Making a Living

Hey look I'm the asshole that goes into 100 year old films with a yeah , seen it before attitude. Itchy runs afoul of an Irishman. Chaplin looks like Genghis Khan and acts just as funny in this. HE PUNCHES A KID IN THE FACE: laughed.

There are some funny scenes but I expected more from a Charles Chaplin short.

Humourous and charming, but not, obviously, not what we know of Chaplin, however we already get to see a glampse of what he will become.

I actually like this scummy character played by Chaplin here more than his "Tramp" (except for his distractingly creepy moustache). Is there more with this character? Cause this short is not so good, especially editing is poor with rather too abrupt jump cuts (who the hell said that Godard invented them?). BTW I love music editing in the version I've watched where singing part from "Doctor Jazz" by Jelly Morton starts exactly when Chaplin begins to run away from police.

Very charming.

It's hard to imagine that these movies are more than 90 years old. Funny stuff.

Chaplin is such a charismatic bad ass that it's hard not to like him, even when he's cold-cocking ten-year old newsies and jacking cameras and shit. I'll still take the "tramp" Chaplin over this, but it's a nice piece of history.

Not terrible, but not great either. Chaplin's first film pits him as a swindler in an extended fight with a reporter trying to do his work. The highlight comes when a car careens off a cliff and the reporter goes to photograph and interview the man pinned beneath the vehicle. When he sets his camera and notepad down to help, Charlie steals the material and turns it in as his own. This kind of unlikable behavior is common in the early shorts, keeping them several notches below the later work.

Not the best, but a importante short.