User Reviews

This film has some highly imaginative and well-timed stunts--all revolving around Charlie's job at a construction site. All the near-falls and accidents remind me of Sweet Pea from POPEYE cartoons--as the baby is nearly killed again and again but miraculously escapes. In Chaplin's case, it involved a funny sequence when he ALMOST falls down an elevator many times, dropping objects accidentally on those below and a really interesting sight gag involving guys throwing bricks up to Charlie who catches this with complete ease (it was done by running the film backwards). Later, Charlie's hideous and scary wife is introduced and it goes from a work comedy to a domestic one. In a way, this was a minor disappointment, as I preferred the faster paced work stunts, but all-in-all this is a funny and well executed short.

Altogether amazing little short with the comic at his best as a brick layer who is late on the job and presents a flower to his monstrous boss (MACK SWAIN). Swain looks so much like Billy Gilbert that I thought that's who it was at first. Swain orders him immediately to work and the fun starts.

A particularly amusing lunch hour sequence is full of sight gags requiring perfect timing. Charlie gets paid, then has to deal with an overbearing wife who sleeps with a rolling pin in her arms, ready to pounce on him when he doesn't come home from work on time. Instead, he's at the local pub having a night out with the other workers.

The pub sequence leads to other amusing sight gags as he and a fellow worker struggle to get out of the rain and onto a streetcar.

No wonder Chaplin considers this one his favorite silent short. Again, Edna Purviance has little to do but it hardly matters. It's Chaplin's limelight and that's all audiences wanted.

All of the stunts are exhibited in perfect timing and are the mark of genius.

Chaplin's tramp has a job in this half hour short which comically depicts the plight of the era's laborer that has changed negligibly since. There is little plot to go around but plenty of perfected sight gags by the Silent master as he works and drinks with co-workers and fends off his shrewish rolling pin wielding wife who is intent on collecting his entire pay. The most deft comedy bits are on the job as he does amazing things with a lift as well as a scene grabbing bricks being tossed to him (albeit achieved by reversing the negative). The drinking with co-workers keeps the laughs going and continue through the final confrontation with the wife as Chaplin's uproarious balletic grace remains in fine form from start to finish.

"Pay Day" was Charlie Chaplin's last short film, and I think it's one of his best--not especially for the gags or scenario, but mostly because of its technical superiority in film-making. I consider the scenario substandard; I prefer Charlie as a real tramp, not a man of domesticity in the Tramp outfit, but that's just my preference. Doubtless, "Pay Day" is better constructed than "A Day's Pleasure", another First National short where Chaplin plays a married everyman. And, there are some very funny scenes in "Pay Day". The bricklaying at his construction job is a highlight--a carefully choreographed gag projected in reverse motion. Additionally, Chaplin is hilarious when playing a drunk.

The night scenes when the tramp becomes inebriated and his subsequent follies at his apartment are better photographed than any scenes in a Chaplin film before. Chaplin is well known to be a rather minimalist, even unimaginative, filmmaker when it came to the more technical aspects of the art, such as cinematography, but he and cinematographer Roland Totheroh tried something different here with the lighting. Their films usually feature very flat lighting, but here they employed backlighting, adding another dimension to the film's images. When Chaplin tiptoes towards the camera oblivious of his wife standing behind him in their apartment, he seems ready to fall off the screen.

The night scenes are particularly striking; the backlighting more fully exposes shadows and the shades of gray, highlighting the textures of the sets and streets. The scene where the tramp attempts to get a ride on the trolleys was broken into location shots for the trolleys and studio shooting for when Chaplin is in front of the walled background. Chaplin was by then organizing his films for more efficient production, and the result is this great-looking short.

