Recreation

I've seen quite a few Chaplin shorts from early in his career and I've noticed that his early stuff (done for Keystone Studios) is pretty dreadful stuff. Unlike his wonderful full-length films from the 20s and 30s, the films from 1914-1915 are incredibly poorly made--having no script but only vague instructions from the director. In most cases, the films had almost no plot and degenerated to people punching and kicking each other.

In this film, Charlie walks around the park kicking, hitting and throwing bricks. That's all! He had done practically the same thing in some previous flicks and it's obvious the director just told him to improvise. Judging by the results, he was having a bad day.

FYI--the picture was on DVD from Delta Entertainment. Of all the shorts on the DVD, this was by far the worst quality--having been degraded almost to the point where it was unwatchable.

PS--I got an email from miked32 indicating that Chaplin HIMSELF was the director. Then I guess he is to blame along with the fact that few of these earely Sennett films had any working script.