Charlot, sufragista

No one would confuse Charlie in drag with a woman or would they? While the tramp is not here there is plenty of physical comedy in this split-reeler with Kids Auto Races. It has all of 6 minutes to go through the action.

One important thing is one of the early pairings of Charlie with Mack Swain. Mack would do several films with him in these formative years and very often Swain was a good support foil for Charlie. I had this film on 8MM film for many years from when I was young.

The history of Charlie doing this is more important than the quality of the film. This was one of those early pieces that started to get him an audience. This would be important later when he became a legend.

A Busy Day (1914)

** (out of 4)

Chaplin plays a woman(!) who gets tired of her husbands and decides to fight with him in public. This here really doesn't have a single funny moment but it's still interesting to see Chaplin playing a woman.

Caught in a Cabaret (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Chaplin is mistaken as a Greek Ambassador and must keep a girl's family from finding out. This one here is a real riot with some wonderfully funny fight scenes but the real highlights are the title cards, which feature some very funny one-liners. Also of note is that this storyline would play a big part in future Chaplin films.

Fatal Mallet, The (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Chaplin, along with two other guys, fights for the affection of a woman. Instead of using their fist the guys instead throw bricks at one another. This is a very funny film that has some outrageous violence that makes for a good time.

Knockout, The (1914)

*** (out of 4)

To show off his braveness, Fatty Arbuckle challenged a professional boxer to a fight. Fatty is funny as usually and like the above film, this one here gets the laughs from violence ranging from punches to items being thrown. Chaplin has a small but funny cameo as the referee.

'A Busy Day' was the first of the three movies where Charles Chaplin appeared in drag. While in second and third time he played a female impersonator (in 'The Masquerader' he played an actor pretending to be a woman to get work, and in 'A Woman' he pretended to be a woman to get away from his pursuers), then in this one he portrays a real woman - a jealous wife of the husband who starts to flirt with a beautiful girl at the military parade. The film is nothing special (supposedly it was filmed within two hours at the real military parade) - Chaplin is a jealous wife, but she kicks and hits everybody for no obvious reason. Posing in front of the camera and annoying the operator is just the rework of the joke from the 'Kid Auto Races at Venice'. The stunts and gags lack any proper buildup turns 'A Busy Day' just random scenes of people getting hit in the backside by Chaplin and nothing more.

This film can be easily passed on if you're not Charles Chaplin completist or interested to see all his drag performances, from which this is the weakest one. Plus, he looks ugly in this, but that might be done on purpose. Or is it because he plays the character who is ugly on the inside. Of course, the footage of the real parade and warships is interesting to see.

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.

Everybody has to have at least one misfire in their careers, even the best directors and actors have not so good films or films they regret. From his early still evolving period before he properly found his stride and fairly fresh from his vaudeville background, like 'His Favourite Pastime', 'A Busy Day' shows that Chaplin is not immune from this. While an important milestone period for him, his Keystone years/films generally were watchable and interesting enough overall but patchy, none being among his best work.

'A Busy Day' has a few good points. While a little primitive and not exactly audacious, the production values are far from cheap.

There are also a few amusing moments, a little zest on occasions and it was interesting to see Chaplin in drag.

Where 'A Busy Day' falls down is that mostly it's not particularly funny. The timing feels limp and there is very little, if any, freshness or originality. There is an over-reliance on slap-stick and it is very broad and very repetitive. There is not much charm here and there is not much to be emotionally invested by. The story is flimsy, so much so things feel over-stretched, there are not many Chaplin short films where a short length feels very dull but 'A Busy Day' is one of them.

Found myself uncharacteristically disappointed by Chaplin, which was not expected because generally even in lesser efforts he was one of the better things about them. Here he does not look interested and goes through the motions, there is none of the comedy/directing genius that he is deservedly hailed for. The rest of the cast are not much to write home about.

In conclusion, an early career misfire. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A Busy Day is probably one of Chaplin's first comedies (it's at least in his first year of screen acting, 1914). He is not the Tramp, but actually playing a woman, a henpecking wife who drives her husband to another woman. Alas, film comedy had not matured yet, so, like many of its kindred films, A Busy Day contains only the broadest slapstick comedy: woman hits man, man hits woman, woman kicks man in butt, repeat. However, scrolling through this film's alternate titles, I came upon something utterly interesting: one of those alternate titles was The Militant Suffragette!!! I'm not exactly sure when women got the vote (I know that the first presidential election they voted in was 1920), but, judging from that title, this film may have been criticizing (humorously, not seriously) women who wished to have political rights! Now how's that for history!