User reviews

A Dog's Life has more layers than the usual Chaplin films, taking the character slightly more literally than he usually does. The overall appeal of Chaplin's Little Fellow is that he is such an everyman that he can be thrust into an almost endless multitude of situations, and Chaplin uses his limitless talent to mold it into brilliant, humanitarian farce. In this film, the little tramp is more of a homeless fellow than usual (I think he's usually just poor and struggling), and in the process he be-friends another homeless and struggling tramp.

There are some great scenes in the film, although even at only 40 minutes it is a bit too long for the material to support. One scene in particular, where Charlie knocks a bully unconscious, is going to be the most memorable one in the movie, along with a scene where he outsmarts some police officers. There is a charming romance that is neither cloying nor overly involving, just the right amount for a short, light-hearted comedy. This probably would have worked even better as a two reel film, but as it is it stands as one of Chaplin's better three reelers.

Just like his little tramp alter ego, Charlie Chaplin liked to think big, and had always aimed to extend the scale and scope of his pictures, never content to be a two-reel sideshow. At 35 minutes, A Dog's Life could hardly be described as his first full-length feature, but it arguably represents his break away from shorts.

Just the opening shot of A Dog's Life shows how Chaplin is starting to inject some grand sweep into his storytelling. The camera begins amid city rooftops, tilting down to reveal Charlie sleeping amid the rubbish behind a ramshackle fence. The way this purpose-built set is shot demonstrates how Chaplin was as much a "proper" director as a comic. He several times has a shabby sign advertising "rooms" visible in the background – a subtle reminder that the tramp is too poor even for the cheapest accommodation.

It's a nice touch how Charlie's canine friend is introduced in a handful of cutaways during this opening scene – treating him as a real character rather than just a plot device. But this is not to the detriment to his human companions, and indeed leading lady Edna Purviance gets a more substantial part than she did in many of the shorts. She makes a really great character here, giving an impression of a naïve but feisty youngster, certainly more than just a token female. It's this kind of characterisation that gives A Dog's Life the kind of comprehensive structure of a feature film, as opposed to a comedy short in which people just turn up on screen for a bit of funny business.

On a quick side-note, this is the earliest Chaplin picture which features a score written by him (although since he wrote the music in retrospect some decades later it's not the first he wrote). It's another testament to the breadth of his genius, showing both considerable musical ability as well as his own irreverent personality. Numbers like the dance hall rag are of course very "silent comedy", but pieces like the opening theme have a truly deep and epic feel to them. Even here though, the Chaplin cheekiness shines through, with different parts of the orchestra playing off each other in a kind of question-and-answer routine.

Chaplin would repeat this "little companion" routine, swapping dog for tot in his first genuine full-length feature The Kid. A Dog's Life remains a worthy predecessor, part of the comedian's ever upward trajectory at this point in his career. It would take more battling with studio heads for Chaplin to get his ideas fully realised, but it was pictures like this that began to get silent comedy taken seriously.

In 'A Dog's Life' our little tramp takes care of dog, the nice touch in this movie. Other things are familiar. He encounters the police, he tries to steal food from a salesman, has money problems in a bar, has some trouble with two thugs and of course he gets the girl.

The best single moment in this short is when he pretends to be one of the two thugs. With perfect timing this a perfect piece of comedy and just this part makes the movie worth watching. There are other funny moments, especially with the dog's tale. A nice short that is a little too long. The very funny final moments (including the part with the two thugs) make sure we don't think about that too much.

Of Charlie Chaplin's many works, "A Dog's Life" is in my top 5, under "The Kid", "City Lights" and "Modern Times". Though just a short, I think this film is one of Chaplin's funniest and most poignant of them all. It had me laughing the whole time and this is the film that made me fall in love with his hands: It was the miming scene where the Tramp has to pretend to be the bully he's just knocked out, to get the wallet back, simply by using hand gestures! It's a moment that shines for all silent movies, showing how little sound is needed to communicate - it's a favorite scene of mine. This is a great film, and especially when coupled with "The Kid" (Chaplin's best work, I think, and my favorite film of all time) how could *anyone* refuse?

This is an entertaining comedy with a couple of particularly amusing scenes. Chaplin is joined by several of his regular supporting players like Edna Purviance and Henry Bergman, plus Syd Chaplin, and the cast works together well. The story is funny, yet not without some substance either.