Art director Charles D. Hall, who would have a prestigious career designing sets for various horror flicks, helped greatly to expand Chaplin's films spatially at First National, which included simply featuring more sets and covering a greater area. Of course, the difference between the First National films and his ones before has as much to do with having his own studio, but Hall's contribution shouldn't be ignored. Even though the sets are still stagy (the missing wall confounded by a lack of changing camera placements), the backlighting highlights their texture and dimensions. "Pay Day" is Chaplin's most tactile short. The Mutual films were a period of refining Chaplin's Tramp persona, as were some of the First National pictures, but these First National films were also a period of experimenting with his film-making--in ways as simple as the number of reels to the technical experiments such as in "Pay Day".

Pay Day is definitely one of the best of all of Charlie Chaplin's early short comedies, and that's not even just because it is now placed at the end of The Gold Rush, Chaplin's own favorite of his films. Charlie plays a construction worker who shows up to work late to a job at which his boss is clearly a tyrant. The part where Charlie is in the ditch strenuously digging and only coming up with tiny bits of dirt is one of the funniest parts of the entire film. And then, of course, you have the classic brick throwing scene, which was sure to have knocked people off of their seats when they first saw it in 1922.

But Pay Day is not just another slapstick comedy, it's also got one of the better stories of Chaplin's early, short films. His misadventures at work set up the scene for his underpayment (which seemed not to be enough pay because Charlie was uneducated and added wrong – 2+2+2+2=9), and his eventual confrontations with his beast of a wife. When she takes nearly all of his paycheck, he sneaks away to a bar to get drunk, finally making it home at 5am, only to find his horrendous wife sleeping with a rolling pin. It is another classic moment when he sneaks into the bathroom (hoping to have convinced his wife that he has already left for work) and goes to jump into the bathtub full of laundry, only to find that it is also full of water.

While Pay Day does present a steady stream of slapstick comedy (which was, of course, one of Chaplin's greatest skills), it is also a fairly involved story, which few of his short films had, but which were almost always very well done. He again presents the predicament of the working man, both in his work environment as well as an amusing comment on the working man's home life. If you are interested in Chaplin's work or in slapstick comedy in general, Pay Day is a must see.

Last of the Charlie Chaplin two-reelers, and also reportedly his favorite. The premise is efficient and simple - an irreverent bricklayer tries to dodge his responsibilities (and his penny-pinching wife) between daytime shifts at the construction site and inebriated nights on the town - which gives Chaplin enough structure to maintain forward momentum and enough freedom to fit in all the silly hijinx he wants. Plenty of those to go around. Between the creative cinematic tricks (reversing the film for a high-risk game of two-story brick tossing), the delightful visual gags (stealing coworkers' lunches with a crazed construction lift) and the abundant physical laughs (nobody goes head-over-heels quite like Charlie), I barely had time to catch my breath between all the good bits.

Clearly, Chaplin had transcended the format at this point, and was more than ready to move into full-length features after experimenting with longer acts in The Kid a year earlier. A tremendously entertaining, action-packed twenty-eight minutes.

Charlie Chaplin's short film "Pay Day" is obviously a silent film, so it has to rely completely on slapstick for it's comedy. There are a few written words, but those aren't overly amusing. The sight gags are simple, but amusing and well executed, and despite a lack of plot after the beginning, this is still a decent and amusing way to spend 30 minutes.

A worker (Charlie Chaplin) is excited for his pay day. But first he has to go through one more day of work, with the angry foreman. And as angry as the foreman is, he's no where near as angry as the worker's wife. She takes all of the her husband's money from work, and he has to sneak some to go out for the night. So the worker goes out on the town for a night and goes through several gags that end with his wife figuring out he took some of his money back.

Charlie plays a goofy character here. He's amusing, and over the top and silly. All this short is, is Charlie going through several different scenes and making mistakes. It's hard to review this, as it really didn't have much content, but it was thoroughly amusing. One thing that was strange about it was how mean this guy's wife is. She's obviously the antagonist and the set-up for the entire second half of the film, but geez, she takes all of her husbands money each week, and she doesn't let him keep anything to eat with. He really should've divorced that woman.

