The Rink

Charlie plays a waiter with a penchant for roller skating in this very funny short. There isn't much of a plot in this film, but it generates a great many laughs nonetheless. The scenes featuring Charlie as a waiter are amusing enough, particularly as he mixes a drink, but Chaplin really shines in the skating scenes. Although he was always an agile and physical comedian, few of films display his skills as fully as "The Rink." He was so good on skates that one regrets he didn't put them on more often - though he did to great effect in "Modern Times."

A raucous day's work for Charlie Chaplin, who waits tables (poorly) when he isn't absconding to the neighboring roller rink to generate chaos and steal kisses. These two-reel comedies aren't long enough to get much deeper than that, but there's no glaring need to. The spotlight is always, rightfully, on Chaplin's well-orchestrated bits of frenetic energy and fluid pandemonium, a hectic machine-gunning of highly polished comic routines that can adapt to fit the frequent changes of scenery.

In the restaurant, Chaplin bounds wildly between kitchen and dining room, spreading ruin in his wake but always, somehow, skipping out on the punishment. He's more assertive in the rink, sabotaging a rival in pursuit of a pretty girl while showing off his premier skill on a pair of skates. That particular aspect is the short's most striking attribute, a brilliant display of mastery that's just as remarkable in a 1916 film as it would be, twenty years later, in Modern Times.

The Rink may be slapstick through and through - lots of accelerated head-over-heel spills and broken plates - but it's efficient, crafty, and takes great care not to repeat itself. Silly and shallow, perhaps, but also highly entertaining.

This film is laugh out loud funny. Who knew Charlie Chaplin was so graceful (and funny) on roller skates? This short film is watchable by all ages, and despite being close to 90 years old, it is still downright funny. Lookout for a character called Mrs. Stout played by a man in drag.

Chaplin was almost always amusing but it occurred to me while watching this story of a waiter who woos a girl at a skating rink that in his earlier films he was more often the perp than the vic.

This was released in 1916 and Chaplin is a rude waiter who humiliates guests and steals money. If a stranger happens to be bending over and fastening a lady's roller skate, Chaplin can't help giving him a swift kick in the pants when he passes by. There's nothing here about "the little people." If the tramp is little, it's because that's his most comfortable social niche.

Ten years later, in "The Gold Rush," Chaplin had introduced humanity into his character, an innocent who is more sinned against than sinning.

Ten years after "The Gold Rush", he was sending social messages about worker alienation. (That's what happens when your work permits you to take no pride in having done it well. Anyone up for McDonald's Chicken Nuggets?) But in movies like "Modern Times," the milieu is only a peg from which to hang gags that are more hilarious than ever. And movies about poverty in 1936 were hardly uncommon anyway.

The gags here are sometimes spectacular, and always speedy. The tramp could certainly skate well.

Chaplin is a waiter in a chaotic restaurant. After he work he visits a skating rink for roller skates where he meets a girl but upsets plenty of others. She invites him to a skating party later – but can he win her heart whilst avoiding others?

Based on a sketch this short required Chaplin to expand the set-up to cover the longer running time and it occasionally shows. The restaurant scene is good but the real meat is in the two skating scenes that are fast and well choreographed to be amusing and skilfully done.

Chaplin is good as the little tramp and is even better when called on physically in the skating scenes. He shows his talent in those scenes much more than the others, however the actual plot needed a little more of the relationship in the wings even if it is just a short film.

Fans, however, will enjoy it regardless.