This is a 24-minute black-and-white short film and given the fact that this one is almost 100 years old, it will not come as a surprise that this is still without color. Chaplin directed this film and teamed up with his regular co-stars Edna Purviance and Eric Campbell here. It is one of his most famous short films, but not among his best in my opinion. Not even among the better I guess. It is also from his final years as a short film actor and was made not too long before he went on to work on full feature films. This one actually started promising with the scenes at the beach as I always like Chaplin films when there is a bit more drama and not just the usual slapstick comedy. Unfortunately, after the rescue scene where the women almost drowned, it becomes pure slapstick comedy basically for the rest of the movie and I found this a bit disappointing. You can say there is a bit of a cut as almost the first half of the film is near the water and almost all that follows is indoors because Charlie's love interest here comes from a wealthy family and being the hero of the day he is invited to some high-society event. The only inclusion I liked from the second half was the food mishap that Charlie tries to hide under his clothes. Better and funnier than the door chaos at the end. You can also wonder what happened before the film that caused Charlie to be a prison inmate here and also what will happen afterwards as he is on the run again. Actually, the way the film started, it could also take place like this after the end again in some kind of eternal loop.
There are the usual ingredients again in this movie: love is a factor, but never explicit or graphic, merely indicated, and also an antagonist who is at least twice the main character's size. It also felt to me that said antagonist (or rather Campbell who portrayed him) could not show us his actual talent as an actor in this one because the story was too much of a Chaplin show this time. The beard was memorable though, also how Charlie pulled it to get the big man out of the water. Overall, I would say this is not recommended and even if I liked the first half more, there were some inclusions that did not make a lot of sense like how Charlie's head is out of the sand and he sees the officer and the rifle and clearly makes some noise there to dig down and hide again, but the guy does neither see nor hear Charlie, which he really should have. Or that the digging was totally ignored in the next shot and Charlie was just making his way out of the sand in order to run away. So he dug in the other direction all of a sudden then to get out instead of in. And most of all, how did Charlie not only survive the bullet hitting him, but got away completely unharmed? So yeah there are some flaws with this film and the second half was just fairly bland, including all the kicking going on, so that even under half an hour this film felt too long for its own good. Watch another Chaplin short film instead. If you still wanna go for it, it might come in handy that this film, probably also because of its age, is one that is a bit of an exception because it is easier to find on legal websites than on illegal ones. Even Wikipedia has it. But I suggest you skip. The title is also too random and more intertitles would have helped as usual, eve if it is not a case of a movie where you do not understand what is going on.
There are the usual ingredients again in this movie: love is a factor, but never explicit or graphic, merely indicated, and also an antagonist who is at least twice the main character's size. It also felt to me that said antagonist (or rather Campbell who portrayed him) could not show us his actual talent as an actor in this one because the story was too much of a Chaplin show this time. The beard was memorable though, also how Charlie pulled it to get the big man out of the water. Overall, I would say this is not recommended and even if I liked the first half more, there were some inclusions that did not make a lot of sense like how Charlie's head is out of the sand and he sees the officer and the rifle and clearly makes some noise there to dig down and hide again, but the guy does neither see nor hear Charlie, which he really should have. Or that the digging was totally ignored in the next shot and Charlie was just making his way out of the sand in order to run away. So he dug in the other direction all of a sudden then to get out instead of in. And most of all, how did Charlie not only survive the bullet hitting him, but got away completely unharmed? So yeah there are some flaws with this film and the second half was just fairly bland, including all the kicking going on, so that even under half an hour this film felt too long for its own good. Watch another Chaplin short film instead. If you still wanna go for it, it might come in handy that this film, probably also because of its age, is one that is a bit of an exception because it is easier to find on legal websites than on illegal ones. Even Wikipedia has it. But I suggest you skip. The title is also too random and more intertitles would have helped as usual, eve if it is not a case of a movie where you do not understand what is going on.