As his usual 'tramp' character, Charlie is already living "A Dog's Life" when he befriends a stray dog, and they share some adventures together. Chaplin hits a good balance in keeping himself and the dog sympathetic without overdoing the sentiment. There are some slow stretches that keep it from being even better, but the good parts make up for them and make this definitely worth watching. One particular highlight is a scene where Charlie tries to outwit two thieves - it's very cleverly done and very funny.

Anyone who likes Chaplin's comedies should enjoy this one. It has good comedy, a talented and familiar cast, and some worthwhile material - just about everything you would expect in one of Chaplin's features.

It's pretty much all there in my title. Looking at how inefficient and lame comedies are nowadays, how they struggle to force the slightest indulging smile from its viewers, it's completely mind-blowing to look back a hundred years ago, that's right a full century ago when film was reduced to the worst viewing quality, black and white, silent, and without any prospect of special effects or anything of that nature. Even things like makeup and setting were limited.

And along comes this guy Charles Chaplin, and he manages to be hilarious in those conditions. The scene when he's rolling in and out of his enclosure with the cops trying to trap him, the scene when he's knocked one of the two gangsters unconscious and as he's behind his seat uses his own hands to communicate with the other gangster facing him as if the guy were still awake... pure creative brilliance.

...and while always saying something, making a commentary about human nature - and despite depicting the utmost lowest condition for a man being a starving dirty tramp and everything, always a pure hearted gentleman, humane and subtle.

Surely. For a 1918 roughly forty minute short, it doesn't get much better than this.

This film was one of three that were later combined by Chapin into a compilation that was released to theaters in the late 1950s under the title "The Chaplin Review".

Of the three films combined for The Chapline Review, this is probably the most familiar in style and, to me, the least interesting. While it is STILL a very good film, it just didn't seem all that new or different. We have the Little Tramp down on his luck and looking to feed himself when he stumbles upon a poor lonely dog being picked on by the other dogs. So, he adopts it and they both set out on some adventures. I know this may sound strange, but to me this film felt a lot like an earlier incarnation of THE KID--though of course in this case it's a cute mutt and not Jackie Coogan. A very good and entertaining short with no serious flaws.

Let's face it : Chaplin's short films, before 1917, are not so good and funny anymore. After 1917, and waiting to make longer films, there are three films I'm really found of : The Imigrant, Shoulder Arms and A Dog's Life. I love A Dog's Life because Chaplin was never trampier than in this film. He's poor, miserable, probably dirty! He really looks like a real tramp! So is his dog! The dog is simply wonderful in this film!

Funny gags all the way. I'm mad about a scene in the café, when Edna Purviance sings a very sad song and makes everybody's crying. In my version, on video, they put some strange music while she sings, like a saw sound. It's a very funny sounds effect for the image of miss Purviance! The story is very sample and warm. This is Chaplin's shorts at his best!

By the time he made `A Dog's Life', Charlie Chaplin was already a master of cinematic comic timing. Editing techniques had not developed to the point at which they would be much help to Chaplin's physical comedy gags, so laughs required expertly handled choreography. Chaplin must have rehearsed countless takes to get each scene just right. The incredible opening sequence, seemingly shot all in one take, is particularly amazing. Chaplin and his fellow actors synchronize their movements perfectly so that, no matter what action they undertake, they always arrive on opposite sides of the fence at the exact same moment. Additionally, they make each movement at a natural pace so that, rehearsed though they may be, their motions always seem spontaneous and believable. You never get the sense that Chaplin or the policemen are speeding up or slowing down.

Rating: 6.5

Played as a double feature, A Dog's Life is the short comedy that played with one of Chaplin's famous and most adored comedies The Kid. Set in the same atmosphere of the depressing ghettos of 1918, The Tramp becomes friends with a stray dog. A lost soul much like himself, the Tramp and the tramp become friends and become a team. After finding a stolen loot, the two work together to re-take the money they found. The ending is cute and nothing more. For a short, it does the trick of making the audience laugh. The title indicated that this is the story of the dog, when in fact, the Dog is the Tramp! Both are homeless and without love in their lives. By the end of the movie, they both end up finding true love and end up living a better life, together.

With only some thin material to support a running time of 40 minutes, A DOG'S LIFE is hardly one of Chaplin's best, but there are a couple of inventive sequences, as always, in any Chaplin film.

