By the Sea

Charlie is enjoying a day by the sea, with several people to annoy and kick butt with and some women to fall in love with.

The best scene is when Charlie's hat as well as the hat of a (then) innocent bystander fall of, and they somehow get entangled with each other. That really is some hilarious stuff...

As this, on the whole, is a funny tramp short in which Charlie does some nice tricks with his hat and other object that come in his way. The ending is great, when all characters are sitting in a bench, as it's flipping over...

If you're into the physical Chaplin humour you will sure like By The Sea. 7/10.

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)

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.

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

By The Sea is a short film by Charlie Chaplin during his time at his 2nd film studio, Essanay. Apparently, it is the first film to have a man slip on a banana peel. So, surely that's enough reason to give this film a watch?

Unfortunately, it is nowhere near one of Chaplin's best, or even near an average Chaplin film. There are really only 2 comic moments. 1. When he slips on the banana peel. 2. The men's hats being flown around in the wind. There are a few other moments which may produce a giggle from audiences but nothing enough that will make you want to watch it again.

The story is very slim and not completely clear. Edna Purviance stars in a role that is not necessary. I can only see the point of her being there so that there's a bit more of a story to the non-existent plot. Any excuse to film at the beach! Chaplin is still in a stage where he did not worry about camera work, just as long as he could capture the whole scenario in one plain camera angle.

In Chaplin's early days he would sometimes make up the story as he went along, I feel it is likely that he did the same with this short. It is by no means awful, but it is one that you may think at the end 'hmm, that was decent', and then proceed to forget you ever watched it.

6/10!