La signorina Charlot

The Essanay short pictures were for the most part a period of development and experimentation for Charlie Chaplin, but every now and then he just liked to do a bit of old fashioned mucking about. A Woman, his ninth film at this studio, begins with a mischievous, Keystone-ish farce-in-the-park, followed by a sequence based around one simple but very memorable gimmick.

In spite of its basic outline, A Woman does show the advances Chaplin had made and the professionalism with which he now crafted his pictures. He sets up the location and the main characters in a couple of economic introductory shots before having his tramp character invade the scene. Charlie himself then appears in the distance, his now-familiar silhouette all that is needed to announce that the mayhem can now begin. Throughout, Chaplin uses a lot of close-ups of faces, something he was doing a fair bit around this time, which perhaps shows a lack of confidence in the impact his gags had in full body shot. Here however I feel all these close-ups act as a build up to that startling (and I must say absolutely gorgeous) shot of "Nora's" feminised face.

Because of the set-up, we see the tramp at his cheekiest, perhaps a step back for the character, but an enjoyable step back. A Woman lacks the pathos and commentary of the more story-orientated Chaplin shorts that were starting to appear around this time, but it shows how much fun and funniness Charlie could create out of the simplest of elements.

… which brings us to that all-important statistic –

Number of kicks up the arse: 3 (1 for, 2 against)

'A Woman' is a simplistic but not a simple movie. An easy premise whose only purpose is for Chaplin to dress up as a woman. He makes a quite convincing and gorgeous one (I couldn't help but notice how much Geraldine Chaplin looked and smiled like her father). The plot is simple and it can't hold much criticism - it can raise some serious questions when to think about it too deep. The physical stunts played in the park are clever. The build-ups are as amusing as the punchlines. Of course, when Charlie finally gets dressed as a woman, the jokes become a little bit riskier (but not less clever). It's easy to see why this film was forbidden in some countries.

Some other reviewer wrote: not a perfect Chaplin short - to which I want to replay: how many perfect Chaplin shorts are there? Anyway, 'A Woman' is worthy to see because of cleverly staged physical comedy (and gorgeous Charlie). Although, I agree, far from Chaplin's greatest, it is a joyous watch.

Let's be serious, it's not funny, I did not laugh. Chaplin is the same as in all his short films, before his great masterpieces. It is charming, indeed, but all we see are the same "gags", a lot of kicks in the ass, hat-pins that are also stuffed in the ass, again and again. Grimaces, exaggerated gestures and punches galore. The end!

While much of this is fairly simple comedy, it's interesting and worth watching for a couple of reasons. The first half is a slapstick sequence that could have come from any number of Chaplin's early short features, but it is a little better than average for knockabout slapstick, because the timing is generally pretty good and the situation is developed enough to make it amusing. The second half, for which the movie is better known, focuses on Charlie's appearance as "A Woman", and it is carried off pretty well. Unlike many such sequences, it doesn't try to get more out of the situation than is there, so it works pretty well. Overall, this movie is a little better than average among Chaplin's earlier short comedies.

This is one of the most interesting firsts film of Chaplin. In reality, the plot is similar to all the other short films of the great Charlot, with a narrative construction that's just a pretext to generate all kind of gags, mostly based on body and slapstick sketches. But here we can see also Chaplin act as a woman and his ability to understand all the movements and cliché of a comedian mask: if you have never seen this movie and you watch just the scene of woman version Chaplin, you can't recognize him, that looks also really cute! One of the proves of Chaplin acting abilities.