the photo, allaying the judge's suspicions. Not to be denied,
Campbell calls the authorities. Meanwhile
Charlie samples the pleasures of the house, dancing with
Edna and eating ice cream on a veranda. In a classic bit of pantomime, when
Charlie accidentally drops his lump of ice cream down his pants front, we can trace the exact position of the freezing lump just by watching
Chaplin's face. When the guards arrive, a marvellous chase sequence begins, upstairs and down, during which
Charlie eludes capture. Jumping down from the balcony, one of the guards grabs
Charlie who has paused to apologize to
Edna for his deception. When the guard loosens his hold to shake hands with
Edna,
Charlie takes to his heels again as the picture ends.
This last of
Chaplin's 12 short masterpieces marked the end of
Chaplin's most intensively creative period. "Fulfilling the Mutual Contract, I suppose, was the happiest period of my career, he wrote. "I was light and unencumbered, 27-years old, with fabulous prospects and a friendly, glamorous world before me. Within a short time I would be a millionaire. It all seemed slightly mad."
Eric Campbell, who holds a special place in the
Chaplin lexicon, appeared in only 11
Chaplin films. He was tragically killed in an auto accident in December, 1917 at age 37.
Chaplin tried and failed to replace
Campbell. He instead changed his approach to the villain in his films, later to be supplanted by aspects of society at large.
Chaplin's David was never the same without his true Goliath. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide
CureIn
Charlie Chaplin's 10th film in his series for Lone Star/Mutual, and one of the funniest, he plays a gentleman of means who is at a health spa to take the cure, presumably for his alcoholism. His costume is somewhat different from that of his classic Tramp's: he wears a light-colored jacket and a straw boater. The baggy pants and oversize shoes are there and his derby is in evidence in his trunk. The main feature of the sanatorium is the health-spring well, around which the rich guests sit and take the waters. Charlie is pushed onto the scene in a wheelchair and soon gets caught up in a revolving door, where he traps and incurs the anger of a large, gouty patient,
Eric Campbell. Shown to his room by an attendant, he is present when his trunk is delivered and he checks the contents for damage -- bottle upon bottle of liquor, which astonishes the elderly bellhop who delivers it.
Taken down to the well again he's cajoled by another attendant (
Albert Austin) and a pretty nurse to try the waters, resulting in his immediate departure to his room for a drink. The bellhop has obviously been into the trunk, and Charlie ejects the old fellow. He makes his way downstairs where he encounters a beautiful fellow visitor (
Edna Purviance), rescuing her from the advances of the amorous Campbell, almost getting himself thrown off the premises. Edna steps in to rescue him, refuting Campbell's protestations to the manager. Charlie is brought to the steam room/gymnasium, where a huge masseur,
Henry Bergman, terrifies him as he works on a rubbery fellow-patient (actually a contortionist Chaplin hired for the part). He escapes damage himself as he mock-wrestles with the burly masseur and his assistant and pushes everyone, including Campbell, into the pool.
Meanwhile the manager searches Charlie's room, and, finding the trunk full of liquor and the drunk bellhop in the bed, orders all the liquor thrown away. This is done by the now equally drunk Austin who has obviously been partaking of Charlie's stash. He throws the bottles out the window and into the health spa well. Now sober, Charlie departs the gym, but in the lobby there's a party going on -- the waters have had "a strange effect" and everyone but Charlie and Edna are drunk. Charlie rescues Edna again from the clutches of two aggressive drunks, and the two repair to the well to escape the festivities. Edna urges Charlie to drink from the spring to keep sober for her sake. Eagerly downing jug after glass of the spiked waters transforms Charlie, and he begins to chase Edna too, but he gets caught up in the revolving door and ends up revolving his way all the way to the gym and into the pool. The next morning the hangover reigns supreme over all the guests. Edna apologizes to Charlie for making him drink the water that was full of liquor, and at her entreaty, Charlie promises not to sample the waters again. The two walk off confidently, arm in arm, until Charlie steps into the well, bobbing up and down as the film fades out. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide
Easy StreetArguably the best of
Charlie Chaplin's 12 Lone Star/Mutual comedies, Easy Street gives us a look at the environment in which
Chaplin grew up, the slums of South London. Indeed the title of the film is likely a reference to the street where
Chaplin was born, East Street in Walworth.
Charlie begins this film as he seldom does, as a truly down-and-out derelict, huddled sleeping at the steps of the Hope Mission. The sounds of a service in progress draws him wearily inside. After the sermon, he is entranced by the beautiful mission worker and organist,
Edna Purviance and stays after the service. Inspired by their ministrations he vows to reform, returning the collection box he has slipped into his capacious pants. Out on Easy Street a gang is pummeling members of the police department, removing their uniforms for the coins in their pockets. Toughest of all is the Bully,
Eric Campbell, who menaces the other toughs, taking the spoils for himself.
Charlie, passing the Police Station sees the recruitment sign outside and eventually builds up his resolve sufficiently to apply. His beat is Easy Street. He encounters the Bully who threatens him and is impervious to the blows that
Charlie delivers with his nightstick. In a display of his great strength, the bully bends a gas streetlamp in two, whereupon Charlie leaps on the Bully's back, covering his head with the lamp and turns on the gas. (Chaplin was injured during the filming of this scene; the lamp hit him across the bridge of the nose, holding up production for several days).
As the Bully slumps to the ground, Charlie takes his pulse and decides to give him one more shot of gas for good measure. The squad is called to retrieve the unconscious Bully and
Charlie is, for the moment, cock-of-the-walk, frightening away the other street toughs by simply spinning around to face them. His work also entails charity, as he helps a woman, (who turns out to be the Bully's wife) who has stolen food from a street vendor by stealing more food for her.
Edna happens by and helps
Charlie get her upstairs to her tenement flat. He's rewarded for his efforts by her ingratitude, nearly dropping a flower pot on his head.
Edna takes
Charlie across the way to another apartment where a couple have a large brood of children whom
Charlie helps to feed by scattering bread crumbs among them as if he were feeding chickens. Meanwhile, the Bully awakens at the Police Station and despite multiple blows from the collective nightsticks of the cops, he escapes and returns to Easy Street. His fight with his wife draws
Charlie from across the street and a chase begins, the Bully seeking revenge for his earlier capture.
Charlie drops a stove on the Bully from a second-story window, knocking him out, but the street toughs capture
Edna and toss her down some steps into a subterranean speakeasy. She is threatened there by a dope addict who injects himself with cocaine. Exiting the Bully's flat
Charlie is mugged by the gang and himself tossed down into the cellar. Landing accidentally on the addict's upturned needle,
Charlie becomes supercharged, defeating the junkie and all the denizens of the cellar, rescuing
Edna. Peace is restored to Easy Street and a new mission is in evidence. The Bully and his wife, dressed in their finest, make their way to the services, under
Charlie's approving eye.
Edna approaches and
Charlie greets her joyously and the pair stroll arm in arm towards the welcoming minister and missionary of The New Mission. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide
