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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.

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

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

Before saying anything, I have to keep in mind this film was made in 1914 when cinema was in its infancy. Studios were experimenting different things to see what works out. Almost every great director has made some poor films in his initial days. Same is the case with Charlie Chaplin.And that's no big deal.

People of that era would have enjoyed watching throwing bricks and people falling in pond for sure. Even though I didn't like it but it was not that bad for that era, I feel.

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.