Tango Tangles

This is a film from Chaplin's first year in films. During this VERY hectic year, he churned out film after film after film for Keystone Studios and the quality of the films are, in general, quite poor. That's because the character of "the Little Tramp" was far from perfected and the films really had no script--just the barest of story ideas. While some Chaplin lovers might think this is sacrilege, all these movies I have seen are pretty lousy. Yes, there are some cute slapstick moments but barely any plot--absolutely NOTHING like the Chaplin we all came to love in his full-length films of the 20s and 30s.

As stated above, Charlie does not sport his usual mustache. The movie is about jealousy and consists of lots of people pushing and punching each other--that's pretty much it!

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

He did do better than 'Tango Tangle'. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'Tango Tangle' is a long way from a career high, but does have historical significance for obvious reasons.

'Tango Tangle' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and a good deal of other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious, the humour only amusing and lacking freshness at times and parts a touch scrappy.

For someone who was relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'Tango Tangle' is not bad at all.

While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. Ford Sterling steals the show.

Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Tango Tangle' is mildly humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.

Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but not bad at all. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Tango Tangles (1914)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Keystone romp has a dance hall girl getting the attention of a band leader (Ford Sterling), a clarinettist (Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle) and a drunk (Charles Chaplin). The three men eventually bump into one another and more than one fight breaks out. Most might be attracted to this film due to the early appearance of Chaplin but it's the now forgotten Sterling who steals the show. He has a couple funny moments throughout the film but overall he doesn't have too much to work with. For the most part we just see the men each trying to sneak off with the girl but getting busted by another one of the guys and a fight breaks out. Arbuckle gets a nice scene where he's about to throw a man but that's about it for him. I was disappointed with Chaplin (how many times can you say that?) because he really doesn't bring too much to his role as the drunk. The one funny thing is that it appears this was filmed at a real dance and some people there didn't know they were filming a movie.

Watching silent comedies is an almost lost art, one that today's younger viewers must teach themselves through an open-minded exposure to multiple examples, always reminding themselves that the intent to tell an amusing story clearly is always there, even if at first glance the impression is of fast-paced incomprehensible chaos. With practice one can learn to understand the conventions of the day, follow the action and enjoy the multitude of jokes and amazing performances.

Even someone who has managed this for comedies of the 1920s, and who can both appreciate and enjoy, say, The General and The Gold Rush, may find their first exposure to Keystone material of the 1910s throws them back into bewilderment. Yet once one adjusts to the conventions of the time (such as the fast paced, physically detailed and extremely demonstrative acting that makes most '20s performances seem restrained by comparison), even these very early, frenetic and largely improvised Keystones can delight.

This one is particularly interesting for several reasons already cited in other reviews: the lack of character makeup on Chaplin and Sterling (both almost always appearing in other films with fake facial hair of various sorts), the amazing athleticism of Arbuckle, the wholly natural reactions of the actual onlookers in the "found" dance hall location to the antics of the leads. It repays a second and even a third viewing for those seeking to learn the skill of following early Keystone comedies.

This was one of Sterling's last handful of films at Keystone and one of Chaplin's first. At the time, Sterling was the bigger star. They work very well together here, especially in their fight scenes, which have tell-tale signs of being more improvised than rehearsed or precisely choreographed, yet are nevertheless creative, clearly told and quite entertaining.

If you've never seen a silent Chaplin short, this is not the one to start with. (Try one of the Mutuals, like Easy Street or The Immigrant) But if you've some familiarity with the genre, the circumstances of the shooting of this one make it one of the most interesting of his first half-dozen or so.

In this short, another one of the early ones Charlie Chaplin made for Mack Sennett, he's clean shaven and is nothing like his Little Tramp character. Well, except here he's just as drunk as you'd expect him to be in these early efforts. His beginning scenes are quite amusing as he seems to be at a real dance hall happening as he tries to woo some ladies and keeps slipping and tripping himself. But all that happens afterwards results in some nonsense about fighting over a pretty girl that happen to be also pursued by musicians Ford Sterling and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. As a result, I didn't think the rest was all that funny and in fact was repetitious though it was nice to see Arbuckle do some falls himself. So on that note, Tango Tangles is worth a look and nothing else.