Some scenes that are particularly well done are a trolley scene, and the bricklaying scene. The bricklaying scene at the beginning is a very well directed cause and effect scene where the work elevator goes up and down, causing people's food to be eaten on a different floor, and lots of mischief. The trolley scene features Charlie trying to get a ride, but the overcrowded car is hard to get in to. It's a very well done scene and it's a really great scene for slapstick comedy, and seems to be inspiration for future film scenes.

This Chaplin short didn't set the world on fire. It's an amusing little short with a lot of gags. It's a fun watch, but that's about it.

My rating: *** out of ****. 30 mins.

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

It is hard to not expect a lot after not long before Chaplin had one of his earliest career highs in 'The Kid'. 'Pay Day' doesn't disappoint, and it shows Chaplin having properly found his style and fully settled. As said with many of his post-Keystone efforts, it shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career. The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. After Mutual the style had properly settled and the cinematic genius emerged. Very much apparent in his final and one of his best, funniest and most inventive overall short films 'Pay Day.

The story is slight and slightly too simple but is at least discernible and is never dull, and does it while not being as too busy or manic.

On the other hand, 'Pay Day' looks very well done, from Essanay onwards, and it is certainly the case here, it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. It's actually one of his technically best-looking short films. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

'Pay Day' is one of the funniest, most imaginative and most charming short films of Chaplin. It is hilarious with some clever, inventive, entertaining and well-timed slapstick, some imaginatively choreographed and nimbly done stunts and the charm doesn't get over-sentimental. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight. The second half is both hilarious and enchanting, with the sentimentality and such kept at bay rightfully.

Chaplin directs more than competently and the cinematic genius quality is emerging. He also, as usual, gives a playful and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality and substance of the role. The support is good from the likes of the ever appealing Edna Purviance and Syd Chaplin.

Overall, great, hilarious, imaginative and charming. 9/10 Bethany Cox

PAY DAY (First National, 1922), produced, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, is one of the all time great silent comedy shorts, and one of Chaplin's most infamous. Though Chaplin sports his signature oversize trousers, derby and twirling cane, he doesn't play the traditional vagabond tramp but a working man with a domineering spouse (Phyllis Allen) after his weekly pay check. There's not much of a story to it, but in true Chaplin essence, enough gags to guarantee 22 minutes of non-stop laughter.

The story introduces Charlie as a day laborer arriving late for work, close enough to lunch time. Moments after being caught sneaking in, Charlie appeases his foreman (Mack Swain) with a white lily, which doesn't impress him very much. As Charlie slowly digs a ditch, he quickly lays the bricks at a very high speed. During a lunch break, the foreman's daughter (Edna Purviance) arrives with a boxed lunch she prepared to eat with her father. Charlie's attempt to flirt with the young lady proves as unsuccessful as trying to convince the foreman on pay day that he's underpaid for his overtime. After short changing his "First National Bank" wife (Phyllis Allen) who's come to collect her husband's money, Charlie sneaks off with some take home money for an evening on the town, followed by a series of all night misadventures for the working man. Other members of the Chaplin stock players include Henry Bergman, Sydney Chaplin, Allan Garcia, John Rand and Loyal Underwood.

For Chaplin's rare venture in both the work force and domestic situations, it's hard to forget his brick laying sequence; his acquiring of food during the lunch break; disturbing the peace while singing "Sweet Adeline" with a group of drunks; and his many attempts trying to get onto various overcrowded streetcars. Even minor scenes involving cats on the kitchen table and a glimpse of the awaiting Mrs. Chaplin sound asleep while holding onto a rolling pin for her husband shows there's not a single frame wasted in PAY DAY. Everything about PAY DAY works. Everything in it is timed to perfection. As the "THE END" title hits the screen, it makes one wish for more or to know that there's even a possible sequel involving the further misadventures of husband Charlie, the working man. Though Chaplin never produced a sequel of any kind since sequels rarely compare to the originals, as original and creative as Chaplin is, more great comedies for which he starred and directed (CITY LIGHTS, MODERN TIMES) were ahead of him. PAY DAY and others like it are just perfect examples of Chaplin's proper care and perfection to what he can do to get laughs.

