Police
About Police
Charlie leaves prison with a five-dollar bill. A man posing as a pastor coaxes him into tears and steals the money. Broke, Charlie eats fruit he cannot pay for and runs. Another ex-convict, played by Wesley Ruggles, talks him into burgling a house. Edna Purviance, who lives there, tries to turn him away from the theft.
Cast & crew
More about Police
Chaplin's 14th film for Essanay, and one of the last. He wrote and directed. Jess Robbins produced. Harry Ensign photographed. It was made at the Majestic Studio in Los Angeles. General Film Company released it on 27 May 1916.
Themes
Making
Shot at the Majestic Studio after Chaplin's Essanay run had already started to break up. Ensign, who had photographed Shanghaied, was on the camera again.
Look
Harry Ensign photographed the film at the Majestic Studio in Los Angeles.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
The short survives.
Notes
- The fake pastor also swindles a drunk in the same stretch of street.
- A flophouse in the film advertises clean beds for 10 cents.
- James T. Kelley, Leo White, John Rand, Billy Armstrong, Snub Pollard, Bud Jamison, and Paddy McGuire are in the cast.
- An intertitle has Charlie sobbing that he has been 'doing it against Jesus' before the pastor takes the five dollars.
Scenes
- The fake pastor slips the discharge money out of Charlie's pocket while he cries.
- Charlie eats through a fruit stand and then finds the five dollars gone.
- Edna, inside the house they are robbing, tries to reform him.
