A Night Out

Though there are some good moments, mostly later in the feature, overall this short comedy has too much of the same basic material, and it starts to get old rather soon. Charlie Chaplin and Ben Turpin play a couple of drunks who cause a series of difficulties for each other and for those with whom they come in contact. They both do a creditable job (in itself) of performing the material, but it is just too much of the same thing. Drunkenness just is not funny enough to carry even a short feature all by itself, and the use of it as a pretext for the characters to behave in a chronically impolite fashion wears thin relatively quickly.

Things do get a little better in the second half, when the material and the plot become somewhat less one-dimensional. Then too, anything with Chaplin in it will have some good moments - but overall, "A Night Out" is below Chaplin's usual standard. It's probably most memorable for the first of Edna Purviance's many appearances in a Chaplin movie.

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 Essanay period after leaving Keystone, 'A Night Out' is not one of his very best or even among the best of this particular period. 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, from 1914, The Essanay period is something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'A Night Out'.

'A Night Out' is not one of his all-time funniest or most memorable, other efforts also have more pathos and a balance of that and the comedy. The story is still a little flimsy, there are times where it struggles to sustain the short length, and could have had more variety and less more of the same repeition.

On the other hand, 'A Night Out' looks pretty good, not incredible 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.

While not one of his funniest or original, 'A Night Out' is still very entertaining with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight.

Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well, with an amusing Ben Turpin and charming Edna Purviance in her first collaboration with Chaplin.

In summation, worth watching if not to watch over and over. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Upon finishing "His New Job," Chaplin had enough of the cold midwestern weather and decided to return to California where Essanay had a small studio 30 miles outside of San Francisco. Part studio owner and cowboy actor Max Anderson had earlier established a facility to shoot and edit his Westerns for the mountainous typography.

For his next film, February 1915's "A Night Out," Chaplin was yearning to find a leading comic actress similar to Keystone's Mabel Normand, but without all the drama associated with filming with her. There are varying stories how Chaplin discovered a 19-year-old secretary, Edna Purviance, to be selected for that acting position. Either through an audition, spotting her in a San Francisco lobby, or through an introduction, Chaplin was intriqued with her looks and picked Purviance despite his reservations she never had acted in front of a camera before.

Despite her humble opinion she had stunk up the joint in her first film, Purviance performed well enough in "A Night Out" to continue a stretch of 33 films where she was that funny lady opposite of Chaplin. To boot, she also had a romantic relationship with him for the next three years.

"His Night Out" is also noteworthy as being the first movie where Chaplin met cameraman Rollie Totheroh, who was working with Anderson and his Westerns.. Totheroh would soon become Chaplin's director of photography throughout his career, all the way until the mid-1950's.

'A Night Out' stands out only as Edna Purviance's debut. There isn't much plot - the film plays as one running gag concentrating on the antics of drunken Tramp. Drunk Tramp is not usually the most pleasant character and this is the case in this one. And the film doesn't differ much from previous pictures where Charles Chaplin has portrayed trouble making drunk. Although, I have to admit, that this movie is a little more balanced between slapstick and lighter humor. Scenes are staged better and with more attention to detail - not all the energy has gone into drunken slapstick, although, there is plenty of that. Mildly amusing but not overly hilarious. The biggest problem was that it became repetitive rather quickly and thus felt like the movie dragged too much. Ben Turpin knows how to take the fall but that is the only thing he has to offer to this movie. There wasn't much dynamic between him and Chaplin like there was in their previous collaboration 'His New Job'. It is clear that Chaplin still learned the ways of making interesting movies and his progress as a director is showing but 'A Night Out' is still a work of a prentice who's just learned the basics of the craft.

One of Chaplin's better efforts from his early days at Essanay – which isn't really that much of a recommendation, as both Chaplin and his creation were far from the finished article when this was made. With his exaggerated motions and heavy-eyed contemplation of things he can't quite understand due to his inebriated state, Chaplin exquisitely captures the behaviour of one who has had more than one too many. He's partnered for the first time with Edna Purviance here, and they work well together. The story itself is typical of the violence with which Chaplin's work seemed to be obsessed at this time. He had obviously found a formula that worked…