This was the last film Chaplin was in that he neither directed nor wrote, made at the end of 1914, his first full year in America. There are a dearth of title cards in this one, and just about everything is projected via pantomime. And because it is a Mack Sennett film there is lots of pants kicking.
The plot is pretty simple. Chaplin plays a ne'er do well who convinces plain plus sized Tillie, who is physically abused by her father, to elope with him and to help herself to a big dowry. When they get to the city he steals her money and abandons her for his old girlfriend, Mabel Normand. As Tillie's fortunes wax and wane, so does Chaplin's interest in her.
Why was pants kicking and pie throwing considered such a big laugh getter in early silent film? According to a film historian on some silent Charlie Chase films I bought, it was push back at Victorian values of the day. When Victorian values fell away after WWI, this was no longer considered funny.
Things I noticed? That three million dollars in 1914 was considered a great fortune, worthy of newspaper headlines. Today it would be the cost of a home in the San Francisco Bay area that is nothing to write home about. Also, notice that men AND women are put in the same drunk tank. I have no idea if that is a dash of realism or just the Keystone Cops mismanaging a precinct as usual. When there is a big society party towards the end, the band is all dressed up like a bunch of Cossacks, but the servants are dressed like they are from the French Revolutionary period. I have no idea what was up with that.
At any rate, it is a real treat to see three great comics on the silent screen together. It's a shame sound had to come in for Marie Dressler to really get her due in comedy, a top box office draw the last few years of her life. Of course, Chaplin made the transition successfully, but pantomime was really always his forte. Poor Mabel Normand, a great silent comedienne, will not live long enough to compete in talking pictures. She died in 1930 of tuberculosis.
The plot is pretty simple. Chaplin plays a ne'er do well who convinces plain plus sized Tillie, who is physically abused by her father, to elope with him and to help herself to a big dowry. When they get to the city he steals her money and abandons her for his old girlfriend, Mabel Normand. As Tillie's fortunes wax and wane, so does Chaplin's interest in her.
Why was pants kicking and pie throwing considered such a big laugh getter in early silent film? According to a film historian on some silent Charlie Chase films I bought, it was push back at Victorian values of the day. When Victorian values fell away after WWI, this was no longer considered funny.
Things I noticed? That three million dollars in 1914 was considered a great fortune, worthy of newspaper headlines. Today it would be the cost of a home in the San Francisco Bay area that is nothing to write home about. Also, notice that men AND women are put in the same drunk tank. I have no idea if that is a dash of realism or just the Keystone Cops mismanaging a precinct as usual. When there is a big society party towards the end, the band is all dressed up like a bunch of Cossacks, but the servants are dressed like they are from the French Revolutionary period. I have no idea what was up with that.
At any rate, it is a real treat to see three great comics on the silent screen together. It's a shame sound had to come in for Marie Dressler to really get her due in comedy, a top box office draw the last few years of her life. Of course, Chaplin made the transition successfully, but pantomime was really always his forte. Poor Mabel Normand, a great silent comedienne, will not live long enough to compete in talking pictures. She died in 1930 of tuberculosis.