Chaplin’s final film in his Mutual contract and marking the
end of a brief but fruitful relationship is The
Adventurer. A convict (Chaplin) is on the run from Prison Guards on the
coast when he hears the sounds of people crying out for help. He comes across three
people who are drowning having fallen off a nearby pier and saves each of them
one by one. One of the people he saves is an attractive young woman (Edna
Purviance) who invites the man back to her house to rest without knowing his
past. As the two begin to get on very well, the convict’s past catches up with
him thanks to the persistence of the young girl’s suitor (Eric Campbell).
Chaplin’s final outing for Mutual is a more than decent
short which features some genuinely laugh out loud moments in addition to a
well tailored story and plenty of trademark slapstick. What makes it stand out
for me though is not only was it the last film Chaplin made for the Mutual Corporation
but it was also his last to feature regular adversary Eric Campbell who
tragically died just a couple of months after the film’s release in a drink driving
accident. Chaplin and Campbell were very close friends, living next door to one
another when the latter died and Chaplin never again cast a regular actor to
play his antagonist.
The film is full of clever gags including what is probably
my favourite from the entire Mutual series. Having saved Eric Campbell
(amongst others) from drowning, the giant man is put on a stretcher. Rather
than waiting for a second man to help carry the stretcher, Chaplin lifts just
the bottom end which causes Campbell
to slide off, back into the sea. It was an excellent gag which came just
seconds after another fantastic sequence. When Chaplin first hears the cries
for help he races over to the drowning trio and happens upon a middle aged
woman. He begins to help her to safety but notices the woman’s attractive daughter
is nearby so decides to leave the old woman and save her daughter instead. The
actions fit the character superbly and are very funny to watch. The film also
contains some wonderful choreography as Chaplin time and again slips out of the
grasps of the Prison Guards and once at Edna’s house, attempts to steal alcohol
any way he can. One scene in particular features a clever blink and you’ll miss
it glass switch which is wonderfully timed.
One of the things I like about Chaplin’s films which use location
filming is the chance to observe the world, or at least California as it was nearly one hundred
years ago. In this film, there is a pier and fun fair in the background but it’s
more subtle details that caught my eye. There is a small footpath from the
cliff to the beach which is used a couple of times and that got me thinking
about that path and when it was first made. In 1917 California was still in its infancy so that
path couldn’t have been very well trodden. Something else that caught my eye
was a small fishing boat, well out to sea. Could the man in that boat in mid
1917 ever imagine that ninety-five years later his image would be seen in a
house on the other side of the world, or that a man born probably fifty years
after he died would be writing about him on a machine which connects half the
world’s population? Was he even aware of the filming that day on the cliffs
above him? It might be a slightly tangential thing to be thinking about but it
feels sometimes as though these films do take you back in time. The fact then
that the films are still so recognisably funny after all these years is a
credit to Charlie Chaplin’s writing and comic acting.
8/10
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