Laughing Gas
About Laughing Gas
Charlie, assistant at Dr. Pain’s office, brawls with the other assistant and with a waiting patient while he sweeps. Dr. Pain gives the first patient nitrous oxide, pulls the tooth, and leaves when the man will not wake. Charlie revives him with a mallet; the laughing starts, and a second blow puts him out. Sent to the Sunset Pharmacy, Charlie fights a news-stand man, yanks off Mrs. Pain’s skirt, and bricks both that man and a tall passer-by hard enough to knock teeth loose. Back in the empty office he kisses the prettier patient. The injured men arrive with Dr. Pain and his wife. Charlie finishes with a huge pair of pliers on the tall man’s mouth.
Cast & crew
More about Laughing Gas
Chaplin directed, wrote, and edited this Keystone one-reeler for Mack Sennett. Frank D. Williams photographed it. Mutual Film distributed it on 9 July 1914. Alternate titles include Busy Little Dentist, Down and Out, Laffing Gas, The Dentist, and Tuning His Ivories.
Themes
Making
The dental chair, the mallet, and the oversized pliers are the whole gag machine. Williams’s camera stays on the waiting room and the chair while Chaplin stacks one fight on the next.
Reviews
Motion Picture News noted that Chaplin’s fights with the patients, and the way he gets in the way, drew roars of laughter.
Look
Frank D. Williams shot the office set and the street outside the Sunset Pharmacy, including the brick that takes the tall passer-by’s teeth.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A print survives, including the copy filed at the Internet Archive as CC_1914_07_09_LaffingGas.
Notes
- Fritz Schade is Dr. Pain. Alice Howell is Mrs. Pain. Joseph Sutherland is the short assistant.
- Slim Summerville, Josef Swickard, Mack Swain, and Frank Opperman play patients. Gene Marsh is an uncredited patient.
- The Internet Archive identifier dates the release CC_1914_07_09.
- Chaplin was still in his first year at Keystone; his film debut had been that February.
- A 1907 short of the same name is the picture this one follows.
Scenes
- Dr. Pain flees the patient who will not come round from the gas.
- Charlie’s mallet starts the laughter, then stops it.
- He pulls Mrs. Pain’s skirt off in the street.
- A brick drops teeth from the news-stand man and from a tall stranger.
- The last gag is a giant pair of pliers in the tall man’s mouth.
Influenced by
- Laughing Gas (1907)
Also available
- Internet Archive (CC_1914_07_09_LaffingGas)
- Wikimedia Commons (Laughing Gas (1914).webm)
