Charlot y el fuego

Edgar English's work in this picture will keep it amusing. There are many good situations, fresh and laughable, and the offering ought to be welcome everywhere as a Tightener of the program. Camera work helps a lot. - The Moving Picture World, March 7, 1914

Charles Chaplin plays an overly infatuated film fan who decides to visit a movie theatre after seeing a gorgeous actress on the poster. In theatre, he causes quite a havoc before he gets thrown out. Afterward, he manages to get inside the movie studio where he sees the girl from the poster and movie. Well, you guessed it, more havoc is caused.

The theme of a fan falling in love with a starlet is interesting. The plot is easy to follow, even though some scenes seem quite randomly put together. The most interesting part to me was of course the look inside The Keystone Studios and to see how the films were made back in the day. Chaplin's Tramp was still just a trouble maker, but perhaps here some of the more recognizable traits are becoming visible.

Chaotic but still amusing movie. One of the best from the early works of Charles Chaplin.

If anyone has a question about what the title means then it is a play with the term "stage door Johnnie" which was used to describe people who hang out near the theatres in hopes of meeting actors or even land a job in the theatre.

Just watched on the Internet Archive site 8 minutes of what this site states was a 15 minute short made by Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios. It stars Charlie Chaplin in another of his early appearances in which he's at that studio, as a civilian in his Tramp costume, wreaking havoc. If I didn't read the synopsis here beforehand, I would have been partly confused as to what was going on but because of that, I laughed at the part where he came to the "rescue" of his lady crush when she was being "attacked" and when he used the gun to kill her "attacker". Also, was that the first time that gun was used to light a cigarette? Was marred a bit by blurry titles and, once again, missing beginning context. Still, I was quite fascinated by what I saw of A Film Johnnie. Update-6/14/11: I just watched the entire thing on YouTube with the original Keystone titles intact. It's now a bit funnier so I'm now upping the rating from 5 to 7.

I love these early short comedies from Chaplin because, much more than most other directors early in their career, these early short films are such clear depictions of reality, there is always so much history to be seen in them. In Film Johnny, Charlie plays himself, basically, a newcomer to film, trying to get into the pictures and get noticed. But of course, in true Chaplin form, the only thing he manages to do is create havoc, botch an unnecessary rescue attempt and a make a mess of the studio.

My understanding is that "film Johnny" refers to the guys that would hang around film studios, hoping to get inside and get a job (it should be noted that Steven Spielberg used to do this). Chaplin starts out in this film as one of those guys, and then we see a clear escalation of the gags that they put together, culminating in a priceless scene where he gets his hands on a gun and gives in to the feeling of power and invincibility it gives him, and he goes around shooting up the place, famously lighting a cigarette by shooting it with the gun and then firing shots at random around the studio, eventually catching it on fire and inadvertently providing the perfect ending for the film that they had been trying to shoot while he was messing everything up.

It is also interesting, as I have noticed some other IMDb users have pointed out, that in this film you get a glimpse of the Keystone Studios lot only weeks after Chaplin began his film career. A must see for any fan.

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 'A Film Johnnie', 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. 'A Film Johnnie' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it.

'A Film Johnnie' 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.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'A Film Johnnie' is not bad at all.

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. The Tramp did become more likeable later but again he was still evolving.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'A Film Johnnie' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but pretty good and perhaps one of his better efforts from the early Keystone period. 7/10 Bethany Cox