Une journée de plaisir

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.

From his period after Mutual, 'A Day's Pleasure' is not one of his very best and not even among the best of this particular period. As said with many of his post-Keystone efforts, it shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career. The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. After Mutual the style had properly settled and the cinematic genius emerged. Something that can be seen in 'A Day's Pleasure' though other efforts do it better.

The story is slight and a bit too busy and manic in places. It does get bogged down at times by padding and a few scenes that don't serve a lot of purpose. Not all the sequences work either.

It is agreed that the part with the rocking boat is far too exaggerated and doesn't look good or fit.

On the other hand, 'A Day's Pleasure' looks good, not amazing (though the opening shot for early Chaplin is remarkable) but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

'A Day's Pleasure' is very funny and charming, if not one of Chaplin's substance or pathos-filled. Its best moments are hilarious with some clever, entertaining, remarkably inventive and well-timed slapstick and the charm doesn't get over-sentimental. It generally moves quickly and there is little dullness in sight. The second half is both amusing and enchanting and the message isn't laid on too thick and has more potency than one would think.

Chaplin directs more than competently and the cinematic genius quality is emerging. He also, as usual, gives a playful and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality and substance of the role. The support is good and the chemistry charms.

Overall, good but not great. 7/10 Bethany Cox

It's short and sweet, but Chaplin is in full swing here with his physical comedy and in projecting a screen presence that commands attention. The scenes on the boat on this "day out" are pretty funny, starting from when he boards in a hurry over a face down woman who has her arms stretched out to reach the boat and her toes gripping the dock. The dance with the boat rocking wildly, the guests in various stages of sea sickness, the boxing match Charlie has a guy much bigger than him (initially some blows to the guy's backside as he leans over the railing) ... it's all pretty silly, but highly entertaining. Not everything works and it feels a little fragmentary, but I liked it. I wish it had been fleshed out a little more.

With a fun day ahead of them, a man, his wife and two young sons load up the car and prepare to head out. After some significant problems actually getting the car to go, they board the pleasure boat for an exhausting but fun voyage. And f course what fun family outing would be complete without traffic chaos to close it out? I've not actually watched that many Charlie Chaplin films you know. I can think of a handful off the top of my head that I saw a year or so ago but other than that not really and certainly I'm remiss in seeing some of his classic films. Fortunately an arts channel recently gave me a full afternoon to catch up, showing several classic film as well as some shorts – one of which was this. A Day's Pleasure takes a couple of situations to make for a family outing and produces some genuinely funny moments out of them. Sad to say that the film is not funnier but when I wasn't actually laughing (which was the majority) it was still amusing.

This is almost entirely down to Chaplin himself, who did everything but make the tea in this film according to the credits. Physically he has great comic movement and just the sight of him coming down the steps at the start warmed me. Not all the routines are that funny but all of them are well delivered by him, while the supporting cast of Wilson, Bergman and others all do well. The end result is an amusing short film that is consistently amusing with a few good laughs. Modern viewers not interested to begin with won't be won over but regardless it is amusing and has stood up well in terms of entertainment value.

A DAY'S PLEASURE is a pleasure to see. It's not on the same level as Chaplin's A DOG'S LIFE or SHOULDER ARMS, but it might be a step above SUNNYSIDE. It really is funny. Chaplin plays a married man. First, he has a time trying to get his car started, then has a load of mishaps aboard a pleasure cruise ship. Finally, the traffic jam sequence is a laugh riot. The usual Chaplin players-Edna Purviance, Tom Wilson, Henry Bergman, Albert Austin, Loyal Underwood, even Jackie Coogan-are all as great as usual. A DAY'S PLEASURE is worth seeing if you're a Chaplin fan. For comedy lovers alone, it might not be as big a treat. Either way, it's funny.

I have heard that Chaplin rushed to produce A Day's Pleasure because the studio was demanding product while he was working on The Kid, but I have to disagree that it is a below-average comedy. It is a little different from the fare that we have come to expect from him in his short comedies, but I think this is as much a reflection of his desire to do something different as it is of the fact that he rushed through the production to satisfy the studio while he made another film, which he was more than likely more interested in.

It should be kept in mind that Chaplin had been involved in the production of nearly 100 short silent comedies by the time A Day's Pleasure came around, so I can forgive him a little distraction in it's production. If nothing else, I find the film to be particularly interesting, especially at the beginning, because the building that Chaplin and the family leave from at the opening of the film is Chaplin's office in Los Angeles, where I live. It's hard to mistake those mountains in the background!

One thing that I found to be interesting is that at one point in the opening sequence, a man walks into the frame in the background, and the trivia on the IMDb claims that he was most likely a studio employee, which seems like a preposterous notion, since the man not only walks right into the frame during shooting, but also pauses to see what's going on after he turns back. If he was a studio employee, it must have been his first day!

Also of some note is a rather disturbing portrayal of the black characters. Granted, 1919 was a very different time than now, but like Hitchcock's The Ring, which featured a sadly slave-like black man grinning gleefully as dirty, backwards-looking white people dunked him in a tub of water, A Day's Pleasure features a band of black musicians which doesn't say anything good about Chaplin's idea of black people (what is the meaning of "Three minds with but a single thought?").

While I agree that some of the material is a little different from many of Chaplin's other short films, the sequences here are certainly not without merit, particularly a hilarious bit with an uncooperative deck chair midway through the film. Some of the behavior of Chaplin and his other actors in the film is a little odd (at one point the family is on a crowded passenger ship on which everyone seems to be falling asleep on their feet in the middle of the day), but I should think that Chaplin made a graceful exit from the short silent comedy, if not an eventful one.