Pay Day

Altogether amazing little short with the comic at his best as a brick layer who is late on the job and presents a flower to his monstrous boss (MACK SWAIN). Swain looks so much like Billy Gilbert that I thought that's who it was at first. Swain orders him immediately to work and the fun starts.

A particularly amusing lunch hour sequence is full of sight gags requiring perfect timing. Charlie gets paid, then has to deal with an overbearing wife who sleeps with a rolling pin in her arms, ready to pounce on him when he doesn't come home from work on time. Instead, he's at the local pub having a night out with the other workers.

The pub sequence leads to other amusing sight gags as he and a fellow worker struggle to get out of the rain and onto a streetcar.

No wonder Chaplin considers this one his favorite silent short. Again, Edna Purviance has little to do but it hardly matters. It's Chaplin's limelight and that's all audiences wanted.

All of the stunts are exhibited in perfect timing and are the mark of genius.

This Chaplin short has a lot of variety and some great moments. The first half is especially good, with some very good material featuring Charlie working at a construction site. There is a part with Charlie laying bricks that you will want to see if you are a Chaplin fan - it must have taken a lot of care and planning to film. The film also gets a lot of mileage out of the service elevator that the crew is using. The second part of the movie is not really as good as the first, mostly in that it relies too much on drunkenness for comic effect, but it also has some good gags. The best moments of this part are with Charlie and his imposing wife.

Said to be Chaplin's favorite of his short films, Pay Day is a quick, yet funny story of the Tramp and his Pay Day. Showing up to the job late, complaining about his wage, and then having to deal with his scary wife is just the first half of the movie. The night spent out on the town, drinking his problems away and then trying ever so hard to catch the train home is the second half. The physical comedy in Pay day is pure Chaplin. Catching the bricks, the escapades with the elevator and the mob to ride the train are segments that are unique and very funny. Still, Pay Day is not you average Chaplin film. There are moments in the movie that are just there to make you laugh. More of a joke filled story that an actual story with a beginning, middle and an end, Pay Day is a no holds bar comedy with the object to make the audience laugh. And it does.

Last of the Charlie Chaplin two-reelers, and also reportedly his favorite. The premise is efficient and simple - an irreverent bricklayer tries to dodge his responsibilities (and his penny-pinching wife) between daytime shifts at the construction site and inebriated nights on the town - which gives Chaplin enough structure to maintain forward momentum and enough freedom to fit in all the silly hijinx he wants. Plenty of those to go around. Between the creative cinematic tricks (reversing the film for a high-risk game of two-story brick tossing), the delightful visual gags (stealing coworkers' lunches with a crazed construction lift) and the abundant physical laughs (nobody goes head-over-heels quite like Charlie), I barely had time to catch my breath between all the good bits.

Clearly, Chaplin had transcended the format at this point, and was more than ready to move into full-length features after experimenting with longer acts in The Kid a year earlier. A tremendously entertaining, action-packed twenty-eight minutes.

Chaplin's tramp has a job in this half hour short which comically depicts the plight of the era's laborer that has changed negligibly since. There is little plot to go around but plenty of perfected sight gags by the Silent master as he works and drinks with co-workers and fends off his shrewish rolling pin wielding wife who is intent on collecting his entire pay. The most deft comedy bits are on the job as he does amazing things with a lift as well as a scene grabbing bricks being tossed to him (albeit achieved by reversing the negative). The drinking with co-workers keeps the laughs going and continue through the final confrontation with the wife as Chaplin's uproarious balletic grace remains in fine form from start to finish.