Unlike most of Chaplin's earlier comedy shorts made during 1914-1917, PAY DAY, along with others produced during his First National Pictures period (1919-23), were those with limited or no reissues. In fact, hardly any Chaplin's comedies from 1918-1923 were ever televised until many years after Chaplin's 1977 death. Before being readily available to home video on the centennial of Chaplin's birth (1989), those long unseen Chaplin shorts and feature length films were restored and accompanied by newly composed scores conducted by Chaplin himself. For the 1989 VHS copy of Chaplin's PAY DAY, it was preceded by his 1925 masterpiece, THE GOLD RUSH. The disadvantage of that issue is that THE GOLD RUSH was not an original print but one taken from the edited 1942 reissue with Chaplin's voice over narration in place of title cards. Fortunately the complete version of THE GOLD RUSH still exists as does PAY DAY, which turns up occasionally on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: March 17, 2004). For such a job well done, Chaplin's next pay day is a well deserved raise in salary. (****)

'Pay Day' might be the finest Chaplin's short film. It was made after his feature debut and was to become his last short film. 'Pay Day' is meticulously fast-paced, every frame carries the story forward and offers us some neat stunt or joke. With this movie, Charles Chaplin entered into his peak performance with comedic timing.

The first part, when we follow The Tramp through his workday is more action-packed than the second part, where we see him dealing with his wife. Or, is it? - NO, the action is just smaller. The same amount of clever tricks, but more subtle. More attention is needed to pay on every detail.

'Pay Day' is a fantastically amusing film that offers a nice paycheck to the viewer also with many laughs

Charlie is doing thankless work for unappreciative people. His wife is on his case ever minute. He tries to get better pay. His work experiences are sad and defeating. The men he works with are in the same boat. The strength of this early feature is the ingenuity of Chaplin as he navigates every moment, trying to do what is right. He is tired at the end of the day, but his virago of a wife is relentless. I look forward to other Chaplin short features, having not been exposed to them before.

I absolutely loved the bit where Charlie improbably catches all those bricks being hurled at him on the construction site, an effect created by filming in reverse, and the scene trying to cram onto the streetcar is pretty cute too. The drunk shtick, the shrewish wife literally holding a rolling pin, and some of the humor was less interesting to me (2+2+2+2=9), but there are lots of little moments where Chaplin does something deft and clever with his hands, e.g. swiping the money out of his wife's purse while she's taking the money she knows he has hidden in his hat. I don't see this one quiiiite as head and shoulders above the rest of his short films, but it's worth checking out.

Said to be Chaplin's favorite of his short films, Pay Day is a quick, yet funny story of the Tramp and his Pay Day. Showing up to the job late, complaining about his wage, and then having to deal with his scary wife is just the first half of the movie. The night spent out on the town, drinking his problems away and then trying ever so hard to catch the train home is the second half. The physical comedy in Pay day is pure Chaplin. Catching the bricks, the escapades with the elevator and the mob to ride the train are segments that are unique and very funny. Still, Pay Day is not you average Chaplin film. There are moments in the movie that are just there to make you laugh. More of a joke filled story that an actual story with a beginning, middle and an end, Pay Day is a no holds bar comedy with the object to make the audience laugh. And it does.

When the group of fellas (not unlike my buddies) stroll out of the bar and start singing, I nearly p**sed myself when the lady dumped water on them. They were so drunk they thought it was raining and broke out the umbrella...

Anyway, for anyone whose got drinkin' buddies, this is a must see. The brick laying is pretty good, an early use of playing the film backwards to create spectacular effects. Great thinking for the time this was filmed and I wonder if this was the first use of this technique.