Here he's the Little Tramp, sleeping on the streets--just like a nearby mongrel dog--and when he's caught stealing food through a picket fence, a wise cop is on his trail. Sight gags begin right at the start, first when he eludes the policeman and then when he applies for a job opening at a brewery. He's outsmarted by all the other scrappy applicants and gets pushed off his seat a number of times by the more boisterous members who dash to the employment window before him.

He befriends the mongrel dog, meets a girl at a saloon/restaurant dive, has to deal with thieves who've stolen a wealthy man's wallet, and ends up dreaming of a better life with his girlfriend and the little mutt. EDNA PURVIANCE, his favorite leading lady, is funny in her flirtatious moment with Chaplin.

Not up to the highest standards he would achieve later, it's watchable but good for only a few chuckles with The Little Tramp and the dog being the only really viable characters. Even shorts can run too long.

This was Charlie Chaplin's first film for First National, and with his pictures there, he could create movies of longer, or varied, length, rather than the two-reelers he was obliged to churn out before. His Mutual shorts were a vast improvement over his previous work, but watching them I'd sometimes get the sense that his ideas required more time to elaborate, to fully realize, or unfold. The hilarity of the gags in "A Dog's Life" result from this newly acquired freedom to expand his films.

I don't think it's one of Chaplin's most important works, or one of his best, but "A Dog's Life" is very funny and left me in high spirits. The crying set piece was hilarious. As well, Chaplin continued to use props and settings to his comedic advantage, such as with the missing boards and the door of his fenced home when he eludes a policeman in the beginning of the film.

Perhaps, the most interesting aspect of this one is the elaborate pantomime that goes on. The creation of the world within a silent film often created problems for lesser filmmakers on what the role of sound is within that world. There is obviously sound in the world of "A Dog's Life", but the tramp continually ignores it and oft prefers to use pantomime to express himself--or others, as in the elaborate scene using his hands. This demonstrated a lot of thought on Chaplin's part, and it's something that could be done only in the silent era. For all the comic genius in America at the time, the fact that the clowns couldn't talk shouldn't be overlooked, for it was full of advantages.

Being that I am a sucker for the conflation of humans and animals this pretty much hit the sweet spot for me. Much love to little Scraps, may he have a long and illustrious career. For a seminal early work it is not difficult to see why Chaplin succeeded, truly a democratic figure and talented performer.

If you like Chaplin's comedies you're gonna enjoy this one. It has good comedy, a talented cast, and some worthwhile material - just about everything you would expect in one of Chaplin's films.

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.

From his period after Mutual, 'A Dog's Life' is among the very best of his early output, one of his best from his post-Mutual period and one of his first classics. As said with many of his post-Keystone efforts, it shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career. The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. After Mutual the style had properly settled and the cinematic genius emerged. Something that can be seen in his first 1918 effort post-Mutual 'A Dog's Life'.

The story is slight and slightly too simple but is at least discernible and is never dull, and does it while not being as too busy or manic.

On the other hand, 'A Dog's Life' looks good, not amazing (though the opening shot for early Chaplin is remarkable) but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

'A Dog's Life' is one of the funniest and most charming early efforts of Chaplin. It is hilarious with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick and the charm doesn't get over-sentimental. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight. The second half is both hilarious and enchanting.

Chaplin directs more than competently and the cinematic genius quality is emerging. He also, as usual, gives a playful and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality and substance of the role. The dog is adorable and the chemistry between the two just enchants. The support is good.

Overall, great, hilarious and charming. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Nothing spectacular, but some cute bits, including Charlie stuffing what seems to be an impossible amount of food into mouth without swallowing, and later knocking a guy out from behind and then making a giant puppet out of him. Oh, and then there is that adorable little dog, and if you like her, wait 'til you see the ending.

The dog is a man's best friend. And men don't deserve dogs. These are a couple of sentences I've heard about men and dogs. Sorry, dogs and men. The dog always comes first. Already back in that days, filmmakers knew that if you put a dog on the screen, then melting hearts and tears are guaranteed. Luckily Chaplin managed to avoid the tears and all over softheartedness. 'A Dog's Life' is pure joy. Basically, it tells the usual story of the Tramp - trying to find the work, the food, and a place to sleep. This time he is accompanied by the dog who he saves from getting bullied by other dogs. That happens right after he just got bullied.

A favorite scene is when Chaplin had to use hand gestures to pretend he's the thug he just knocked out. That's just brilliant. Definitely belongs to the long list of Charles Chaplin's finest moments.

The title also works as a metaphor for the Tramp's life - living under the open sky on some vacant lot in some ghetto.