Die Rollschuhbahn

This film is laugh out loud funny. Who knew Charlie Chaplin was so graceful (and funny) on roller skates? This short film is watchable by all ages, and despite being close to 90 years old, it is still downright funny. Lookout for a character called Mrs. Stout played by a man in drag.

I have and always will hold this short film in high regard. I don't recall when I first saw "The Rink", but I remember being taken aback by the graceful eloquence of Chaplin's skating. It has figured prominently in my memory since--especially in playing back the first moment when Chaplin rolls onto the rink. This must be what the French critics were referring to when they compared him to ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinksy. Chaplin skated again in "Modern Times" (1936), but for some reason, perhaps because there's so much more going on in that feature-length film, it hasn't had the same affect on me.

"The Rink" also reminds me of the earliest film I've seen of Chaplin's comedic forerunner and prominent influence Max Linder. In that very short film, of which no two sources seem to agree on the date or the exact title, Max skated on the ice, or, rather, attempted to skate; the humor supposedly being in the many pratfalls. There are plenty of pratfalls in Chaplin's film, but they're in addition to his elegant movements on the rink floor.

In "The Rink", the agile skating makes for a nice contrast to the knockabout slapstick that the film is otherwise. Chaplin, by now, had managed to balance these two contrasting styles, and it makes for a very entertaining short. The direction almost seems intended to point out the differences in the styles; there are, as common then, many jump cuts when Chaplin's causing mayhem at the restaurant, but when he's skating, there are flowing, seamless camera movements. The restaurant gags, for the most part, aren't bad, either. Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell and other regulars aid in the fun, including Henry Bergman in the oft done but still funny drag role.

There isn't a lot of subtlety to "The Rink", but it does have some entertaining slapstick and some traces of some of Chaplin's favorite themes. The first part in the restaurant has both good moments and routine stretches, and then things liven up when everyone gets their skates on - the action combines tangled relationships with tangled limbs. Although he has his character take a good assortment of slips and falls, in so doing Chaplin also demonstrates his physical skill, and his performance anticipates his more famous roller skating scene in "Modern Times". It's probably not among his best short features, but all the same it's one that Chaplin fans will want to see.

Chaplin is a waiter in a chaotic restaurant. After he work he visits a skating rink for roller skates where he meets a girl but upsets plenty of others. She invites him to a skating party later – but can he win her heart whilst avoiding others?

Based on a sketch this short required Chaplin to expand the set-up to cover the longer running time and it occasionally shows. The restaurant scene is good but the real meat is in the two skating scenes that are fast and well choreographed to be amusing and skilfully done.

Chaplin is good as the little tramp and is even better when called on physically in the skating scenes. He shows his talent in those scenes much more than the others, however the actual plot needed a little more of the relationship in the wings even if it is just a short film.

Fans, however, will enjoy it regardless.

Chaplin was almost always amusing but it occurred to me while watching this story of a waiter who woos a girl at a skating rink that in his earlier films he was more often the perp than the vic.

This was released in 1916 and Chaplin is a rude waiter who humiliates guests and steals money. If a stranger happens to be bending over and fastening a lady's roller skate, Chaplin can't help giving him a swift kick in the pants when he passes by. There's nothing here about "the little people." If the tramp is little, it's because that's his most comfortable social niche.

Ten years later, in "The Gold Rush," Chaplin had introduced humanity into his character, an innocent who is more sinned against than sinning.

Ten years after "The Gold Rush", he was sending social messages about worker alienation. (That's what happens when your work permits you to take no pride in having done it well. Anyone up for McDonald's Chicken Nuggets?) But in movies like "Modern Times," the milieu is only a peg from which to hang gags that are more hilarious than ever. And movies about poverty in 1936 were hardly uncommon anyway.

The gags here are sometimes spectacular, and always speedy. The tramp could certainly skate well.