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That was an excellent one.

Absolutely Fantastic

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

WORK is one of the early silent shorts that Charlie Chaplin made before he'd quite got to grips with his famous 'little tramp' character. In this one he plays a painter and decorater who gets put upon by his boss before wreaking havoc in a typical house. Despite the short length I found this film dragged a little, with lots of scenarios featuring repetitive slapstick gags and jokes which go on and on and on. Saying that, there are some fun incidents involving a bucket of wallpaper glue and an explosive stove, and Chaplin works hard at all the pratfalls and jokes, so it's still enjoyable.

"Work" is a black-and-white silent short film from 1915, so this one is another work directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin from over a century already. You won't find too many of his regular cast members in here this time. The version I watched ran for 25 minutes roughly, but I see here on imdb that versions of 31 and even 41 minutes exist apparently too. Not sure if some scenes were lost, but I think it's rather all about the frames per second. Anyway, it's not important anyway as regardless of how long it is, simply too much happens in here for the film to feel authentic and realistic and more than shoving us one (not so) funny scene in the face. In this one Charlie's shenanigans, but also the other characters' messing up in their rage mostly have an impact on that and maybe a guilt too. It's a long and (in the truest sense of the word) messy road to that as a lot of dirty stuff happens in here (but not in the sexual sense obviously, hey these are the 10s, kissing was controversial back then already). Overall, I think the script was the main problem here as Chaplin and also others are far better actors and the constant shots at comedy made it difficult for the cast to shine or the movie to deliver in any genre as the chance was definitely there, but it almost seemed like they did not want it to happen. The slapstick just gets too much at some point, which is no surprise really as the mere quantity of jokes almost rules out that all, or even most, of them could have been convincing. One of the more known Chaplin shorts, not most known probably, but definitely not one of the best. Only watch if you really love Him (then you will also understand the capitalized H). I give this one a thumbs-down though.

Work is a rather messy Chaplin short but feels overlong as some of the situations drag on.Chaplin plays a workman on his way to decorate a house, we see him pulling his boss on a cart who also whips him, there are several scenes where he crosses a train track just before the train passes through and then he struggles to get up a hill. In one scene the boss invites a friend to hop on the cart. You can see Chaplin is already taking a stand against exploitative capitalism already!Once they arrive at the middle class house, there is all kinds of slapstick as they try to wallpaper the house, there is an exploding stove, Chaplin takes a shine to the maid, and the householder's wife is visited by her secret lover.This is the first Chaplin short I have seen in some years, they just do not get repeated as often as they used to be on television. In Work Chaplin has not found his 'tramp' persona but there is some good skills used to for the slapstick but it gets too repetitive.

By this point in his career, Chaplin had almost fully developed the character of the little tramp, although he had not come close to perfecting the performances or truly refining his personality. But the character that the world soon came to know and love is clearly there by this point. This is one of the more complex stories for Chaplin's earliest work, with several story lines taking place simultaneously and coming together at the end. The thing about slapstick is that so often it's only funny once, and sometimes even only mildly amusing that one time. The problem is that when you know what's going to happen, you can see the actor setting up for whatever sight gag is coming, even if it's only a slight indication of movement or preparation, but Chaplin was so good at it that in a film like this there are numerous sight gags and stunts that you can rewind and watch two or three times and they're still good. Chaplin had a natural style about him that looks like what we're watching isn't even a performance. This film, simply titled Work, has plenty of amusing and memorable gags, particularly the wallpapering and the exploding stove. The end of the film is very high energy and even action packed, but it still strikes me as a bit of a descent into chaos. It's the kind of punching and kicking and throwing and falling and swinging and breaking stuff that we see a lot of in the Keystone films but that I feel tend to get boring after a while. Then again, it's not until about 22 minutes into this 24 minute film that Chaplin first kicks a man over backwards by shoving his foot into the man's chest, so clearly other elements of storytelling are becoming more important to him....