By the Sea

By The Sea is one of Charlie Chaplin's very early short comedy skits, and while the plot is necessarily simple, the comedy is effective and the message is clear and fairly heartwarming.

The film concerns some guy on the beach who gets into a hilarious scuffle with another guy on the beach (Chaplin), because they both drop their hats (which, for some reason, are tied to themselves with pieces of string) and subsequently become entangled with one another as they try to get their hats back. Needless to say, they very soon start fighting, in the traditionally comical brawls that are commonplace in nearly all of Chaplin's films.

The plot actually thickens when a woman walks by and Charlie tries to act like he hasn't been fighting, holding his unconscious adversary up while he amusingly tips his hat (like no one else can) by pressing it against the pole that he is leaning on. This type of childishly charming acting is what Chaplin is most famous for and what he is best at, and it works very well here, too. Chaplin has come to be known for his presentations of different class levels in his films, but in By The Sea, one of the themes that is more prevalent is his dislike of authority figures (a standpoint that is shared by Alfred Hitchcock, who had a deathly fear of police officers). When he is fighting with the man on the beach, an officer comes up to break up the fight, accidentally gets knocked unconscious, and Charlie steps on him as he and the other man walk away, soon to agree to a truce.

Eventually, Charlie and the other guy become friends with each other, going out for ice cream. But it seems all the while that they are on the verge of breaking out into another fight – it is clear that they don't trust each other. Even while they are eating their ice cream (which, it turns out, neither is able to pay for), they are knocking each other down and exchanging blows.

Throughout the film, there is a subplot involving Charlie's amorous advances toward two different girls. One is involved with a huge brute of a man that we see in a quick shot early in the film, and one is involved with the man with whom Charlie spends the majority of the film fighting with. The film ends with all five of them sitting on a bench on the beach as Charlie woos one of them after another, not knowing that the two men are right beside him, and they all begin to fight, causing all of them to fall over backward on the bench. While it's true that Charlie encountered numerous hardships during this film, and that the ending wasn't necessarily happy for him, it is still an amusing comedy that serves the purpose that it was meant to serve. Films that are barely nine minutes long can only do so much, and By The Sea really accomplishes a lot.

This is a quick-moving farce, with Charlie getting involved in an altercation at the shore right off the bat. After he and his opponent (Billy Armstrong) agree to end hostilities, they get some ice cream, then start fighting again over who is going to pay for it (that's Snub Pollard behind the counter). Another man (Bud Jamison) gets hit with ice cream in the crossfire and more fisticuffs ensue. Meanwhile, Charlie flirts with Jamison's wife (Edna Purviance). Later, he flirts with Armstrong's wife (Margie Reiger).

Fun to watch, this movie is (thankfully) shorter and more to the point than some of Chaplin's other efforts.

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.

From his Essanay period after leaving Keystone, 'By the Sea' is not one of his very best or even among the best of this particular period. It shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career, from 1914, The Essanay period is something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'By the Sea'.

'By the Sea' is not one of his all-time funniest or most memorable, other efforts also have more pathos and a balance of that and the comedy. The story is still a little flimsy, there are times where it struggles to sustain the short length, and could have had more variety and less more of the same repeition.

On the other hand, 'By the Sea' looks pretty good, not incredible but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work (even when deadlines were still tight) and not churning out as many countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

While not one of his funniest or original, 'By the Sea' is still very entertaining with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight.

Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well.

Just as Chaplin was starting to broaden his films with more structure and storyline in works such as A Jitney Elopement and The Tramp, he appears to have a taken a small step backwards. By the Sea is perhaps the last of his films to hark back to the simple frolics of his days at Keystone.

While it is fairly simplistic in its arrangement of gags, By the Sea does at least show Chaplin's well-developed use of space. Rather than simply stepping into the frame, the little tramp approaches the camera as he strolls along the street, giving his character presence in what was by now his trademark entrance. When he and the straw hat man begin tussling, they start framed quite close to the camera, but Chaplin opens out the space as things become more exaggerated, giving the two men all that room on the beach to run around in without breaking the shot. Then, when the other man begins to throttle Charlie, he brings him forward – a much smoother manoeuvre than actually cutting to a closer shot. There are still one or two problems – for example when the tramp flirts with Edna, Miss Purviance is shown in profile, and the match up of shots is a bit awkward. By the time he was at Mutual studios Chaplin would have learnt to set the angles a bit better to make this kind of shot more natural.

Charlie's sparring partner here is Billy Armstrong, who was something of a replacement for the scene-stealing Ben Turpin, Chaplin's co-star in his first three Essanay pictures. Armstrong is very good, fulfilling his roll as a Chaplin-counterfoil by, basically, falling over funnily. But Chaplin makes the same mistake as he did with Turpin, giving him too large a part so that the pair of them become almost a double-act. More than anything else, it is this tendency towards ensemble comedy that makes By the Sea look like a relic of the Keystone era. This was territory Chaplin did not revisit, and from now on he would concentrate on building up and defining his little tramp character.

And so, we come to the all-important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 3 (2 for, 1 against)

There is something new under the sun in the way of comedy business. Charlie Chaplin proves this in the opening scenes of his latest comedy, a lively breeze being utilized to fan the audience into a gale of merriment. Only exteriors are used. Fifteen minutes of fun. - The Moving Picture World, May 15, 1915