Charlie Chaplin’s penultimate film for Essanay is regarded
as amongst the best of his output for the company. The film was actually
released after his first film for the Mutual Film Corporation The Floorwalker, over five months after
his previous Essanay film Burlesque on Carmen. Another interesting release related fact is that Police released over two years before
his finally Essanay film Triple Trouble which
was created in part by Chaplin regular Leo White by piecing together unused
shots from other Chaplin films including this and the unfinished feature Life.
Police stars
Chaplin as a recently released convict trying to make it in a cruel and hostile
world. The initial plot follows along the same lines as much of Chaplin’s work.
There were portions of Police that
reminded me of Modern Times and the
idea of the Tramp struggling to survive was used by Chaplin time and time
again. It has been suggested that Chaplin borrowed the plot from Broncho
Billy’s His Regeneration for which he
had an uncredited cameo and I agree that the character development at least is
shared between the two.
A ship owner intends to scuttle his ship and asks his
Captain to round up a crew. The Captain in turn hires a Tramp (Charlie Chaplin)
to help him ‘Shanghai’
(forcibly conscript) some sailors. This backfires for the tramp though as he
himself is Shanghaied. On board ship the Tramp attempts to help out with a
variety of different tasks but unsurprisingly is useless at all of them.
Meanwhile the ship owner’s daughter (Edna Purviance) has stowed away aboard
ship in an attempt to stop the crime of scuttling and save her lover, the
Tramp.
After the wonderful highs of The Bank, this film was a huge come down. It is by far my least
favourite Charlie Chaplin film to date although there are inevitably some good
moments to be found.
A janitor in a bank (Charlie Chaplin) has a crush on a
secretary (Edna Purviance) who is in love with cashier (Carl Stockdale). Chaplin
mistakes a present sent from Purviance to Stockdale as being for him and when
his advances towards Purviance are laughed away he becomes depressed. Despite
being a terrible janitor, Chaplin becomes the hero (or does he?) when he foils
a bank robbery.
This film took me a little bit by surprise. I was expecting
a slapstick affair with Chaplin getting into the sort of trouble that Buster
Keaton did in his film The Haunted House but
this is a much more rounded piece than pretty much anything Chaplin had done
before. Chaplin spends more time off screen than in any of his previous Essanay films and instead of being in front of the camera, fooling around, allows his
characters and story to propel the film along. That isn’t to say that Chaplin
is a side character or not funny. He is still the central character and
produces some great comedic turns.