Charlot et le masque de fer

A great scene in the film is when the HUSBAND has his back to the screen so you can't tell when he is actually doing. To some it looks like he is crying until he turns around to face the camera. In fact, the drunk HUSBAND is mixing himself a martini in his glass shaker. Just one of many situations where Chaplin plays with the audience.

One of Charlie Chaplin's best short comedies, "The Idle Class" uses some of his favorite themes to very good effect. Charlie has a dual role, playing his usual 'tramp' character and also playing a rich idler. He thus sets up some identity confusion and also the kind of class contrasts that often set up some of Chaplin's best material. There are plenty of good gags in this one, and some memorable scenes, with the hilarious costume party sequence being especially good. This was one of Chaplin's last short comedies, and it is constructed very carefully, with excellent timing in the gags and in the plot. While in a much lighter vein than the full-length pictures he was then starting to make, it has the same level of craftsmanship and is very entertaining.

A train arrives at the depot with a range of passengers – from the rich down to a tramp of few means. One rich woman has asked her husband to collect her at the station but his terrible forgetfulness means he does not. All three of them head to the members-only golf club, although the tramp is not strictly invited. He causes confusion and trouble on the greens, while his more than passing resemblance to the rich woman's husband causes plenty trouble at the masquerade ball that evening.

As part of broadening my cinema experience I spent an afternoon checking in with screenings of a few Chaplin feature films and shorts and The Idle Class was one of the latter. Having just watched A Day's Pleasure and finding it amusing, I expected more of the same from Idle Class but actually this film was much funnier. The plot is not really important until the tramp and husband come together in the final scene and up till then it is just one perfectly timed and choreographed piece of confusion after another. The golf course fights were my favourite but the ball itself is pretty funny. As usual Chaplin's performance is quite brilliant, putting so much into his face and physical comedy that really you never thing words as missing so much as superfluous. The support cast of regulars such as Purviance, Swain, Bergman and a few others all put in solid work with well-exaggerated physical deliveries that compliment the subtle performance from Chaplin.

Overall a real delight. Consistently funny with plenty to laugh about.

The post-war period, until the depression, must have been a class-conscious period in America, with some people very rich and most others (eg., farmers) poor. Charlie is the tramp character so he's poor. The plot is said to have been developed by him after he wandered around the prop room and spotted a bag of golf clubs. The story is certainly simple enough. Chaplain finds himself on a golf course and a series of gags ensue, after which he's chased by a cop and runs into a mansion where a costume party is in progress. He's taken for the host, who is a ringer. The other guests believe that the host's tramp outfit is simply a costume for the party. The real host, meanwhile, is encased in a suit of armor whose visor has dropped and jammed shut so no one can see his face. Charlie gets out of it okay and ends the movie by kicking the security guard in the pants and running away.

To me, the funniest gag, in a movie filled with funny gags, has to do with Charlie as the real host. (He has a double role.) The high-class host is a drunk. In his natty evening dress, but without trousers -- don't ask -- he comes home to find a note from his wife. "I am taking up other quarters until you rid yourself of your drinking habit," says the note. Charlie reads it and slowly turns away from the camera and bends over a table, his shoulders racked with sobs. What remorse! But, no. When he turns again towards the camera we see he is matter-of-factly shaking a cocktail mixer! It's called a "garden path" joke, and it efficiently explodes our expectations.

It's hard to imagine how Chaplin could have found any humor in alcohol use, given his family history. His girl friend at the time, Edna Purviance, was to become bloated from alcohol abuse too.

Well, as I say, though, the story isn't much. It's really two stories: (1) the golf course sequence, and (2) the mixed identities at the costume party. Both of them are good. There's more slapstick in the second part and probably more gag continuity in the first.

I saw this only a few hours ago and I'm still laughing, enough to be compelled to add a description of one more joke. On the golf course, Charlie has hit a ball that lands in the open mouth of a fat man asleep on his back. As the fellow snores, the white ball appears and disappears in his mouth. How does Charlie manage to hit the ball again? He steps on the guy's belly, the ball pops a few feet up in the air, and he hits it in mid air using his golf club like a baseball bat. If the joke loses something in the course of its transposition into print, well, blame it on Charlie's "genius," in the original sense.

It's pretty consistently funny.

Another example of Chaplin's brilliance in film-making, this short work. Many of his favorite themes come along, such as several chases and a mix-up between him and 'the husband'(also played by Charlie). Best scenes include the one where 'the husband' reads a letter from his wife that he should drink less. We see him pick up a picture of her, then he starts shaking like he's crying... but he's just mixing another drink. That really cracked me up. The scenes on the golf course are also very funny and well-made. Then the movie slows down a bit with the ballroom-thing, but the ending is just the best: with Charlie kicking the father of 'the wife' right where he should... great scene! In short: good short Chaplin, though not up there with The Adventurer, The Tramp or Pay Day. 7/10.