Chaplin's The Rounders

“The Rounders” (1914, Chaplin)


Here is another one of the many short films Chaplin acted in and directed for Keystone Studio in 1914, his first year on the job. “The Rounders” would be Chaplin’s 26th film and 12th as a director and would pair him with Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle as two drunks who live across from each other in a lodge. They both stumble home drunk separately and encounter less than happy wives who set about knocking their husbands down. Charlie’s wife uses his cane trick to cull him around the neck to keep him falling over a couple of times. A gag produced a few minutes later as Fatty would use two canes to pick Charlie up off of the floor by the neck. The wives meet angrily in the hallway and the two men spend the rest of the film trying to escape the pursuing women.

Typical of the early shorts, Chaplin was honing his craft and flashes several scenes of great slapstick comedy in “The Rounders.” Fatty was just about on par with Charlie for the second half of this short. It seemed rare that Charlie shared the camera that much with one person for that long but it definitely worked. There is a scene in a restaurant in which Fatty and Charlie are in the middle of the frame both doing their antics simultaneously and the viewer is charged with a decision as to who to focus on. It’s tough. “The Rounders” measures up a bit better than most of the 1914 films. Interesting take on women? “Pity the poor weak women” reads a caption before the husband beating ensues.