La signorina Charlot

A Woman is one of the most sexually charged Chaplin films I've ever seen, and not only because Charlie spends a lot of it dressed as a woman. From the very opening of the film ("Charlie Chaplin in A Woman") to the scene where he's having tea and bagels. He takes a long, phallic knife and skewers the bagels, allowing them to slide down the shaft onto their plates, and then he quips, "I do this trick in my bath - when I have one."

When you have one what, Charlie?

The rest of the film, however, is family friendly fun, even when Charlie is dressed as a woman. Most of the time he is playfully fending off the advances of a man who was furious with him minutes before, but now is completely fooled by the disguise. Charlie slaps and pushes and shoves him, knocking him over backwards and over furniture and whatnot, a lot of the typical slapstick that we have come to expect from Chaplin's short comedies of this era.

This is not the only time Chaplin has dressed up as a woman in one of his short films, and once again he is surprisingly, almost disturbingly, convincing in the costume. A lot of the comedy of his silent slapstick comes from the effeminate nature of his mannerisms, and he puts those to good use here.

The first half also takes place in a park and therefore resembles countless of his other short films that take place in a park, which used to be Chaplin's favorite place to go and set up the cameras and just let a little comedy happen, and it's clear that that was what was happening in this film. But the second half makes up for the unsurprising first half. Not a bad little film at all.

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.

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.

He is a such good actor.He make you laugh till got tears in your eyes for laugh so hard.Take sip of a guy drink and spit it out. Take the father from his cane push in the water and the other guy is in the water. When he goes with the ladies goes outside with no pants and try to find a place to get away goes upstairs put on a dress,shave his moustache and prissy around and the father pull the skirt off of Charlie. You can see what Charlie look like without his moustache and he look handsome without the moustache.That all of I knew of Charlie with his moustache big shoes and baggy pants, derby hat.The way he run and try to turn the corner he hop on one foot the other one is up.