Mabel's Married Life

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.

Well, this film isn't really any better than the rest. Charlie and Mabel Normand spend much of the film slapping or being slapped. Charlie is powerless to stop a tough jerk from making unwanted advances on his wife. So, Mabel buys a punching doll and a drunk Charlie thinks it's real. That's it. No real laughs and no real plot.

FYI--this short was from THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN COLLECTION from Delta Entertainment. Like a few of these early shorts, the captions are all in French! Well, lucky for me I have a pretty good understanding of the language. Others might be frustrated at this, but there are only a few captions.

This one's poor even by Keystone standards, with Chaplin struggling to wring any laughs from his encounters with Mack Swain and a clothing dummy. At least Mabel Normand looks cute in pyjamas.

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 'Mabel's Married Life', 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. 'Mabel's Married Life' 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 and one of Chaplin and Mabel Normand's collaborations.

'Mabel's Married Life' 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, 'Mabel's Married Life' 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. Mabel Normand is charming and has good comic timing, working well with Chaplin.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Mabel's Married Life' 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

Amusing, but there's not all that much to this short. Chaplin gets drunk and picked on by guys at a bar before he starts throwing roundhouses, then later spars with a dummy that wobbles back and forth (you can kind of guess how that goes). To be honest, my favorite part was Mabel Normand, especially when she imitates the tramp's walk. It's just 17 minutes and worth seeing for her.

A man (Charles Chaplin) can do little when a masher starts moving in on his wife Mabel. She buys a boxing dummy to toughen him up. Meanwhile, he's in a bar drinking his blues away. The masher shows up and taunts him. In a drunken state, he actually fights back and knocks everyone down. He goes home and mistakes the boxing dummy with a real person.

Chaplin fighting a dummy is pretty funny but not unexpected. The biggest laugh happens with Mabel doing a Tramp impersonation. I don't like the split second when Chaplin starts choking Mabel and the short should always end with the couple stumbling out of the room and crashing into the nosy neighbors.