Il vagabondo

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 relay on punching or kicking when they ran out of story ideas.

This film tells a complete story--more so than almost any other Chaplin short. In fact, in many ways it is reminiscent of some of his later full-length films--in particular, THE CIRCUS. There were two problems with the film, though. One is a pretty lousy plot device on which the whole film relies. A woman was apparently stolen by gypsies as a little girl and later, as an adult, her portrait is painted and the girl's biological mother recognizes this 20-something year-old as her long-lost daughter!!! Talk about unbelievable! The other problem is that in the version I saw from THE ESSENTIAL CHAPLIN COLLECTION, there were no title cards to explain the action. I had to read the box to get an idea of what was occurring! It's a shame, as without these two problems, it would have been among Chaplin's best shorts.