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The Cure (1917) - Charlie Chaplin

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metaldams:

--- Quote from: Paul Pain on May 05, 2022, 08:36:57 AM ---THE CURE was a fun short.  This is comedy short subjects, not ALL ABOUT EVE, after all.  We're here to laugh, and Chaplin accomplishes just that.  We get some excellent moments with John Rand, Henry Bergman, and Eric Campbell, which is the bare essence of a Chaplin film.  This, however, seems to be more directly focused, though I think it was intentional that the bell boy had that William Booth beard going.

The highlight really was the revolving door and all the chaos involved, but the artistic and choreographic talent definitely was the scene with Henry Bergman.  You would think Chaplin was a bar of soap in all that.

And how many gay jokes were in there?  We had the scene where Charlie thinks Eric Campbell is flirting with him.  Then, in the baths, Charlie thinks Eric and the other man are opening the curtain to "study" him. [pie]

--- End quote ---

Yeah, Chaplin did a lot of homosexual jokes, at least early on.  Makes me wonder if he tried to create some ambiguity with his onscreen character - clearly he liked Edna as well.  Or maybe he was just doing it for a laugh, who knows.  There’s this, BEHIND THE SCREEN and SHANGHAIED.

Umbrella Sam:
Chaplin did quite a few drunk roles at Keystone and there it never really tended to be funny, usually repetitious. Here, though, the pacing is so much better and the increasing mayhem throughout makes it so much funnier. Just the idea of Chaplin trying to sober up at a hotel only to unintentionally get everyone drunk in the process is a funny idea itself. I also like when he’s trying to get away from Henry Bergman after witnessing how he handles his patients. The highlight, though, is definitely the revolving door. Such a simple and predictable idea, but Chaplin makes so much out of it that while also throwing in Eric Campbell so it never gets stale. Obviously not the type of direction Chaplin would continue down, which I’m glad as I couldn’t see him pulling this off in a feature, but for a short, it does work.

Freddie Sanborn:

--- Quote from: metaldams on May 05, 2022, 09:43:05 PM ---Yeah, Chaplin did a lot of homosexual jokes, at least early on.  Makes me wonder if he tried to create some ambiguity with his onscreen character - clearly he liked Edna as well.  Or maybe he was just doing it for a laugh, who knows.  There’s this, BEHIND THE SCREEN and SHANGHAIED.

--- End quote ---

It was a common trope, especially in the UK, for a comic to play mincing “nance” characters, only to reveal themselves to be hetero later. Frankie Howerd, Kenneth Williams, and Charles Hawtrey specialized in this. Great way to get around the censors.

metaldams:

--- Quote from: Freddie Sanborn on May 07, 2022, 11:07:15 AM ---It was a common trope, especially in the UK, for a comic to play mincing “nance” characters, only to reveal themselves to be hetero later. Frankie Howerd, Kenneth Williams, and Charles Hawtrey specialized in this. Great way to get around the censors.

--- End quote ---

So a British Music Hall thing, that makes sense.  Probably a lot more of this stuff is than I realize.

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