Pintor Apaixonado

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.

This film consists of a lot of barroom scenes as well as scenes where Charlie is an artist. Apparently, he'd been an artist but it all went to pieces when his love left him for another. Oddly, the captions say "two months later" between scenes. After only two months, he sees her and her new beau and they've got a bunch of kids--some looking at least 6 or 8. This and the paint on him that appeared and then disappeared due to bad editing make this an odd and confusing picture. Unfortunately, none of the stuff is particularly interesting.

A very amusing burlesque on the famous poem that has been recited so many times. The poem itself is altered in places and the action is entirely of the low comedy sort. Chas. Chaplin wins new laurels in the leading part. This is bound to please. - The Moving Picture World, August 29, 1914

In Face on the Barroom Floor, Chaplin satirizes a poem and does some real acting, the kind that is rarely seen at this time in his career, when the vast majority of his films are still packed full of overblown physical comedy, and evidently staggering drunkenness provides a nice catalyst in this direction. Chaplin does play a pretty convincing drunk, but the kicking and punching and falling over backwards, if not outright boring, is clearly below Chaplin's level of talent, I just think that he had yet to realize it. I don't think it was until the more dramatic films of his later career that he really learned what he could do with his craft and how meaningful his films could be.

That being said, it is still nice to see that the Tramp is evolving from the callous jerk of the first few films and into a more human character, although still one who has a few lessons to learn about how to handle life's little conflicts. This is a clever short film that is a little light on the comedy, being that it is a short comedy, but an interesting look at the slow evolution of Chaplin's acting and the steadily thickening plots.

You can read the poem upon which this film was based. I guess a lot of the satire is lost to our "blind" modern eyes. This is a rare chance to see early Chaplin doing some fairly straight acting.

Well, I've just been told that my comment isn't long enough. Good writing is succinct writing everywhere else.

But I'll plow on with more thoughts. It's interesting to see how much the tragedy in being a run-down bum is felt in this short. The Tramp is such a resourceful character in most shorts that feature him that there is no sense of his being really a loser in life. The poor who identified with his plight also enjoyed his ultimate victories and small defeats of the powerful, I will guess. If we looked at him today, we'd wonder why he couldn't fit into the models of success we hold dear: offices, stores, anything that requires conformation to behaviorial requirements -- must have been all that kicking!

This early Charlie Chaplin short feature is mildly amusing, with a small touch of humanity. Charlie is an artist who loses his girl to a rich man who came to have his portrait painted. Then, in a bar, Charlie bemoans what has happened. There isn't too much comedy, just a few small laughs. Charlie does make us sympathize a little with the artist. It's worth watching once for anyone who likes Chaplin (as is almost anything that he did), but it's not up to the standard of most of his films.