The Fatal Mallet

'The Fatal Mallet' is pretty much a movie about hitting people in the head. In the center of the story is a woman (Mabel) and three men fighting over her. After throwing pricks constantly at each other's head, one has to wonder - does it really take only one mallet blow to take a person out? Then again - it is a FATAL mallet.

I noticed that when Mack Sennett and Charles Chaplin worked together to take out the third suitor they formed a nice dynamic duo - their on-screen chemistry seemed something like between Abbott and Costello, or Laurel and Hardy.

Not among the best of Chaplin's Keystone pictures but as the film is only 12 minutes long it's not a huge time waster.

Fatal Mallet, The (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Chaplin, along with two other guys, fights for the affection of a woman. Instead of using their fist the guys instead throw bricks at one another. This is a very funny film that has some outrageous violence that makes for a good time.

A Busy Day (1914)

** (out of 4)

Chaplin plays a woman(!) who gets tired of her husbands and decides to fight with him in public. This here really doesn't have a single funny moment but it's still interesting to see Chaplin playing a woman.

Caught in a Cabaret (1914)

*** (out of 4)

Chaplin is mistaken as a Greek Ambassador and must keep a girl's family from finding out. This one here is a real riot with some wonderfully funny fight scenes but the real highlights are the title cards, which feature some very funny one-liners. Also of note is that this storyline would play a big part in future Chaplin films.

Knockout, The (1914)

*** (out of 4)

To show off his braveness, Fatty Arbuckle challenged a professional boxer to a fight. Fatty is funny as usually and like the above film, this one here gets the laughs from violence ranging from punches to items being thrown. Chaplin has a small but funny cameo as the referee.

A nice little comedy, in which Mabel has three suitors: Charlie, Mack Swain and Mack Sennett. Although Sennett's character -- a country bumpkin with a face that looks like he's been eating lemons -- never appealed to me, he does know how to do slapstick. And the three men all pound each other, while Mabel looks on gleefully.

Now, considering who owns the studio, who do you think gets the girl?

A man, Charlot, throws a mallet against a couple near a tree. The girl raises the mallet to the first pitcher who reaches the couple, for a moment of slapstick between men. The girl goes to another man with whom she sits on the swing. From the tree the two men go towards the swing and one of them pushes the one on the swing, which launches a mallet to the other two, who take refuge in a nearby shack. The character played by Chaplin goes to take with the other who is with the girl and take him to the shack. Chaplin hits the other two and goes to the girl, chasing a child who had arrived just before. The two men free themselves and one of the two chases Chaplin, who duels on the edge of a pond with one of the two while the other is with the girl. Chaplin drops his opponent into the lake but the other makes him fall too and goes for a walk with the girl.The movie focuses on the mechanism of slapstick and chase in this struggle between rivals in love.

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.

He did do better than 'The Fatal Mallet', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Fatal Mallet' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch and a decent acting collaboration with Mabel Normand.

'The Fatal Mallet' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Fatal Mallet' is not bad at all.

While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. Mabel Normand is quite charming.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Fatal Mallet' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, pretty decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox