Charlot marquis

This was Chaplin's ninth film at Keystone and the third of four Chaplin films directed by George Nichols. It is important to note that this film was lost for a long time and only about 9 of the original 16 minutes has been found.

We can guess that most of the lost footage starts at around 3 minutes and 30 seconds just before we see Chaplin taking poison. What we don't see is his decision to take poison, his relationship with his butler, played by Edgar Kennedy, and the butler substituting a harmless drink for the poison. We can easily guess that all this was the content of the missing scenes based on the acting and actions in later scenes.

This film seems like it should be associated with Chaplin's first film, "Making a Living" as he wears the Gray waistcoat and top hat from that film and Minta Durfee who is also the love interest from that film is the love interest here.

Eva Nelson does a funny bit as the maid. She hurts her ankle and Chaplin helps her. Durfee does not see her hurting her ankle. This causes Durfee to mistakingly believe that Chaplin was trying to seduce her. Nelson's film career just started a few weeks before in Chaplin's "Tango Tangled." She appeared in 10 Keystone films in 1914. She then did nine more short films in 1915 and 1916, including six with Chaplin impersonator Billie Ritchie. That is all of her short film career.

William Hauber does a nice job as a gardener who convinces Durfee that Chaplin hasn't betrayed her with her maid. He appeared in some 75 Keystone films from 1912 to 1916 and then worked in some 30 Larry Semon films over the next 10 years.

This film contains the first Chaplin "Dream sequence." He imagines himself going to hell after drinking the poison. "The Bank," "The Kid," "Sunnyside" "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times" are some other Chaplin films with dream sequences.

Chaplin's performance in this film looks ridiculous rather than funny; however, that is probably due to the missing scenes. If we had those scenes, we could see Chaplin's transition from despair to hysteria. We can only hope that someday, some way, the missing scenes may be found.

In 1914, Charlie Chaplin began making pictures. These were made for Mack Sennett (also known as "Keystone Studios") and were literally churned out in very rapid succession. The short comedies had very little structure and were completely ad libbed. As a result, the films, though popular in their day, were just awful by today's standards. Many of them bear a strong similarity to home movies featuring obnoxious relatives mugging for the camera. Many others show the characters wander in front of the camera and do pretty much nothing. And, regardless of the outcome, Keystone sent them straight to theaters. My assumption is that all movies at this time must have been pretty bad, as the Keystone films with Chaplin were very successful.

The Charlie Chaplin we know and love today only began to evolve later in Chaplin's career with Keystone. By 1915, he signed a new lucrative contract with Essenay Studios and the films improved dramatically with Chaplin as director. However, at times these films were still very rough and not especially memorable. No, Chaplin as the cute Little Tramp was still evolving. In 1916, when he switched to Mutual Studios, his films once again improved and he became the more recognizable nice guy--in many of the previous films he was just a jerk (either getting drunk a lot, beating up women, provoking fights with innocent people, etc.). The final evolution of his Little Tramp to classic status occurred in the 1920s as a result of his full-length films.

This short features Chaplin but not as the Little Tramp--his mustache is different and he looks a little more like a dandy. Charlie has a girlfriend, but she catches him with the maid so she breaks up with him. He is so despondent that he takes what he thinks is poison--at which time he goes through the most over-acted death scene in history while some annoying guy laughs hysterically again and again and again and again and again because the poison is actually just water. The ambulance arrives and tell him he's fine and his ex-girlfriend runs back and professes her love. This short DOES have a bit more coherence and plot than most early Chaplin shorts from Keystone, so it merits a 3. Only a 3 because it is terribly over-done and not especially funny.

'Cruel, Cruel Love' is one of the better efforts of Chaplin's early Keystone works. It seems to me that those films where Chaplin wasn't playing The Tramp were usually better from that period. The story is a classic romantic fable - after a little misunderstanding, the Lord's (Charles Chaplin) fiancee (Minta Durfee) calls off the engagement. Broken-hearted, the Lord is about to commit suicide. The Lady's gardener explains what caused the misunderstanding, and she rushes to help her loved one. The Lord's butler watches that mess and gets a nice bellyful of laughs.

Although the film is simple and offers very little inventiveness, it is still funny enough, and as a viewer, it is easy to care about the characters and the story. Gags and stunts were barely above the average of that era's slapstick. Chaplin managed to show his true genius as an actor - when his character was thinking he will die and hallucinated about hell - those facial expressions when he realized that all the world is over for him. Amazing.

I also started to pay the attention to the sets they used and noticed how the homes of the characters look very similar. It is because they used the same set, but with little redecoration, they made it look like another location.

'Cruel, Cruel Love' is more than barely watchable - it is enjoyable.

For every decent movie Chaplin made in 1914 it seems like he made a dozen duds - and this is one of the duddiest of them all. Chaplin either hadn't developed the character of the little tramp when he made this short or he had decided to give him a break for a while. Here he plays something of a toff who, through a misunderstanding, finds himself jilted by his beloved so decides to commit suicide. Unnknown to him, his butler switches the poison he intends to take for water. Despite this, Chaplin's character goes through exaggerated death throes until the truth comes to light, whereupon he starts kicking everyone in sight. As with most of his early films, this is pretty primitive stuff - I don't think I laughed (or smiled) once...

Cruel Cruel Love might be one of Chaplin's funniest Keystone comedies, even though he doesn't play The Tramp! Instead, he plays a variation of the character he played in his debut, Making a Living -- or at least he wears the same costume.

This film lets Chaplin go completely crazy, hamming and mugging mericilessly. This is not the subtle or graceful Chaplin of later years. This is a manic Chaplin, and while this could well have made Cruel Cruel Love into a disaster, instead it makes this film drop-dead hilarious.

Chaplin plays a bigwig who is jilted by his girlfriend. He decides to take poison and kill himself, but his butler gives him water instead, and then laughs his head off as his boss goes through some of the strangest, most convoluted "death throes" ever seen.

This film includes some surprisingly good (for 1914) special effects - namely a dream sequence in which Chaplin hallucinates that he has gone to Hell. At one point, Chaplin actually turns the comedy into horror by adopting a rather bizarre "death face" that actually is a little disturbing to see. For a moment I thought I was watching a Lon Chaney film.

Of the first dozen or so Chaplin comedies for Keystone, this is definitely one of the best, and well worth seeking out.