The Idle Class

Charlie Chaplin is a poor tramp.Charlie Chaplin is a wealthy and alcoholic husband.Edna Purviance is his neglected wife.The poor tramp sneaks into a upper class golf resort.He finds himself from a masquerade with the neglected wife.The resemblance between the tramp and the wealthy husband makes her think the tramp is the husband.Charles Chaplin is the director, the producer and the writer of The Idle Class (1921).The master comedian does excellent job in double role.His leading lady Edna Purviance is wonderful as always.Then there are greats like Mack Swain and Henry Bergman.This silent short comedy has plenty of funny moments.It's hilarious when the wealthy husband tries to open the visor of his knight's costume.Or when the tramp is seated next to the neglected wife as her husband.This movie only proves the genius of Charlie Chaplin.

While Charlie Chaplin's little tramp persona has been famous worldwide for nearly a century, a character he created back in his musical hall days is less well-known. That character was the alcoholic aristocrat. Here, in the Idle Class, he makes his final appearance, and his only one opposite the tramp, in a mistaken identity comedy that prefigures Chaplin talkie The Great Dictator.

In spite of this being his swansong, the posh drunk's personality is more fully fleshed out here than ever before, as if Chaplin was eking the utmost out of the character before abandoning him. Chaplin also involves him in gags of a type he did not often do; the pull-back-and-reveal joke, like the shot revealing he is wearing no trousers, or the elaborate arrangement of people and props as he tries to conceal it from the people around him. These jokes are hilarious, but they are not typical Chaplin – they draw too much attention to the artifice of it all, and threatens to detract from the humanity of the characters, which is why he would never have used such gags with the little tramp.

Speaking of the little tramp, he is far from absent in The Idle Class, and there is plenty of his kind of humour here. He gets a great entrance, emerging from a little hatch on the underside of a train after the grand arrival of an assortment of toffs. There are some supremely confident gags on a golf course, where in the classic style of the Mutual shorts the focus is upon the trail of chaos that the tramp leaves behind him. For example, we see Charlie sauntering into the distance while in centre-screen his two fellow golfers get into a fight over a misunderstanding he has caused. In a following shot only his legs appear, as he stomps on a straw hat in one corner of the screen, causing yet more mayhem. Charlie is not shown directly, but it is his personality and his influence on the comedy you remember. Compare that to the scenes of the wealthy drunkard, in which Chaplin is always on screen because the character is weaker and requires our constant attention to work.

So, an odd little Chaplin short, featuring much material of a kind he would not return to again. And yet it is very effective and funny, even when it wasn't in a mode that suited him. As if to prove the value of the kind of gags we see in The Idle Class, they went to live on in the work of his fellow silent comics. Whether the influence of this picture was significant or not, those pull-back-and-reveal gags are used to great effect in Harold Lloyd's films, while those elaborately staged sight-gags were of course a staple for Buster Keaton.

All of which heralds the timely arrival of that all-important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 7 (2 for, 4 against, 1 other).

One of Charlie Chaplin's best short comedies, "The Idle Class" uses some of his favorite themes to very good effect. Charlie has a dual role, playing his usual 'tramp' character and also playing a rich idler. He thus sets up some identity confusion and also the kind of class contrasts that often set up some of Chaplin's best material. There are plenty of good gags in this one, and some memorable scenes, with the hilarious costume party sequence being especially good. This was one of Chaplin's last short comedies, and it is constructed very carefully, with excellent timing in the gags and in the plot. While in a much lighter vein than the full-length pictures he was then starting to make, it has the same level of craftsmanship and is very entertaining.

This Chaplin short opens promising enough with elegant Edna Purviance arriving at the station tres elegante simultaneously with The Tramp falling out of a dust bin setting the stage for the his entrance into high society. But first he must put in a round of golf. While he brings his clubs he neglects to bring a ball. Meanwhile Edna's alchholic husband, also played by Chaplin forgets to pick her as well as his pants up.

This Chaplin lacks the energy and tightness of his usual short. Playing dual roles he comes up with some excellent bits making nice use of the sport of golf but the scene which starts promisingly enough quickly becomes disjointed and overlong. The masquerade ball where his identity is mistaken for Purviance's husband also has some fun moments as Charlie attempts to explain but a scene with his other character stuck in a knights armored helmet (something Peter Sellers would refine forty years in the future) goes on too long interrupting Charlie who works best alone though the films final seconds has a subversive extra that should elicit joy from the masses.

Another example of Chaplin's brilliance in film-making, this short work. Many of his favorite themes come along, such as several chases and a mix-up between him and 'the husband'(also played by Charlie). Best scenes include the one where 'the husband' reads a letter from his wife that he should drink less. We see him pick up a picture of her, then he starts shaking like he's crying... but he's just mixing another drink. That really cracked me up. The scenes on the golf course are also very funny and well-made. Then the movie slows down a bit with the ballroom-thing, but the ending is just the best: with Charlie kicking the father of 'the wife' right where he should... great scene! In short: good short Chaplin, though not up there with The Adventurer, The Tramp or Pay Day. 7/10.