In 1914 and early 1915, Chaplin did his first comedy shorts. In general, they were pretty awful--with almost no plot and consisting of him mugging it up on camera and hitting people. However, in 1915 he left Keystone Studio and began making better films with Essenay (though there are some exceptions) and finally, in 1916, to Mutual where he made his best comedy shorts. These newer films had more plot and laughs and usually didn't rely on punching or kicking when they ran out of story ideas.
This film isn't bad, but it does seem a bit hard to follow thanks to a lack of title cards in the film to explain the action. My assumption is that the original version had them but they weren't in the prints used to make THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN COLLECTION set. Charlie is a tailor's assistant and his boss finds an invitation for the county to a fancy dinner. The boss decides to go in the count's place so he can try to marry the rich young lady throwing the party (though what woman in her right mind would want this creep?). Charlie also goes to the same home, but to visit with the cook. Later, he sneaks away and crashed the party and finds his evil boss putting the moves on this lady. Shortly afterwords, the REAL Count shows up and the ruse is exposed.
Like another reviewer stated, this is pretty reminiscent of THE RINK, though THE RINK is a clearly superior film because THE COUNT has very few laughs. An interesting story but just not all that funny. I did, however, love Chaplin's physicality in the film--he was incredibly agile and watching him move was a treat.
This film isn't bad, but it does seem a bit hard to follow thanks to a lack of title cards in the film to explain the action. My assumption is that the original version had them but they weren't in the prints used to make THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN COLLECTION set. Charlie is a tailor's assistant and his boss finds an invitation for the county to a fancy dinner. The boss decides to go in the count's place so he can try to marry the rich young lady throwing the party (though what woman in her right mind would want this creep?). Charlie also goes to the same home, but to visit with the cook. Later, he sneaks away and crashed the party and finds his evil boss putting the moves on this lady. Shortly afterwords, the REAL Count shows up and the ruse is exposed.
Like another reviewer stated, this is pretty reminiscent of THE RINK, though THE RINK is a clearly superior film because THE COUNT has very few laughs. An interesting story but just not all that funny. I did, however, love Chaplin's physicality in the film--he was incredibly agile and watching him move was a treat.