Charlot in vacanza

Recreation (1914)

*** (out of 4)

A woman and a sailor are on a date when he dozes off so she decides to take a little walk. Enter the Little Tramp (Charles Chaplin) who goes up to the woman and when her boyfriend finds out a fight breaks out with a bunch of bricks being thrown. RECREATION lasts less than ten-minutes and the entire thing really seems to have been made very quickly. It really appears that the majority of the sequences were just improvised and this is especially true early on when we first see the Tramp and he's trying to sit up on a railing but of course having trouble. Later in the film when we see him laughing and cutting up with the woman, the way Chaplin is kicking around seems to show the legend just performing and trying to make something work. This is certainly far from a classic but I must admit that it kept me laughing throughout most of it. The brick throwing scenes were rather violent in their own right and I think this led to quite a few laughs especially when a couple cops get thrown into the mix. There's a scene where Chaplin goes to throw a brick but then notices the cop watching him and he tries to act like he's not doing anything wrong. This is a routine that would make it into some of the biggest Chaplin pictures and it's funny to see it work so well even here.

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 'Recreation', 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. 'Recreation' is a long way from a career high (nor is it a misfire), but has good efforts and one of the average/middling efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch.

'Recreation' 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, the content is not particularly inspired and some of it is on the repetitive side.

For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'Recreation' is not bad at all and there are flashes of his distinctive style, meaning that he was showing signs of evolving.

While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable as his moustache-less Tramp character and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Recreation' is amusing and hard to dislike. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, average but far from a bad effort. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This movie (like many other Charlie Chaplin movies) is pretty funny but it seems like it's missing something that the other Chaplin films had. The mustache! Chaplin plays the tramp here but without the mustache. All Chaplin fans know that you can't have the tramp without the mustache! Anyway the plot is that the tramp (or half tramp) finds a girl at a club who is also being admired by a guy who looks like the main character from Eraserhead, and they get into a big fight. It eventually dwindles down to the point where they both pretty much give up. It's another instance where Chaplin pretty much just made up the story as he went along but it doesn't seem to work here. Anyway can I recommend? Probably not because there are a lot of other Chaplin films better than this.

I've seen quite a few Chaplin shorts from early in his career and I've noticed that his early stuff (done for Keystone Studios) is pretty dreadful stuff. Unlike his wonderful full-length films from the 20s and 30s, the films from 1914-1915 are incredibly poorly made--having no script but only vague instructions from the director. In most cases, the films had almost no plot and degenerated to people punching and kicking each other.

In this film, Charlie walks around the park kicking, hitting and throwing bricks. That's all! He had done practically the same thing in some previous flicks and it's obvious the director just told him to improvise. Judging by the results, he was having a bad day.

FYI--the picture was on DVD from Delta Entertainment. Of all the shorts on the DVD, this was by far the worst quality--having been degraded almost to the point where it was unwatchable.

PS--I got an email from miked32 indicating that Chaplin HIMSELF was the director. Then I guess he is to blame along with the fact that few of these earely Sennett films had any working script.

A nonsensical half reel in which Chas. Chaplin gives his familiar tramp characterization. These park scenes, in which everybody lands in the lake, will amuse admirers of this company's performances. - The Moving Picture World, August 29, 1914