Arriving on the back of his first great film The Kid, Charlie Chaplin’s The Idle Class feels weak and thin in
comparison. The writer in Chaplin was struggling for ideas before he got the
spark for The Kid and it almost feels
as though he is back to square one while writing the two reel The Idle Class. A Tramp (Chaplin) gets
off a train, and not how you’d expect him to, before heading for a day at the golf
course. Meanwhile a wealthy wife (Edna Purviance) also disembarks expecting her
well to do husband (also Chaplin) to meet her at the station but he is drunk at
home. Following some hi jinks at the golf course there is a case of mistaken
identity at a ball at which Edna takes the Tramp for her husband.
For me The Idle Class
lacks the depth which made The Kid
great and also lacks the direction and laughs that are found in the likes of A Dog's Life or Shoulder Arms. It occasionally takes a more dramatic route but this
often fails to match even Sunnyside
for dramatic narrative. The film is saved by a middle act on the golf course
which is brilliantly inventive and funny but is unfortunately bookended by a
beginning and end which did little for me.
