Chaplin's One A.M. (1916)

Most people seem to have only a vague idea of who Charlie Chaplin was these days, having perhaps seen him long ago in films with sound effects and wrong-speed projection. All his feature films are now available in pristine DVD's and I recommend them for their beauty, humor and emotional content.  Meanwhile his short films are available mostly in poor quality public domain versions.  I recently watched Chaplin's One A.M. in a decent (but far from perfect) quality DVD.from Echo Bridge.

One A.M. is a wonderful example of how much one can do with one actor and three sets -- if one is Chaplin of course.  Everything is in long shot, except for a couple of intrusive close-ups, which I suspect were imposed by the studio, Mutual.  Chaplin is inebriated when he arrives home and can't find his key.  So he climbs through a window, accidentally stepping in a goldfish bowl.  The he finds his key and climbs back out the window, unlocks the door and goes in (various versions of this gag later ended up in Looney Tunes).  Once inside Chaplin is confronted by a cozy domestic scene that engages him in a continuing battle:  he slips on the rugs, is "attacked" by dead animals, and can't get to a drink because his coat gets stuck on a turning table that he can't catch up with.  He climbs up the stairs and trips down backward (beautifully choreographed), gets back up the stairs and grabs the stair rug as he falls, ending up wrapped in it.  He finally climbs a teetering coat rack to get to the top of the stairs, only to be knocked down by a clock pendulum, which he eventually crawls under.  He gets into his bedroom (the second set) and can't find the bed, even looking under the rug.  He finally sees the button for the Murphy bed and immediately gets caught in the bed until he can get it down, a bed leg impales his hat and when he gets his hat out the bed flips over and he ends up underneath it,  Then the bed turns over and he tries to sleep on the underside of it as the mattress goes back and only the frame remains, which Chaplin trips over on his way to the bathroom (third and final set).  Chaplin then gets soaked when he gets trapped in the shower and settles down to sleep in the bathtub.

In some ways this film reminds one of Buster Keaton and some of his battles with machinery.  But Keaton usually triumphs while Chaplin makes accommodations.  Of course my description can't begin to convey the beauty and hilarity of Chaplin in this role.  My six-year-old daughter watched it with me and laughed so hard she missed some of the relatively fast-moving activity.  So of course we watched it again.  I tend not to find the actions of a dipsomaniac particularly amusing but One A.M. did not make much of the inebriation, rather it emphasized the routine difficulties of any domestic situation, from misplacing your keys to going to bed.  And I realized once again the influence Chaplin's film had on Chuck Jones, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges et al.