His New Job

This fairly routine farce from Chaplin sees his tramp character apply for a job as a film extra with a talent agency, then subsequently cause havoc on the set. Throughout the film he has a running battle with cross-eyed foe Ben Turpin, who provided a foil Chaplin on a number of occasions during Chaplin's time at Essanay. The slapstick is mostly of the spitefully violent type so often provided by the tramp in his earlier incarnations. Odd, really, how lovable this character was considered when, in nine times out of ten, he initiated violent confrontations with unprovoked attacks on others. This is passable entertainment but is not one of Chaplin's best, and is noticeable only for the glimpse it gives us of the early days of film-making.

Besides being pretty good in itself, "His New Job" is also interesting in that it is a clear improvement over the previous features that Charlie Chaplin had made when he was with Keystone Studies. While the Keystone features were not bad, and often contained some excellent material, overall they generally gave the appearance of having been thrown together quickly, which often left a lot of unrealized potential in some of their ideas and themes. And, while these Essanay features themselves were usually not quite as good as his later Mutual features, they did give Chaplin a chance to perform quite a few kinds of material, and most of them are well worth seeing.

In this one, Charlie's character is competing with some other hopefuls who are trying to break into the movies. Ben Turpin and Charlie have quite a few scenes together, and although their scenes are primarily knockabout slapstick, they do work well as a team. The action takes place in several settings, and on average it is fairly creative in its use of the settings and props. Most of the gags come off all right, and overall the feature works pretty well.

Charlie Chaplin turns up for an interview at the "Lockstone" film studios (they've even got a water cooler!) - desperate for a job... He'll do anything, which is just as well because every task he his assigned by the director he manages to cock up. It's funny for about ten minutes, the timing and precision seems effortless but, despite the introduction of a few new foils for his humour (the leading lady, leading man and a poor old chippie just trying to get the sets built) it gets quite predictably repetitive pretty soon. There are only so many times you can get away with poking someone with a sword, or a stick; or hitting them on the head with a plank - before the performance becomes, well, routine. It shows off the acrobatic talents of the star well, too - but again, as with slapstick in general for me, has no subtlety to keep the humour crisp and fresh.

There is something uniquely charming about the short comedies that Chaplin made that poke fun at his art form or that show us a little bit of the mechanics of how these movies are made. The most notable example other than His New Job is the charming and fun Behind the Screen, although this film is a lot of fun, too.

It starts out in the waiting room, apparently for the opportunity to interview for a job as a film extra. He immediately begins flirting with a woman in the room, and soon does the old hat gag where someone demands that he take it off but he keeps putting it back on, finally doing that cute trick where he flips it up in the air. I feel like I've seen him do that in at least four or five films, although I have to say that he does it best in The Immigrant.

It seems that the characterization is getting pretty developed by this point, and that the little tramp has earned a good following of fans who want to see him in each new Chaplin film. There is less and less effort put into giving him a role in each film, he generally just comes out and plays himself.

There are lots of traditional Chaplin antics in the waiting room as he competes for the film extra position, although when he finally gets into the interview room and blows into that earpiece, it might be the first time I've literally laughed out loud at one of these short comedies in quite a while.

Charlie is dressed as a soldier for his part in the film within the film, although as is to be expected, things soon go wrong and his lack of acting talent becomes abundantly clear. I always find it a little amusing when actors play roles in which, at some point, they lament the fact that they have no acting talent.

But my favorite part of the film is that it shows us behind the scenes, what some of the film sets looked like back in 1915. I always find it fascinating when I catch a glimpse of something real in these old movies, even if it's something tiny, like wafting smoke or the unintentional movement of curtains or a throw rug. It is endlessly fascinating to me to imagine what it was like to really be there, what the set looked like to the naked eye, in real life and in color.

Here, we are treated to some shots of the inside of the soundstage, which I guess is the next best thing. Generally, the movie is clever and fun, but other than some interesting behind the scenes shots there's really nothing new here. The ending is even a little violent, but this is still one of the more fun of Chaplin's earliest work.

As soon as he signed on to a lucrative one-year contract with Essanay Studios late 1914, Charlie Chaplin traveled at once from the warmth of Southern California's Keystone Studios to his new digs in Chicago, where Essanay had its headquarters. Not only was the money better at Essanay, but the studio gave the young comedian more freedom and time for teh development of his movies.

Chaplin's first scenario he wrote and directed for Essanay was January 1915's "His New Job," a fictional embellishment paralleling his new position at Essanay. The opening scene shows Chaplin going into the film production studio office to interview for a job. Seen in her first movie role as an office secretary is 15-year-old Gloria Swanson, soon to be a huge film star. Also, in one of only a handful of movies he's teamed up with Chaplin during his Essanay days is janitor-turned-main comic for the studio, Benny Turpin. And new to Chaplin was his name appearing for the first time in the opening credits. Since Keystone kept his entire tramp wardrobe, Chaplin personally was force to shop around Chicago to buy duplicate clothing.

A rewarding start for Chaplin's year with Essanay.