Easy Street
About Easy Street
A derelict (Charlie Chaplin) sleeps outside the Hope Mission, stays for the sermon, and is taken with the mission worker (Edna Purviance). He returns a collection box he had pocketed and takes a policeman's job on Easy Street. The bully (Eric Campbell) bends a gas lamp with his hands. Chaplin jams the lamp over the bully's head and turns on the gas. Later the bully escapes the station. Chaplin drops a stove on him from a second-story window. A mob throws Chaplin into a cellar, where he sits on a drug user's needle, then clears the street. A new mission opens on Easy Street, and the bully walks in dressed for church.
Cast & crew
More about Easy Street
Chaplin directed, edited, and starred. Vincent Bryan and Maverick Terrell are also credited with the writing. Roland Totheroh and George C. Zalibra photographed it. Edward Brewer was technical director. Mutual released it in the United States on 22 January 1917. A German restoration runs 24 minutes against the 19-minute American release.
Themes
Background
One of Chaplin's Mutual shorts, released in January 1917, when he was making two-reel comedies for that company.
Making
The lamp gag depends on Campbell bending the streetlight and Chaplin using the gas. The stove comes out of a second-floor window onto the same man.
Reviews
The Moving Picture World called it Chaplin's latest and best and said an original key had been struck. Variety singled out the stove thrown from the window and compared the agility to Douglas Fairbanks, while noting the roughhouse was rougher than some of his other films.
Look
Roland Totheroh and George C. Zalibra shot the street set, including the gas lamp and the window the stove comes through.
Music
Silent on first release. The 1932 Van Beuren reissue added music by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples and sound effects.
Preservation
The Mutual original survives, along with the shorter Van Beuren sound reissue and a German restoration at 24 minutes.
Notes
- Charlotte Mineau plays the bully's wife, who steals food and then nearly drops a flowerpot on Chaplin.
- Lloyd Bacon plays the drug user in the cellar. William Gillespie is credited as another heroin user.
- Henry Bergman plays an anarchist. Albert Austin doubles as minister and policeman.
- In 1932 Amedee Van Beuren bought the Mutual comedies for $10,000 each, added music by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples, and reissued them through RKO.
- An edited 8mm cut called Charlie On The Beat runs about three and a half minutes.
Scenes
- Campbell bends the lamp post and Chaplin gases him with it.
- A stove drops from the window onto the bully.
- Chaplin sits on the needle in the cellar and then scatters the mob.
- He feeds a large family by throwing bread as if they were chickens.
Also available
- Internet Archive (charlie_chaplin_film_fest)