I wasn't too clear on what Charlie was up to when he reached in his pocket, lifted his leg, and then did the reach around...turns out to be a hilarious lighting of a match that just floored me.

For me, this, Chaplin's final short, is also his finest. It has a good 'vibe' & everyone seems 'in the groove' from the word go. It also has excellent picture quality & even the best music score (composed by the man himself). Much has been made in previous reviews of the 2nd half (Chaplin 'on the town') failing to match the standard of the 1st (at work). True, the humour is different, but then it features Charlie relaxing after a day's work, &, in fact, provides a nice contrast to the hectic activity of earlier. And there are many funny moments contained therein - the two men putting on their coats haphazardly, Charlie missing the first two trolley-cars, then clambering desperately over the queue to ensure he is first on the next one, only to get squeezed out the other end (predictably, I suppose, but brilliantly done), mistaking the pie-stall for another trolley-car, trying to pretend to his wife he's up & ready for work when, in fact, he has just arrived home, etc. Just a mention for 'heavy' Mack Swain: I think he's more effective (if almost unrecognisable) as the mean, unsmiling foreman - without the moustache & eye make-up - than when he hams it up (as in 'The Movie Star', for example), though he's good in that, too.

Between his first two feature films, and in his final days with First National studios, Charlie Chaplin kept on producing a handful of short pictures to keep things ticking over with the studio bosses. Reeling off a quickie such as Pay Day was now a simple affair for the professional comic, but the fact that they were no longer his main focus is often evident.

Like a few of the First National shorts, Pay Day seems to have been cobbled together from a number of ideas, none of which was substantial enough to be fleshed out into a picture in its own right. So we have the day at the building site, followed by the drunken stagger home, tentatively linked by the idea of it being a payday binge. However both parts yield a fair number of gags, even if the lack of running gags or recurring characters never allows anything to build.

Unusually, the only other significant character of this little short is Phyllis Allen playing Charlie's wife. At the age of sixty-one, she is a bit old for Chaplin – about 45 years too old if you consider his choice in real-life wives – but considering he had recently been through his divorce from Wife Number 1 Mildred Harris, the appearance of a frumpy, bossy trouble-and-strife has some explanation. As it is though, her inclusion adds little, and is the kind of cheap characterisation one would expect from the early Keystone pictures. Speaking of which, Pay Day also features ex-Keystone Cop Mack Swain, who in a roundabout way had now ended up as part of the Chaplin stock company. It's good to see Swain, nicely filling in the large burly hole left by the legendary Eric Campbell.

As with his previous short The Idle Class, Chaplin seems to be doing a little experimenting with his technique as well, possibly with an eye to using things in his features. There are some very elaborate gags based around split-second timing, something which was already starting to become the domain of Buster Keaton and thus perhaps not advisable for Chaplin to get too much into. Then there is the business with the bricks being thrown up to Charlie, which relies on camera trickery. Again, this is not something which he would have been wise to pursue, as it could soon get gimmicky. Finally there are some close-ups, one of them revealing the obvious falseness of Loyal Underwood's beard, exploring the possibilities of silly faces. These fail simply because they aren't very funny.

All in all a bit of a mediocre Chaplin short, providing laughs only because it seems Chaplin could now real off jokes and pratfalls with minimal effort, but lacking in the dedication to make it anything more than a time-filler.

In a brand-new upload at YouTube, this is a must-see, especially for Chaplin fans -- and surely everyone is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDxNsaain5g

Strangely, I had never seen this before, and it is very gratifying to find a Chaplin movie that is "new" to me.

One reviewer said "Pay Day" was Chaplin's favorite, among his shorts, and I think he had many better, but this is often astonishingly creative fun.

The story is not even slight. It's almost non-existent: Mostly a series of vignettes -- but very funny vignettes.

It really doesn't end, just stops. Still, it's Chaplin, and funny, so do see it, and I hope you see it with the Lasky Famous Players Orchestra at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDxNsaain5g.

