Work

Work is a rather messy Chaplin short but feels overlong as some of the situations drag on.

Chaplin plays a workman on his way to decorate a house, we see him pulling his boss on a cart who also whips him, there are several scenes where he crosses a train track just before the train passes through and then he struggles to get up a hill. In one scene the boss invites a friend to hop on the cart. You can see Chaplin is already taking a stand against exploitative capitalism already!

Once they arrive at the middle class house, there is all kinds of slapstick as they try to wallpaper the house, there is an exploding stove, Chaplin takes a shine to the maid, and the householder's wife is visited by her secret lover.

This is the first Chaplin short I have seen in some years, they just do not get repeated as often as they used to be on television. In Work Chaplin has not found his 'tramp' persona but there is some good skills used to for the slapstick but it gets too repetitive.

The short films Charlie Chaplin made for the Essanay company during 1915 mark a transitional stage in his development as the world's favorite comedian: they're generally better than the chaotic slapstick comedies he cranked out for Keystone during his apprenticeship in 1914, but not as good as the first-rate films he would produce for the Mutual Company within a couple of years. Judged on their own merits the Essanay films are a mixed lot, although a few of them (such as The Bank and Police) are quite impressive. This particular ode to knockabout comedy, simply titled "Work," ranks somewhere in the middle range of Chaplin's Essanay output: no great shakes in itself, but generally enjoyable with some good gags and amusing sequences, especially in the first reel.

A key element that distinguishes these Essanay films from the earlier ones is that Chaplin started taking pains at this point to influence viewer sympathy. In the Keystone comedies Charlie was often belligerent, drunk, rude to women and generally nasty. In one infamous Keystone release called The Property Man he works backstage at a theater, and is downright cruel to his elderly assistant. In Work, however, the tables have properly turned, and it's Charlie who is the lowly assistant, working as a household contractor and slaving away under a sadistic supervisor. In the opening sequence we see him pulling his boss and all their equipment through the streets in a rickshaw- like cart, hauling the obviously heavy load for miles, uphill and across train tracks, all the way to the mansion they've been hired to fix up. Thus, from the very outset we're rooting for Charlie and hope to see him avenge himself on his heartless boss.

Chaplin the maturing filmmaker is also careful to establish that the rich couple who've hired the workmen are not such pleasant people themselves, so, naturally, when their house gets trashed we aren't especially sympathetic. When we first see the husband he's demanding breakfast from the maid, shouting and fuming. His haughty wife is no better: as soon as the workmen arrive she issues a series of fussy demands, then insults them by ostentatiously locking away her valuables. Charlie retaliates by tucking his own "valuables" into an inside pocket -- one of my favorite gags in the film. Back in Keystone days Charlie would do anything for a laugh and didn't care whether we liked him or not, but here we see the stirrings of a more sophisticated sensibility, with just a touch of social commentary. The maid, surprisingly, is played by Chaplin's longtime leading lady Edna Purviance, who was more often cast as patrician types. But Edna is a working girl this time around, almost as downtrodden as Charlie, and as soon as Charlie arrives they strike sparks and bond instantly. Their sweet, playful scenes together are a highlight of this short.

Work speeds up and turns pretty silly in its latter portions, when a highly unlikely (but amusing) farcical twist involving the haughty wife's secret lover is abruptly introduced into the mix. Before long everyone is getting spattered with paste and running around at high speed as the kitchen stove blows up repeatedly. Things get strenuously wacky by the end, but in a good-humored sort of way, as if Charlie and the gang were giving us a big wink and saying "Isn't this ridiculous?" It certainly is, and quite entertaining, too.

Izzy Wake (Charles Inslee) a paperhanger and his assistant (Charlie Chaplin) slowly make their way to the house of Billy Armstrong and Marta Golden where they are due to hang wall paper. After experiencing difficulty even getting to the house, once they get there things go from bad to worse.

This film made me laugh, a lot, but overall it was messy – much like the on screen action. I didn't really get any sense of who any of the characters were and to be honest apart from inhabiting the house at the centre of the story, Billy Armstrong and Marta Golden's characters weren't really necessary. They and Leo White were only really used during the films frenetic ending which is somewhere between a chase and a farce. That being said, there is still much to like about this Chaplin Essanay effort.

I liked the clever camera angle that Chaplin used to give the sense that he was pulling his bosses cart up a steep hill. It looked pretty good and added a bit of humour to a scene which was stagnating a bit. The cart pulling scene contained some good moments but dragged on too long for my liking. Chaplin wiping sweat from his forehead then ringing out an obviously pre soaked handkerchief was a highlight. When the action turns to the house there are many great moments. As you can imagine, Chaplin plus wallpaper paste creates some hilarious business. The film on the whole made me snigger in several places rather than laugh throughout and as I said previously the plot felt somewhat forgotten and was confusing. A confusing plot isn't something you want from a film that is under thirty minutes in length.

The romantic plot also took a bit of a back seat here and didn't really come to the fore until close to the end. Chaplin and Edna Purviance's Maid had a couple of cute scenes though. Overall this short is much more slapstick driven than plot driven and while funny in part, is slightly disappointing.

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"Work" is among the better of Chaplin's early comedies. It has a humorous situation that sets up some good comedy, and a good assortment of material. The story has Charlie as a paper-hanger, going with his supervisor to do a job in a home that already has enough problems. It does squander some screen time on material that isn't very funny, but then there are some very good moments that make up for it. There are also a couple of good subtle gags along with the more obvious physical comedy. It's the kind of setup that in later years Chaplin could have used to make a real classic. Here, it's unrefined, but it's still good entertainment. If you like Chaplin's earlier, less polished comedies, you should find this one worth a look.

The first scene of Chaplin in this movie is of him drawing a carriage while his masters sit in the back as he tries to take them up a hill to amusing results. That's all you need to know to appreciate this treatise on work and the pains that man goes to achieve it. We all have to work to pay the bills, but the characters homes he visits in the movie don't have to work, the way he does, that is the hard labor of using one's hands and seem precarious of it. Chaplin loved to spoof the rich or the idle class as they are known. Maybe, he felt being born with a golden spoon is bad. There is nothing wrong with that. It's how one lives with such advantages and disposes of his willed upbringing that castigates the self. But not to Chaplin, who goes on to wreck havoc in a series of set pieces that ends with destruction and a wink to the camera; an act of farewell and goodbye. Is it farewell to work and a hooray for idleness, I cannot say but like a cartoon character who has preyed the deed, he takes us along and makes us laugh, even if I do not agree with his accusations.