At one point in the 1930s, a period when Charles Chaplin would spend years making a single feature film, he remarked to a friend that in his early days all he needed was a cop, a park bench, and a pretty girl, and -- Presto! -- he and his crew could crank out a new comedy in a day or two. And indeed, he made so many films that way in 1914 (his year of apprenticeship with Keystone) they're practically interchangeable. Unfortunately, however, he had no control over the handling of these films after he left the company, and most were re-edited, retitled, and mixed up in dizzying ways by distributors out to make a buck. Thus, there are two Chaplin movies known as "In the Park." One is a reissue of a 1914 Keystone comedy originally titled Caught in the Rain, and the other is an Essanay release of the following year. Very little of the Keystone film actually takes place in a park: it's a marital farce involving sleepwalking and drunken bedroom-hopping, set mostly in a hotel. The "real" In the Park is appropriately named, for it has no interior scenes at all.
In his films of 1915 Chaplin begins to demonstrate a little more finesse, and his Tramp character is more sympathetic. Even in such a brief and simple film as the Essanay version of In the Park we find a coherent through-line (albeit no plot as such), touches of whimsy, and some cleanly executed physical comedy. The tempo is fairly relaxed and slapstick violence is kept to a minimum, at least compared to the earlier films. While the Tramp is of course the central character, Chaplin also deftly choreographs the movements of his supporting players: a nursemaid, a thief, courting couples, a cop, etc. Charlie has plenty of colorful characters to react to, flirt with, or fight, as the occasion demands.
I love Charlie's first scene with Edna the nursemaid, the way he leers at her, plays with his hat, and casually (Harpo-like) plops his leg into her lap. Along with the Keystone style brick-hurling and head-bopping we have Charlie playing with a string of sausages just for the fun of it, while portly Bud Jamison skips about the park like Baby Huey. I like the fact that Edna is given a brief comic moment of her own: she is first seen sitting on a bench, reading a book mysteriously titled "Why They Married." (Well hey, why not?) The other players still wear heavy makeup and emote vigorously, but Chaplin himself is more nuanced and self-assured as a performer, and less frenzied than in some of the earlier films. In the Park is no masterwork, but it does serve to showcase Chaplin's development from diamond-in-the-rough to the supreme comic artist and filmmaker he would soon become.
