Chaplin famously churned out an enormous number of short comedies for Keystone during his first year in the film-making business, and while the majority of them are pretty sad comparisons to the later films that he would become famous for, Cruel, Cruel Love definitely ranks as one of the less memorable. A lot of people complain about these early comedies, no doubt because Chaplin is known as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and yet the films he made in 1914-1915 are most definitely not the greatest films of all time, but this one gives a clear look at what a lot of people are turned off by.
Chaplin does not play the tramp, but some sort of bizarre jerk with a hideous mustache and what appears to be an unenviable future. Like in many of Chaplin's early comedies, this one devolves into a widespread kicking and punching match by the end of the film. This has been going on for months by this point, and I believe that Chaplin was just giving his audience what they wanted at the time, but this is the first time that I have gotten the feeling that he is just running out of ideas.
I think Chaplin may have been progressing past what he would later refer to as the good old days when films could just be slapped together in a park, and so he tried to do something different, try on a slightly different characterization for a while, but unfortunately it just doesn't work. The film as a whole comes off as a bit of a disjointed mess, Chaplin makes some faces that I could have gone the rest of my life without ever having seen, and his heart is clearly not in it. Just his feet and his fists.