There is one flaw in the music, and I've asked Scott Lasky about that, but, pish, it in no way detracts. Enjoy.

"Pay Day" was Charlie Chaplin's last short film, and a funny one at that. He plays a bricklayer who comes to work late one day and proceeds to work inefficiently, incurring the wrath of his monstrous foreman (Mack Swain). After the foreman underpays the bricklayer, he incorrectly adds up his overtime, and the foreman believes that he has been overpaid.

So, the bricklayer and his friends go to a bar and get drunk. After the bricklayer misses every streetcar, he arrives home at 5 am, finding that his wife is not one bit happy about it.

As always, Chaplin knew how to make a great movie.

The Tramp (Charles Chaplin) is late working the construction site. He digs a ditch (barely) and collects bricks (in reverse). He eats his lunch beside an elevator. He gets paid but is reluctant to go home. He hides some of the money in his hat but his wife sees it all. He goes out drinking and sneaks back home.

The elevator is pure comic timing. It is a classic bit in the pantheon of classic Tramp bits. Quite frankly, the rest doesn't reach the same level. Being married may give this one great joke but it deprives the short of a chase for the foreman's daughter. I think a romantic pursuit would be more fun. On the other hand, it does not get any better than the elevator.

Pay Day (1922) : Brief Review -

This Charlie Chaplin Comedy Pays you Full On Entertainment without any Deductions. Pay Day is a funny name for this film in many ways but you have to watch the film for that because i am not gonna go on and spoil the metaphors here. To be Frank, this Chaplin deserves a deduction in rating for coming late. I just couldn't digest the fact that he made this film after he made Cult Classic 'The Kid' (1921) - his first Full-length comedy. Well, he had many great short comedies before 'The Kid' too and i happened to have seen some of them like 'Easy Street' (1917), 'The Immigrant' and 'A Dog's Life' (1918) just to name a few. Making "Pay Day" after The Kid is the only mistake he has done here, otherwise he is just unbeatable in this film as a writer, actor, producer and director. This time he does not a play a tramp but a worker for a change. After a difficult day at work, a bricklayer tries to enjoy his pay day without his wife knowing. In first 7-8 minutes it is sensational laugh riot with creative use of properties. Those three floors i mentioned were meant for this. Perhaps, the most creative use of properties in any Chaplin film i have seen so far. It reminded me of Buster Keaton's comedies, you know, his films had that creatively designed House and Premises and here Chaplin made it a work place. That excellent use of Elevator and Floors to put the Bricks, i just can't imagine how they managed to performed it, shoot it so well and then edited so perfectly. How? Chaplin catching those bricks was like a practice session of breathtaking Acrobatics. Hats off to him for such clean-cuts, something what many filmmakers and actors failed to get even after decades with advanced technologies and easier work profiles. Overall, Pay Day is a fulfilling salary package you expect from Chaplin as a viewer and he pays you full and hard.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

This Chaplin short has a lot of variety and some great moments. The first half is especially good, with some very good material featuring Charlie working at a construction site. There is a part with Charlie laying bricks that you will want to see if you are a Chaplin fan - it must have taken a lot of care and planning to film. The film also gets a lot of mileage out of the service elevator that the crew is using. The second part of the movie is not really as good as the first, mostly in that it relies too much on drunkenness for comic effect, but it also has some good gags. The best moments of this part are with Charlie and his imposing wife.

This is an excellent testament to Chaplin's comedic genius. By 1921, he was coming into his own as the best filmmaker of the time, but full-length features were still a thing of the future. Because he only felt the need to make a 28 minute film, which left out a solid plot, and love interest. In this case, that's a good thing, because it leaves just a bunch of solid, extremely funny, comic situation. The music in Pay Day is excellent. Some scenes to note are Chaplin catching, and piling up the bricks, trying to catch the trolley, and trying to dig his hole...