Early Chaplin: Programme 5

Charlie is the fectkless and bullied inebriate in Mabel's Married Life, followed by three films that all display their music hall/vaudeville roots.

Wed 10 Sep: Following this screening there will be a presentation by Bryony Dixon and the Archive Film Lab team on the thinking behind the BFI's restoration of the Keystone films.

Sat 6 Sep: Accompanied by Costas Fotopoulos.
Wed 10 Sep: Accompanied by Stephen Horne.

In Mabel's Married Life Charlie is the feckless and bullied inebriate married to Mabel's romantic little woman. She buys him a boxing dummy to develop his manly skills but, coming home drunk, he mistakes it for another man. Chaplin shows off the boxing moves he was to use so effectively in The Champion. The next three films all display their music hall/vaudeville roots - a visit to the dentist's (a perennial favourite much used by Laurel and Hardy) in Laughing Gas, the self-reflexive The Property Man in which Chaplin causes chaos at a variety show, and the parody The Face on the Bar Room Floor, a form that Chaplin rarely used, based on Hugh Antoine Darcy's sentimental poem.

Running time:

c100min