Charlot marquis

Cruel Cruel Love might be one of Chaplin's funniest Keystone comedies, even though he doesn't play The Tramp! Instead, he plays a variation of the character he played in his debut, Making a Living -- or at least he wears the same costume.

This film lets Chaplin go completely crazy, hamming and mugging mericilessly. This is not the subtle or graceful Chaplin of later years. This is a manic Chaplin, and while this could well have made Cruel Cruel Love into a disaster, instead it makes this film drop-dead hilarious.

Chaplin plays a bigwig who is jilted by his girlfriend. He decides to take poison and kill himself, but his butler gives him water instead, and then laughs his head off as his boss goes through some of the strangest, most convoluted "death throes" ever seen.

This film includes some surprisingly good (for 1914) special effects - namely a dream sequence in which Chaplin hallucinates that he has gone to Hell. At one point, Chaplin actually turns the comedy into horror by adopting a rather bizarre "death face" that actually is a little disturbing to see. For a moment I thought I was watching a Lon Chaney film.

Of the first dozen or so Chaplin comedies for Keystone, this is definitely one of the best, and well worth seeking out.

'Cruel, Cruel Love' is one of the better efforts of Chaplin's early Keystone works. It seems to me that those films where Chaplin wasn't playing The Tramp were usually better from that period. The story is a classic romantic fable - after a little misunderstanding, the Lord's (Charles Chaplin) fiancee (Minta Durfee) calls off the engagement. Broken-hearted, the Lord is about to commit suicide. The Lady's gardener explains what caused the misunderstanding, and she rushes to help her loved one. The Lord's butler watches that mess and gets a nice bellyful of laughs.

Although the film is simple and offers very little inventiveness, it is still funny enough, and as a viewer, it is easy to care about the characters and the story. Gags and stunts were barely above the average of that era's slapstick. Chaplin managed to show his true genius as an actor - when his character was thinking he will die and hallucinated about hell - those facial expressions when he realized that all the world is over for him. Amazing.

I also started to pay the attention to the sets they used and noticed how the homes of the characters look very similar. It is because they used the same set, but with little redecoration, they made it look like another location.

'Cruel, Cruel Love' is more than barely watchable - it is enjoyable.

Chaplin famously churned out an enormous number of short comedies for Keystone during his first year in the film-making business, and while the majority of them are pretty sad comparisons to the later films that he would become famous for, Cruel, Cruel Love definitely ranks as one of the less memorable. A lot of people complain about these early comedies, no doubt because Chaplin is known as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and yet the films he made in 1914-1915 are most definitely not the greatest films of all time, but this one gives a clear look at what a lot of people are turned off by.

Chaplin does not play the tramp, but some sort of bizarre jerk with a hideous mustache and what appears to be an unenviable future. Like in many of Chaplin's early comedies, this one devolves into a widespread kicking and punching match by the end of the film. This has been going on for months by this point, and I believe that Chaplin was just giving his audience what they wanted at the time, but this is the first time that I have gotten the feeling that he is just running out of ideas.

I think Chaplin may have been progressing past what he would later refer to as the good old days when films could just be slapped together in a park, and so he tried to do something different, try on a slightly different characterization for a while, but unfortunately it just doesn't work. The film as a whole comes off as a bit of a disjointed mess, Chaplin makes some faces that I could have gone the rest of my life without ever having seen, and his heart is clearly not in it. Just his feet and his fists.

Cruel, Cruel Love (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Charles Chaplin short from the Keystone Studios has him playing a broken man who decides to kill himself after his girlfriend breaks up with him. Minutes after taking the poison he receives a letter from her saying she wants him back. This is an early Chaplin film so naturally he hadn't perfected his skill as a comedian but he turns in an interesting performance here. While the film isn't fall down hilarious it does offer up enough good scenes to make it worth viewing. One of the better scenes in the film has Chaplin seeing his future with suicide and going to Hell where two devil keep messes with him in the flames. Another nice sequence has Chaplin trying to fight the doctors trying to save him at the end of the film. Edgar Kennedy has a brief role as the butler.

I don't know if I should've put a question mark after "Great Man,"--I saw Chaplin and the "Gold Rush" and "The Kid" I think it was on TCM, years ago & thought it was extremely funny then had not watched for years.

Usually--unless it's Lon Chaney--or something dark & grisly, I'm not sure how to speak about a silent comedy; unless it's Buster Keaton & I don't think he's funny. I guess the only litmus test I can use is watching it again & laughing my posterior off, which I did with this film.

I can see many mixed reviews here, but the plot is so simple & screwy, I had to convulse. Chaplin seeing demons or karate-kicking everybody in his path had snot spilling from my nose, so obviously this man is legend. Look forward to more of these....