Work (1915)
Chaplin's Essanay Comedies (1915)
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29m
The havoc created by incompetent laborers had always been prime slapstick material. In this comedy, Chaplin plays a paperhanger's assistant hired to paper a mansion (the imposing home was the Bradbury Mansion at 147 North Hill Street in Los Angeles). The job quickly devolves into anarchy, culminating with a massive explosion.
The opening sequence - which shows Charlie pulling a work cart down a busy street and up a hill with his boss sitting in the cart's driver seat, hitting Charlie with a whip - is striking for its symbolic importance regarding the exploitation and degradation of human laborers. The final moment, with Charlie surfacing from the gooey paste of a paperhanger, is the progeny of the conclusion of the famous Keystone two-reeler Dough and Dynamite (1914).
Up Next in Chaplin's Essanay Comedies (1915)
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A Woman (1915)
Chaplin had twice previously donned female attire at Keystone, in A Busy Day (1914) and The Masquerader (1914). A WOMAN was Chaplin's last and finest female impersonation, a then-popular device among comedians (Julian Eltinge built a career and fortune on it).
The first half of the film is a ...
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The Bank (1915)
Charlie the janitor love Edna, the pretty bank secretary, but her sweetheart is another Charles, the cashier. One of the best of the Chaplin Essanay comedies, the film's plot is a reworking of his Keystone film, The New Janitor (1914), incorporating a dream sequence inspired by Fred Karno's Jimmy...
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Shanghaied (1915)
Chaplin rented a boat, the Vaquero, to inspire the plot of this comedy gem. Charlie is hired to shanghai a crew, only to be shanghaied himself as well. He has to save himself and his sweetheart, who has stowed away, before the boat is sabotaged for the insurance.
The film contains some of Cha...
