Twenty Minutes of Love

Twenty Minutes of Love (1914)

*** (out of 4)

A man (Charles Chaplin) walks through the park and notices all sorts of couples making out so he decides to spoof them with a tree. This is a faster paced short with Chaplin doing all sorts of goodies but the highlights are the tree scene and the ending where everyone starts falling in a lake.

The Landlady's Pet (1914)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Charles Chaplin plays the favorite of the landlady, which doesn't sit well with the other occupants. This short really doesn't feature anything special and is quite bland with the exception of one scene where Chaplin learns to play tennis.

Cruel, Cruel Love (1914)

*** (out of 4)

A man (Charles Chaplin) is dumped by his fiancé so he decides to kill himself. After drinking the poison he receives a letter from the fiancé saying she wants him back. It's interesting to see Chaplin playing a role outside The Tramp and this short allows him to go all out. The best scenes include one where he destroys a room and another one where he fantasizes about hell before taking the poison.

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 much better than his directing debut 'Twenty Minutes of Love', 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. 'Twenty Minutes of Love' is a long way from a career high, but has some nice things about it.

'Twenty Minutes of Love' 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. Things feel a little scrappy and confused at times and Chaplin's directing debut does betray inexperience.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'Twenty Minutes of Love' 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.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Twenty Minutes of Love' is mildly amusing, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves reasonably quickly, though not without its dull spots, and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best and patchy but not bad. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Charlie Chaplin's directorial debut casts him as a man who interrupts people's makeout sessions in a park. There were no feature films by this point, so it makes sense that the movie has a simple plot. It was still going to be a few years before Chaplin started incorporating political issues into his movies. Chaplin's early movies were all about physical comedy, and he makes good use of that here. Co-star Edgar Kennedy (the lover) later played the lemonade vendor in "Duck Soup", while Chester Conklin (the pickpocket) played a mechanic in "Modern Times".

It must've been weird for Charlie Chaplin, how he went from being a boy growing up in an orphanage to being an international superstar.

In 1914, Charlie Chaplin began making pictures. These were made for Mack Sennett (also known as "Keystone Studios") and were literally churned out in very rapid succession. The short comedies had very little structure and were completely ad libbed. As a result, the films, though popular in their day, were just awful by today's standards. Many of them bear a strong similarity to home movies featuring obnoxious relatives mugging for the camera. Many others show the characters wander in front of the camera and do pretty much nothing. And, regardless of the outcome, Keystone sent them straight to theaters. My assumption is that all movies at this time must have been pretty bad, as the Keystone films with Chaplin were very successful.

The Charlie Chaplin we know and love today only began to evolve later in Chaplin's career with Keystone. By 1915, he signed a new lucrative contract with Essenay Studios and the films improved dramatically with Chaplin as director. However, at times these films were still very rough and not especially memorable. No, Chaplin as the cute Little Tramp was still evolving. In 1916, when he switched to Mutual Studios, his films once again improved and he became the more recognizable nice guy--in many of the previous films he was just a jerk (either getting drunk a lot, beating up women, provoking fights with innocent people, etc.). The final evolution of his Little Tramp to classic status occurred in the 1920s as a result of his full-length films.

It's interesting that this film is called TWENTY MINUTES OF LOVE since the film only lasts about 10 minutes! Oh well. The plot, what little there is, involves the Little Tramp in the park. A couple wants to neck but inexplicably, Charlie insists on practically sitting on the couple's lap and really annoying them. I can't understand why and the short consists of Charlie wandering about the park annoying these people and some others later in the film. Perhaps he was looking for a threesome, I don't know. But the film lacks coherence and just isn't particularly funny--even when people start slapping each other and pushing each other in the lake. A typical poor effort before Chaplin began to give his character a plot and personality.

If you want your vision of Chaplin limited to a lovable tramp and you get your belly laughs from pathos, watch something else. If, however, you love slapstick comedy as performed by one of the best, do watch this one.

The image is of the tramp who really cannot get the girl. He spots another couple kissing on a park bench, and he has a blast ruining their fun.

This is one of Chaplin's "park comedies," filmed in Mack Sennett's park, with pickpockets and cops and couples. These shorts work, as the format allows Chaplin to shine as he weaves through predicaments.

I checked the box, as this could be considered a spoiler, though it's not if you've seen these films. Everyone ends up in the pond except Chaplin. He gets the girl, who in this case was played by Minta Durfee, a.k.a. Mrs. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.