Between Showers

The ten minute short film Between Showers is best seen, perhaps, as a historical document. More than ninety years old, it serves as a reminder that movies has both changed and not changed since that time. This is obviously a silent, which calls for a visual kind of humour. The plot is thus fairly straight forward and serves as an excuse for the characters to fall on their butts and fight in an overly theatrical manner, judged by today's standards anyway. However, it is interesting to see Chaplin's crude and early attempts at what he and others (Jackie Chan to name one of our contemporaries) would later perfect – well timed physical humour. No doubt intended as entertainment for the moment, Between Showers lacks the social commentary of the 22 years younger masterpiece Modern Times, but it contains a seed, albeit small, of the breathtaking acrobatics displayed therein.

Of historical interest.

Chaplin's fourth short, appearing less than a month after his debut, is good fun. A rival tramp steals an umbrella from a policeman, then sets about seducing a woman with it. Charlie also has his eye on the femme, and soon a battle for both the brolly and the girl ensues. Even though it's so early in his career, Chaplin has most of the Little Tramp mannerisms and tics down pat in this effort (except for the pathos, which would come later), and it's fascinating to see the beginnings of the expressions and gags which he'd be exploring for the rest of his life. Not as polished or imaginative as his later films, but a very early gem.

Charlie Chaplin had only starred in a few movies and had just debuted the Tramp when he appeared in Henry Lehrman's "Between Showers". The plot involves a stolen umbrella, but is mainly an excuse for a bunch of physical humor. Cinema was still in its relative infancy, and the absence of sound meant that people had to do a lot of the acting with their faces. Despite the simple plot, it's a fun 15 minutes. It's ironic seeing a city block in LA surrounded by water, now that California's running out of water.

Anyway, pretty fun. Chester Conklin (the policeman) later played the technician in "Modern Times".

Chaplin is groomed like the tramp and he looks like the tramp but he could be anybody in this disjointed tale about three mashers, a puddle, and an umbrella.

The editing is poor enough to lose the plot from time to time, if there is a plot that extends beyond the individual slapstick-filled scenes.

The film has a certain slight charm as an historical curiosity. Here it is -- 1914 in Los Angeles, and what looks like Echo Park might have looked in 1914 Los Angeles.

A dog wanders innocently in and out of a scene but nobody cares. The pratfalls are backward somersaults. It's all very casual and lacks poetry.

Just watched this, an early Charlie Chaplin performance in a Keystone-Mack Sennett film, on the Internet Archive site. It only showed 8 minutes of what according to this site was 15 minutes of this short but what I did see was quite funny and fascinating nonetheless. In this one, a masher (Ford Sterling) steals a cop's umbrella, unbeknownst to the cop, and encounters a woman who's trying to cross a water-flooded street which he sees as an opportunity to woo her. Chaplin's Tramp character arrives at this point and tries to to the same. There's a funny bit where he almost falls into the water. After this come a few more highly amusing stuff in which Charlie and Ford start to poke each other before the thing abruptly ends. Like I said, I found the thing quite amusing so on that note, Between Showers is worth a look. P.S. A few minutes ago, I watched much of the rest on YouTube so it seems I've now seen the entire short.