The Face on the Barroom Floor

In Face on the Barroom Floor, Chaplin satirizes a poem and does some real acting, the kind that is rarely seen at this time in his career, when the vast majority of his films are still packed full of overblown physical comedy, and evidently staggering drunkenness provides a nice catalyst in this direction. Chaplin does play a pretty convincing drunk, but the kicking and punching and falling over backwards, if not outright boring, is clearly below Chaplin's level of talent, I just think that he had yet to realize it. I don't think it was until the more dramatic films of his later career that he really learned what he could do with his craft and how meaningful his films could be.

That being said, it is still nice to see that the Tramp is evolving from the callous jerk of the first few films and into a more human character, although still one who has a few lessons to learn about how to handle life's little conflicts. This is a clever short film that is a little light on the comedy, being that it is a short comedy, but an interesting look at the slow evolution of Chaplin's acting and the steadily thickening plots.

Let's be honest, 'The Face on the Barroom Floor' is not much of a comedy. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is a bad movie. No! It is more a tragic story with some nice visual gags. It stands above most of The Keystone's farcical slapsticks but not only because it is so different. Here we can see Chaplin shine without relying too much on heavy slapstick. The movie is based on the poem by Hugh Antoine d'Arcy 'The Face Upon the Barroom Floor', which I also recommend reading. The movie follows the story from the poem quite accurately. Of course, there are many different cuts out there and some of them are quite botched up so the story is disfigured and some scenes don't make any sense.

The low score here, in IMDb, is probably due to the fact, that people expected the usual early Chaplin farce, but instead, they got rather a thoughtful movie without any raunchy slapstick.

A very amusing burlesque on the famous poem that has been recited so many times. The poem itself is altered in places and the action is entirely of the low comedy sort. Chas. Chaplin wins new laurels in the leading part. This is bound to please. - The Moving Picture World, August 29, 1914

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

He did do better than 'The Face on the Barroom Floor', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Face on the Barroom Floor' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch.

'The Face on the Barroom Floor' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused and the more satirical elements are not quite sharp enough.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Face on the Barroom Floor' is not bad at all and there are flashes of his distinctive style, meaning that he was showing signs of evolving.

While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. He plays it straight too and it is effective.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Face on the Barroom Floor' is humorous, sweet and easy to like. It is one of Chaplin's earliest attempts at pathos, and it doesn't get too sappy, while not inducing sobs some may find themselves misty-eyed. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, pretty decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox

You can read the poem upon which this film was based. I guess a lot of the satire is lost to our "blind" modern eyes. This is a rare chance to see early Chaplin doing some fairly straight acting.

Well, I've just been told that my comment isn't long enough. Good writing is succinct writing everywhere else.

But I'll plow on with more thoughts. It's interesting to see how much the tragedy in being a run-down bum is felt in this short. The Tramp is such a resourceful character in most shorts that feature him that there is no sense of his being really a loser in life. The poor who identified with his plight also enjoyed his ultimate victories and small defeats of the powerful, I will guess. If we looked at him today, we'd wonder why he couldn't fit into the models of success we hold dear: offices, stores, anything that requires conformation to behaviorial requirements -- must have been all that kicking!