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Just perfect...

Excellent but underrated film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

This is one of my top favorite Chaplin shorts, because of the abundance of slapstick action and of course Charlie's jaw-dropping roller skating skills! Another reviewer mentioned that this left us wishing he'd have put the skates on more often. It'd be 20 years before we'd see the likes of this again in "Modern Times". But I absolutely LOVE this one!In that context, I thought this might be a good example of how my overall opinion of Chaplin's earlier work differs from some other fans & critics. I don't subscribe to the notion that his Tramp character wasn't so "likeable" in the early days as he became more even-tempered so over time. His aggressive tendencies when aggravated or impatient were much less restrained early on. But I actually enjoy seeing this in the Tramp; the aggression, to me, actually makes him more attractive in a "manly" way and I like/love him no less for it. Chaplin's little guy has a lot of backbone and is no pushover (figuratively). An adversary's size (or sometimes gender) made no difference to him; he's no more afraid of the monstrous Eric Campbell than he is of anyone else. You didn't mess with Charlie! As a fairly short and un-intimidating woman, I've often wished *I* had that kind of chutzpa in the face of bullies. ;-) The 3 Stooges were often the same way: after a point, you didn't mess with them, either! Several key players who worked with the Stooges like director Del Lord and supporting stars Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent, all cut their teeth in Sennett's silent movie slapstick. Jamison is in several of Chaplin's early shorts, and Del Lord was once the driver of the Keystone Cops. So you can see it's possible that the little Tramp's persona in some ways foreshadowed and shaped those of the Stooges.

The Rink, one of Chaplin's most charming early short comedies, starts out with the little tramp working as a waiter, and there is a hilarious short scene where a customer calls him over for his check, and Charlie comes over and writes up the bill based on the food that the guy has spilled all over himself. It seems to me that this was the film that inspired parts of Modern Times, especially the skating and the kitchen scenes. There are some wonderful uses of the IN and OUT doors leading to the kitchen, which do not seem repetitive even after I've seen Modern Times five or six times. One of the most charming scenes in the whole movie is a short piece where Charlie goes behind the bar to mix someone a drink (shaken, not stirred…). It's one of the famous scenes from Chaplin's early career. When Charlie gets off work, he changes back into his famous outfit and heads out to the bus stop. While he is sitting on the bench next to a woman, he pulls off some truly vintage Chaplin behavior that is so spontaneous and so well acted that it makes me think of Chaplin just goofing off in real life. This is what I imagine he was really like a lot of the time.With The Rink, it is easy to see that longer, and more genuine stories are slowly evolving in his early films. It is not a deep story by a long shot, and there is still plenty of high-action physical slapstick comedy, but there is much more here than at most of his previous films.But most of all, the feature skit of the film is the skating scenes in the second half, which are outstanding. It's amazing to me how good Chaplin was on skates, and some of the skits he pulls off here (such as the bouncing up and down on the fat woman) are truly brilliant pieces of slapstick. I have to say that I wish I knew where exactly the film's closing shot was filmed, since it's an outdoor shot and I am always curious to know what parts of Los Angeles are being shown. Excellent show!

Monday September 24, 7:00 pm, The Paramount Theater An inept waiter (Charles Chaplin) visits a roller skating rink on his lunch hour. Posing as Sir Cecil Seltzer C.O.D., he meets a lovely young girl (Edna Purviance) who invites him to her skate party that evening. Inspired by Skating, a Vaudeville routine co-written by his brother Sydney and Fred Karno, The Rink showcased Chaplin's graceful and at times frightening roller-skating abilities. Charlie serves one customer a live cat, is responsible for another receiving a scrub-brush and soap for lunch, and douses the cook (Albert Austin) with the contents of a cocktail shaker. Romantic entanglements begin when Mr. Stout (Eric Campbell) flirts with Edna at the rink, while Mrs. Stout (Henry Bergman) flirts with Edna's father (James T. Kelley) in the café. They end in a wild free-for-all when everyone embarrassingly shows up at the party, and Charlie escapes by hooking his cane to the bumper of a passing car.

There isn't a lot of subtlety to "The Rink", but it does have some entertaining slapstick and some traces of some of Chaplin's favorite themes. The first part in the restaurant has both good moments and routine stretches, and then things liven up when everyone gets their skates on - the action combines tangled relationships with tangled limbs. Although he has his character take a good assortment of slips and falls, in so doing Chaplin also demonstrates his physical skill, and his performance anticipates his more famous roller skating scene in "Modern Times". It's probably not among his best short features, but all the same it's one that Chaplin fans will want to see.