Charles Chaplin | Easy Street / 1917

drugs save the day

by Douglas Messerli

 

Charles Chaplin, Vincent Bryan, and Maverick Terrell (scenario), Charles Chaplin (director) Easy Street / 1917

 

Between 1916 and 1917, Charles Chaplin directed 12 films for the Mutual Film Corporation, including some of his very best shorts. As film historian Daniel Eagan notes:

 

“At Mutual, Chaplin had unprecedented creative freedom. He could film whatever subject he wanted, tell whatever story he wanted, with whatever characters he chose to invent. He worked with a hand-picked cast and crew, and with no oversight.There was no one to prevent him from reshooting a scene, or to keep shooting one until he felt he got it right, or to completely alter a finished scene or remove characters and situations, or decide not to release a completed film at all.

Is it any wonder that Chaplin was later to comment that this was the happiest time of his life.

       The other day, I joyfully reexamined three of these wonderful Mutual films.

       Easy Street puts the little Tramp in a very strange position, one that he would be cast in only one other film: the role of a cop. As a lay-about hobo, Chaplin is first seen outside a mission center, and when he determines to find warmth within, is quickly greeted by the parishioners, who thrust a songbook before his face and enforce him into their ritual sittings and risings. With the encouragement of the beautiful head missionary (Edna Purviance), the tramp stays on after the service and is somewhat “spiritually awakened” by his encounter with her.

       If nothing else the religious encounter encourages him to seek a job. Since a local policeman has just been attacked by the lawless crowds of the slum in which the mission exists, there is a new position open at the local police station. When, unbelievably, the tramp determines to enter the station, he is embraced with the same friendliness given him by the churchgoers, is quickly given a uniform and club and sent off to Easy Street, his new beat.

       What the innocent new rube doesn’t know, the director quickly shows us, as the masses pour from their slum apartments, all of them threatening any sign of authority and similarly attacking one another, particularly the “bully” of the group (Eric Campbell), who hates nearly everyone, including his nearly starving wife (Charlotte Mineau)—who is caught by the new policeman stealing a ham from a local sleeping foodseller. But when he perceives her poverty-stricken condition, even the policeman helps her by stealing yet further foodstuffs from the endlessly snoring purveyor.

     Soon the bully beats his wife, locks her up, and proceeds to the street to continue his attacks on nearly everyone in sight, including the tramp/cop. Grabbed by the bully, Chaplin makes use of a bent gaslight by placing its box over the head of the man trying to destroy him, ultimately gassing him into submission. He quickly calls the police stations, whose members, joyful over the criminal’s downfall, hails their new fellow worker and quickly rush off the monster to jail.

      The bully, however, is also a variation of the “man of steel,” and, recovering, quickly breaks free of his handcuffs, returning for revenge. After a small chase, the rookie policeman runs into a nearby apartment to toss a stove out the window onto the villain’s head, knocking him out.

      Now the other local hoodlums swarm out of their hovels to further threaten the law-and-order representative. In the attack, Chaplin dives into the basement where the bully’s wife has been trapped, accidentally sitting on a needle of a local heroin addict and, invigorated by the drug’s effects, turns on the crowd, one by one knocking them into submission and saving the day, a prelude of the events in Modern Times where the imprisoned tramp accidentally saves the authorities from a planned prison break.

 

Los Angeles, March 13, 2017

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (March 2017).