Making a Living
About Making a Living
A sharp-dressed swindler talks a passerby out of money, buys a small bunch of flowers, and proposes to a young woman with a ring she accepts. A reporter arrives with his own bouquet and ring and is refused. The two men fight. The reporter photographs a car tumbling down a hill, and while he helps the pinned driver the swindler steals the camera, races the picture to a newspaper, and claims the story. Keystone Cops chase him. The reporter catches him, they fight in the street, and a streetcar scoops both of them onto its cowcatcher.
Cast & crew
More about Making a Living
Henry Lehrman directed and played the reporter. Mack Sennett produced. The short was finished in three days and released on 2 February 1914. Chaplin later said they had no story and that it was meant to be a documentary about a printing press with a few comedy touches.
Themes
Background
Keystone was turning out one-reel comedies in Los Angeles, and this was Chaplin's first week of work there.
Making
Frank D. Williams and Enrique Juan Vallejo photographed it. Chaplin and Lehrman fought on camera more than once, and the last shot puts both of them on the front of a moving streetcar.
Reviews
The Moving Picture World of 7 February 1914 called the sharper 'a comedian of the first water' and said the reel was so full of fresh action that a laugh would be going almost the whole time.
Look
Frank D. Williams and Enrique Juan Vallejo shot the street fights, the wrecked car on the hill, and the streetcar finish.
Preservation
Prints survive and circulate from the Keystone negative.
Notes
- It is the first film in which Charlie Chaplin appears.
- His costume is a top hat, monocle, check waistcoat, stiff collar, spotted cravat, and cane. The Little Tramp arrives in the next Keystone release, Kid Auto Races at Venice.
- Alternate titles include Doing His Best, A Busted Johnny, Troubles, and Take My Picture.
- Lehrman also co-wrote the scenario.
- The Motion Picture News reported that a nearly new Studebaker was run off a cliff for the accident and looked like kindling when it was pulled up.
Scenes
- Chaplin lifts the reporter's camera while the driver is still pinned under the car.
- A streetcar carries Chaplin and Lehrman out of the shot on its cowcatcher.
Also available
- Internet Archive (CC_1914_02_02_MakingALiving)
