User Reviews

WARNING: SMALL SPOILER AHEAD

Triple Trouble is a Charlie Chaplin film made by Essanay in 1918, almost 2 years after Chaplin left the company. It was made by putting together unused Chaplin footage from 1916 and splicing it together with newly-filmed footage. And surprisingly, it's not that bad. The plot is slightly hard to follow, but the gags make up for it. There is one obvious mistake though. When Charlie is running away, he isn't wearing his jacket. But in the next shot, he has his jacket, as well as his cane, which he had left behind. Despite it's flaws, I rate Triple Trouble 5 out of 10.

As several reviewers have noted, Chaplin left Essanay after his film Police. Footage from that film was combined with footage from Work and a never released production called Life. The result is what could be expected from such a mishmash. This is clearly Chaplin's worst film up to this point. The narrative is barely there, and the action on the screen does not seem to follow it most of the time. There is maybe one genuinely funny moment; it's the one where Chaplin has a bottle in his hand. There is one interesting bit of footage included in the film obviously taken from Work; it's a quick edit of several policemen being tossed up in the air by the exploding stove. The scene was cut from Work, but it creates an excellent feeling of an up-in-the-air view. * of 4 stars.

As the title says. To a Chaplin-fan, it's difficult to decide whether one should loathe or embrace TRIPLE TROUBLE; not only so due to the film's inconsistent qualities, but because its very right to exist in the first place can be debated, if not legally then at least from an ethical standpoint. When the Essanay film company released this two-reeler in the summer of 1918, having very much reached its salad days, Chaplin had in fact abandoned the company since two years back. In the meantime, he had developed remarkably as a film-maker through his twelve short films for the Mutual company, and had behind him his first effort at First National, A DOG'S LIFE. The arguably somewhat "crude" humor which had been present in several of his Essanay-films was now toned down for the sake of a more character-driven, human and slightly poetic approach. It can be assumed that Chaplin, possibly even more so than his admirers, was very aware of this development and felt little need to be associated with his earlier work.

However, the Chaplin-craze was still prominent by the end of the first world war, and Essanay would not let a chance to make an additional buck pass them by, even though Chaplin on his part considered them a closed chapter. They churned out TRIPLE TROUBLE, a two-reel film assembled partly from outtakes that had been left by Chaplin at the studio while he was still working there, as well as new-shot footage by Leo White, known for having played the frequent "count-type" roles in many of Chaplin's films. The result is by and large a mess, and was received unfavorably by critics even at the time. Whereas Chaplin had always, even in his earliest and "crudest" films, gone for simple and relatively down-to-earth plots, TRIPLE TROUBLE serves a story more reminiscent of the crazy antics of contemporary comedy team Ham and Bud. Inventor Colonel Nutt has invented a new brand of explosives, which a foreign agent is eager to get his hands on; unsuccessful in his request for the formula, he puts some bandits on the case. A rather incoherent chase develops, and that's your story; somewhere in the middle of this, Charlie is thrown in as a janitor, and appears in a few scenes with hard-working woman Edna Purviance and at a flop-house.

So we don't have much of a good film, that's for sure, and Chaplin had every right to be infuriated. Still fresh on his mind was Essanay's destruction of his BURLESQUE ON CARMEN upon his departure, and now they had even hired another director to fill in the gaps of a film that was supposed to be his but which he'd never approved in the first place! There was nothing he could do about the situation, as he did not yet legally own his films while working at the company. Still, I must admit, as a die-hard fan of Chaplin, that I somehow, somewhere in a forbidden spot in my heart, am grateful that the film saw the light of day. Essanay closed shop shortly after the film's release, and as Chaplin is unlikely to have been interested in any outtakes he'd made years before, the scenes with him in TRIPLE TROUBLE would in all probability have been lost forever without this project. Chaplin's status as a comic genius would undoubtedly have been secure anyhow, but surely there are some memorable moments to be found here; I love it, for instance, when the Tramp first forces an odd-lookin' fellow to sleep by brutally knocking him down with a hammer, only to then kiss him gently good-night on the head.

The origin of the Chaplin-footage in TRIPLE TROUBLE has been subject of much debate in itself. It seems to be widely accepted that the material was shot by Chaplin in 1915 as part of an intended full-length film entitled LIFE, which was abandoned due to the constant demand for new Chaplin-releases at that time. However, I believe this theory has been treated as more credible than it probably deserves. It seems to be correct that Essanay had announced at one point that Chaplin did intend to make a full-length film by said title, but as far as I know there is no evidence to be found whatsoever that any scenes from this aborted project were actually shot. Yet another theory speculates that the footage used in TRIPLE TROUBLE consists of outtakes from Chaplin's last "official" Essanay-film, POLICE, but this seems even less likely. In any case, the scenes with him in TRIPLE TROUBLE are actually rather funny and memorable, even if the film as an entirety is not.

Chaplin's final two shorts for Essanay before leaving for Mutual in 1916 were fraught with problems. The previous year's "Burlesque on Carmen" was given an extra two reels with extraneous footage, while Chaplin's likable "Police" (a reworking of the story from "His Regeneration") was heavily edited by the company.

Unused footage from "Police" was then later combined with discarded scenes from "Work" and the uncompleted "Life" to make this final short for Essanay - without Chaplin's consent or involvement - and released in 1918. As might be expected from such a patchwork genesis, then it isn't terribly good and Chaplin's appearances in the film only amount to around half the runtime. While the clips involving Chaplin are often quite appealing, there's little or no narrative cohesion linking them, and later restorations of "Police" and "Work" restoring scenes used in this short make a further nonsense of its plot framework. Chaplin himself slated this extension, observing in his autobiography that it "prostrated me and sent me to bed for two days."

This said, the quality of the Essanay output is such that differences between Triple Trouble and the rest of the 1915 output isn't often that marked. Yet with clearly different actors reprising the roles from the scenes with Chaplin, and Chaplin's character being one of his most dislikeable takes (including flicking ash into a man's mouth and smashing a bottle over his head) then it isn't one with a great deal of appeal. Like much of the period, worthwhile for historical interest only.