A Night Out

Viewers interested in Charlie Chaplin's early work (i.e. the rough stuff, with lots of drunken foolery and butt-kicking) may well enjoy this film. I confess I enjoyed it, the way I might get a kick out of watching Championship Wrestling for twenty minutes or so. If it's Chaplin the Artiste you want then try the later productions, but if you're in the mood for rude and unrefined slapstick then A Night Out should fit the bill nicely.

This is the second film Chaplin made for the Essanay company, and it also marks the second and last time he teamed up with knockabout comic Ben Turpin. Chaplin and Turpin don't pair especially well on screen, and it's said they didn't get along off-camera either, which is no surprise. Chaplin was a gifted mime, an inspired comedian and an exacting filmmaker, while Turpin was a low-comedy clown with crossed eyes. Ben could take a fall with the best of them, but it's said he didn't understand why Chaplin the perfectionist demanded take after take of each scene. There in a nutshell you have the difference between an artist and a hack.

As it happens, despite the modest trappings of this film Chaplin's special gift comes across in several nice little moments. Early on, during the sequence in a swanky restaurant, the drunken Charlie stands at an indoor fountain and suddenly seems to believe he's washing up in the privacy of his own home, so naturally enough he brushes his teeth with the stem of a plant. It's a strange bit of business, almost dreamlike, but Chaplin makes it appear perfectly normal and routine. Later, checking into a hotel, Charlie attempts to rest his foot on the bar rail -- which happens to be invisible -- and drink ink from the inkwell.

This film is most notable as the debut of Chaplin's longtime leading lady Edna Purviance, who was only 19 years old at this time and very pretty indeed. Her first scenes are fairly low-key, but later on, when she's in pajamas playing with her dog, Chaplin grants Edna a couple of close-ups which look something like a screen test. Obviously she passed the test with flying colors, for Edna went on to play opposite Chaplin in virtually every film he made for the next eight years, the happiest and most prolific period of his creative life. If for no other reason, A Night Out is worth seeing for the debut of this beautiful and underrated silent screen actress.

After this, the second Charles Chaplin two-part Essanay release, it is clear that the comedian lost none of his ability to entertain when he left the Keystone Company. "One Night Out" keeps an audience in an almost perpetual uproar. It is Chaplin at his funniest, and supporting him is a strong company that follows his method as though accustomed to it from long experience. The situations are rather good in themselves and they are used to the very best advantage. - The Moving Picture World, March 6, 1915

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

From his Essanay period after leaving Keystone, 'A Night Out' is not one of his very best or even among the best of this particular period. It shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career, from 1914, The Essanay period is something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'A Night Out'.

'A Night Out' is not one of his all-time funniest or most memorable, other efforts also have more pathos and a balance of that and the comedy. The story is still a little flimsy, there are times where it struggles to sustain the short length, and could have had more variety and less more of the same repeition.

On the other hand, 'A Night Out' looks pretty good, not incredible but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

While not one of his funniest or original, 'A Night Out' is still very entertaining with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight.

Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well, with an amusing Ben Turpin and charming Edna Purviance in her first collaboration with Chaplin.

In summation, worth watching if not to watch over and over. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Though there are some good moments, mostly later in the feature, overall this short comedy has too much of the same basic material, and it starts to get old rather soon. Charlie Chaplin and Ben Turpin play a couple of drunks who cause a series of difficulties for each other and for those with whom they come in contact. They both do a creditable job (in itself) of performing the material, but it is just too much of the same thing. Drunkenness just is not funny enough to carry even a short feature all by itself, and the use of it as a pretext for the characters to behave in a chronically impolite fashion wears thin relatively quickly.

Things do get a little better in the second half, when the material and the plot become somewhat less one-dimensional. Then too, anything with Chaplin in it will have some good moments - but overall, "A Night Out" is below Chaplin's usual standard. It's probably most memorable for the first of Edna Purviance's many appearances in a Chaplin movie.

Upon finishing "His New Job," Chaplin had enough of the cold midwestern weather and decided to return to California where Essanay had a small studio 30 miles outside of San Francisco. Part studio owner and cowboy actor Max Anderson had earlier established a facility to shoot and edit his Westerns for the mountainous typography.

For his next film, February 1915's "A Night Out," Chaplin was yearning to find a leading comic actress similar to Keystone's Mabel Normand, but without all the drama associated with filming with her. There are varying stories how Chaplin discovered a 19-year-old secretary, Edna Purviance, to be selected for that acting position. Either through an audition, spotting her in a San Francisco lobby, or through an introduction, Chaplin was intriqued with her looks and picked Purviance despite his reservations she never had acted in front of a camera before.

Despite her humble opinion she had stunk up the joint in her first film, Purviance performed well enough in "A Night Out" to continue a stretch of 33 films where she was that funny lady opposite of Chaplin. To boot, she also had a romantic relationship with him for the next three years.

"His Night Out" is also noteworthy as being the first movie where Chaplin met cameraman Rollie Totheroh, who was working with Anderson and his Westerns.. Totheroh would soon become Chaplin's director of photography throughout his career, all the way until the mid-1950's.