Easy Street

"Easy Street" is unsurpassed among Chaplin's short comedies, an extremely funny film that also has depth and sensitivity. The combination is done especially well here. Charlie plays a tramp who has a religious experience, becomes a policeman, and tries to clean up the violence and crime on "Easy Street". He tries to help the many poor of the neighborhood, while combating the street's toughs, leading to some memorable confrontations with burly villain Eric Campbell. There is some terrific slapstick interspersed with some compassionate scenes of the effects of poverty and crime on the innocents of the area. Chaplin uses a lot of his comic talent and a good variety of gags, and combines it with some thoughtful portrayals of life.

This is Chaplin at his best, and it is as good as any of his many short films. It will be a favorite for most Chaplin fans, and a good place to start for those wanting to take a look at his short features.

When a tramp decides to go straight, he returns the money he has just stolen from a mission and commits to putting back into his community by joining the police force. Unfortunately for him his assigned patrol is Easy Street – a virtual no-go area controlled by a violent and intimidating bully. Unaware of this the young tramp heads onto the beat.

Very highly rated on this site, this short film is a typical Chaplin film as it mixes comedy with an social heart. In this regard I must admit that I found it amusing (but not hilarious) and engaging (but hardly cutting in its insight). What I supposed is most telling is that the film isn't dated and boring, it still seems fresh and lively even though technology has moved so far ahead of the period; that doesn't mean it is brilliant but it must stand for something I guess. The scenes are well laid out and tickled me but personally I much prefer the shorts of Laurel & Hardy for their sheer comedy value.

Chaplin is his usual reliable self and does his tramp personae well. He is given sturdy support specifically from Campbell as the E Street bully but also from others who react to Chaplin rather than doing something themselves. Overall then an amusing little short that will please Chaplin fans. Not one of his best but certainly worth a look for those with more than a passing interest in the man.

Charlie Chaplin remembered the rough and tumble neighborhoods he grew up in and the moral anchors the scattered Christian missionaries provided for the indigent residing in those rough boroughs of London.

He brings law and order into his January 1917's "Easy Street," in his attempt to tame those bullies he was so familiar with growing up. Chaplin, after attending a session at a missionary, decides on applying for a police position. Once he gets badged, he's patrolling one of the meanest streets in the city. Actor Eric Campbell's character is the toughest of a tough lot, to which Chaplin sets out involuntarily to control the beast. A street gas light proves to be the comedian's best weapon; it was while filming this scene the lamppost, bent in the middle, fell on Chaplin, requiring him to be rushed to the hospital.

Chaplin used the bookends of the missionaries, one in the beginning and another, a newly-constructed missionary in the tough neighborhood, to convey the movie's message. All the reformed neighborhood thugs, including Campbell, are dressed up to go to service. Here, Chaplin is making an overt statement on the power of redemption.

Entertaining, but not among Chaplin's best.

Interesting plot: the Tramp becomes a policeman! (It could happen...). From here many adventures ensue.

Has the usual Chaplin slapstick and sight gags but also has some darker themes: bullying, abuse of power, power-madness, instant fame and even drug abuse (though here it appears more of an advert for drugs - it was 1917 I guess, so they didn't know better).

However, it is not as powerful, clever or laugh-a-minute as Chaplin's later stuff. Chaplin's gags seem less well thought-out and more about cheap laughs here. I guess he was still honing his craft and exploring his own boundaries.

Good performances. Eric Campbell is scary as the bully, he of the fearsome eyebrows.

Easy Street is one of the first films that really solidified Chaplin's intentions to continue to represent the poorer people of society. In this film, Chaplin's common rich vs. poor theme is especially prevalent in the way that the predicament of the poor is presented, and especially given the fact that, at this point in his career, Chaplin was earning roughly $10,000 a week.

Although this is one of Chaplin's best short films, it is strange that in the church near the beginning of the film, he turns the hymn book upside down as though he can't read, but then he is soon able to read the help wanted sign at the police station. At any rate, after he leaves the church, having found Jesus, he finds the streets seething with comical violence. He sees that the police are looking to hire, and his hesitant entrance into the police station is one of the funniest parts of the entire film.

Clearly, it's amusing enough to see the tramp in a policeman's uniform, but the way that he and the bully that seems to have claimed ownership of Easy Street interact is also some classic comedy. The irony in this film is that Charlie is trying to get this huge guy under control so that he will stop terrorizing the people, but then when he does, in fact, defeat him, the people are afraid of HIM. As is almost always the case when Charlie performs some heroism in his films (usually inadvertently), he acts like it was no big deal when people arrive (see the scene in The Gold Rush when Jack gets knocked out by a falling clock, and Charlie thought that he had done it).

The part that most clearly represents Charlie's sympathy for the poor in this film is the scene when he catches the woman stealing from the sleeping street vendor. At first, it seems that he is going to turn her in, but he is so heartbroken that he runs to the street vendor (who is still asleep), and steals more food for the woman, and then encourages her to hurry off before the vendor wakes up and realizes what has happened.

This rich vs. poor theme is one of the many that traverses a good majority of Chaplin's career, but there are many other things that can be seen in his later films, like the love interest element of The Bank that can be seen in a very similar form later in City Lights. In this film, there is a short sequence where Charlie sits on a hypodermic needle that had been used by a man to shoot up with (something like that wouldn't be quite as funny if it was done today), and his reaction to the small dose of the drug is almost exactly the same as that in Modern Times, when he pours cocaine onto his food, thinking it's salt.

Easy Street is an entertaining and heartwarming story in many ways, and the ending leaves the feeling that something has really been accomplished in the film. As Charlie calmly walks the sidewalks in his policeman's uniform, everyone on the street is orderly and well dressed, and even the bully tips his hat to Charlie as he walks by. Unfortunately, very few people watch Chaplin's films anymore, but even if only a few are watched, this should definitely be one of them.