Easy Street (film)

• Charles Chaplin: Tramp, later policeman
• Edna Purviance: Mission worker
• Eric Campbell: terror from Easy Street

Easy Street (Original Title: Easy Street ) is a 1917 silent film comedy premiered by and starring Charlie Chaplin. The short film - a "funny parody of the Victorian correctional melodramas " - is regarded as one of the early masterpieces of the artist.

Action

Looking for a warm place tramp visits a Christian social mission. Caused less by the good persuasion of the pastor as by the charms of the young missionary sister, the Tramp is a jerk and decides to start a new life. Penetrated with remorse, he is the pastor back even the previously stolen donation box.

Meanwhile ruled in the Easy Street, in the middle of a rundown working-class neighborhood, the violence. Desert brawls are the norm, the police have lost control. Instead, terrorized a hulking hooligan street.

Because more and more officials are unfit for service after use in the Easy Street, new police officers are looking for - the chance for the purified Tramp. He is set. The on his uniform visibly proud vigilante is unsuspecting in the Easy Street on patrol and meets the tyrannical muscleman. First, he tried to avoid a confrontation if possible, but finally succeeds Charlie in a famous scene in which he Everts his opponent a bent street lamp over his head and " expertly as an anesthesiologist " the gas turns up, carry off the victory in this unequal duel. immediately takes over Charlie by his opponent, the role of the sovereign ruler of the road: As if they were puppets, he conducts with looks and economical gestures, the movements of the street dwellers who venture only behind his back from their dwellings.

While it does not take long until the rowdy wakes up from his delirium escapes from police custody and re- creates unrest. However, after a several -minute-long series of fast-paced fights and breathtaking deception the aufgeputschten Easy Street from the by an accidental cocaine injection Charlie and the inflamed with love Edna is finally pacified. The final image shows the repentant bully who found the hat lüpfend along with his wife Sunday services at the mission station tends.

Production

Easy Street is the ninth of twelve films that turned Chaplin in the years 1916/17 for the production company Mutual. Several glitches delayed the production, so that the originally scheduled for January 22, 1917 premiere was delayed by two weeks. Among other things, Chaplin injured his nose, as the prepared for the key scene streetlight unexpectedly umbog by itself.

Comments

Its special atmosphere receives the work through the main gate, a T-shaped intersection. Tenements limit the scene left, right and in the background. In the embodiment Chaplin may have been inspired by the memories of his childhood in the London slums. Easy Street is also one of the few silent films of Chaplin, in which he is not in the vast playing time in his famous Tramp costume with melon, walking stick and to see big shoes.

Reviews

"We are experiencing Chaplin in this film at the peak of his slapstick Art, as a comedian and as a director. [ ... ] The deeds of the Charlie character are no longer just pure game with the malice of the object, but have now also a paradigmatic character, are based on a social context. "