Chaplin - Police (1916) - Video On Demand

Chaplin - Police - Movie Review

Charlie is released from prison and immediately swindled by a fake parson. A fellow ex-convict convinces Charlie to help burglarize a house, but Edna, the house's owner, catches them and calls the police. Charlie, however, manages to charm his way out of trouble .... at least for the moment. Police was Charlie Chaplin's 14th released film from Essanay. It was made at the Majestic Studio in Los Angeles.

This short comedy marked a real leap forward for Charlie Chaplin: it tells a good story in a clear and economical manner, Charlie himself is a sympathetic and dignified figure albeit down-and-out, and there are elements of social commentary and satire that don't overwhelm everything else. Oh, and POLICE also happens to be quite funny, even laugh-out-loud funny at times. Nothing feels forced: the gags all spring naturally from the situation and from Charlie's character, and we never get the sense that he's straining to make us laugh, nor is there any gratuitous knockabout. Barely two years after facing a camera for the first time, Chaplin the director demonstrates real maturity as a filmmaker while Chaplin the performer is at or near his early peak.

This was Chaplin's last official release produced for the Essanay Studio, although his ex-employers later cobbled together TRIPLE TROUBLE out of scraps and outtakes from various unfinished works over his protests. Meanwhile, however, after he completed this film Chaplin went to the Lone Star Studio to make some of his greatest short films for release by the Mutual Company. But POLICE can hold its own alongside the Mutual series and ranks with Chaplin's best work from this early period. Unlike most of his Keystone comedies and some of the earlier, slapstick-y and disjointed Essanays, this film requires no special patience or tolerance to watch: it's a pleasure from beginning to end, and a pretty good introduction to its star for a newcomer who might wonder what Charlie Chaplin was all about.

Unlike the Mutual comedies, the films he produced at Essanay are rarely studied in film schools--with the exception of "The Tramp," the one unqualified gem in Chaplin's work at Essanay. However, these comedies are important films in the development of Chaplin's screen comedy. Many of the ideas that he develops in the Essanay comedies would become dead ends. But others, as in "The Tramp"--with its closing shot of Charlie wandering down a road by himself--would become key moments in the development of Chaplin's screen persona.

Chaplin - Police - Cast & Crew

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