A Jitney Elopement (1915)
Chaplin's Essanay Comedies (1915)
•
25m
Charlie must rescue his sweetheart, Edna, from an arranged marriage by posing as the Count, the man to whom Edna is betrothed but whom neither she nor her father have ever seen. The film climaxes with a car chase, featuring a Ford automobile, a target of contemporary humor, alongside San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach, and ends with a car plunge into the bay at Fisherman’s Wharf. Impersonation/mistaken identity was a device Chaplin enjoyed.
Among the wonderful bits of comic transposition in the film is a bit of business Chaplin had performed in Fred Karno’s music hall sketch Jimmy the Fearless: Charlie, attempting to slice a bread roll, continues in a spiral cut, turning the roll into a concertina (a rudimentary accordion).
Up Next in Chaplin's Essanay Comedies (1915)
-
The Tramp (1915)
Charlie, a wistful but down-on-his-luck wanderer, saves a farmer’s daughter from some thieving toughs and subsequently stops their attempt to rob the farm. He falls in love with the girl, but upon the appearance of her sweetheart, the little fellow realizes the true situation. He departs, leaving...
-
By the Sea (1915)
The second of two one-reel comedies Chaplin made for Essanay, the film was photographed along Ocean Front Walk and Abbott Kinney Pier in Venice, California, in just one day. It is a film that reverts into the old Keystone pattern (beaches, parks, or motion picture studios as locales for fast-pace...
-
His Regeneration (1915)
Chaplin made a guest appearance in this one-reel G.M. “Broncho Billy” Anderson drama, as the Tramp in the film’s dance-hall sequence. That the main title states
that Anderson was “slightly assisted by Charles Chaplin” suggests that Chaplin may have had a hand in the construction and direction of...
