Chaplin's "The Adventurer"

2008-11-16 01:05:38

“The Adventurer” (1917) Chaplin

“The Adventurer” is one of Chaplin’s better comedies from the Mutual era and it was his last for the company. The importance of pacing can never be underestimated, especially with comedies. There’s bound to be some lulls and routines that don’t quite reach the mass funny appeal. However, with excellent pacing comes the ability of sandwiching those less funny moments with great routines. Laughter is contagious and if the comedic filmmaker can establish an immediate laugh, and then keep us at the very least smiling, pepped up by a few moments of hilarity, they will have sold us on the comedy element of the film.

This is a film that is over 90 years old and has some really funny parts. Once you minimize the ass kicking and isolate it to once or twice here or there, it can become funny again. We know nothing of Chaplin’s escape convict character other then he escapes from a jail by swimming to a dock and saves three drowning individuals in the process. Chaplin swims to the first person he sees, the mother, and then after spotting the daughter, lets go of the mother to save the daughter. Of course, he goes back for the mom and dad too. As this is all we see, the question of the convict’s past becomes moot and Chaplin establishes a rather sympathetic character. If Eric Campbell, who plays the girl’s father, didn’t look so menacing, that sympathy would be weaker but his huge stature and big bushy eyebrows and long straggly beard and furrowed brow force him to be thrust upon us as the menacing antithesis to Chaplin’s escaped convict that he appears to be.

Chaplin’s invited to a swanky party as the hero and sets about wooing the daughter, acting high society, and enjoying all the free cigars and booze he can get. A hilarious chase ensues eventually when the father alerts the police to the great physical similarity between Chaplin and the wanted criminal on the front of the paper. He even grabs a lamp shade to put on his head while everyone runs right by him. Now I know where Bugs Bunny got his moves from!

“The Adventurer” is of the cream of the crop amongst these early films. A sad note is that
it would also be the last collaboration with Chaplin’s admirable opposite, actor Eric Campbell, who would be lost in a car accident.

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