A quarrel with his fellow-worker follows. The man is caught between the rungs of the ladder, his arms imprisoned. Charlot calls a boy over to hold the other end of the ladder and begins a boxing match. Although his adversary is incapable of moving his arms, Charlot sidesteps, feints, and guards, leaping nimbly away from imaginary blows. The policeman interferes and both assistants run into the shop. By a toss of a coin Charlot is compelled to go back to fetch the bucket. He tiptoes behind the policeman, snatches the bucket, and with a wide swing and a swirling motion evades the policeman and returns. He is then caught by the boss in another fight and is discharged.
He makes a tragic appeal to be reinstated. He says he has eleven children, so high, and so high, and so high—until the fourth one is about a foot taller than himself. The boss relents only as Charlot’s stricken figure is at the door. As he is pardoned, Charlot leaps upon the old boss, twining his legs around his abdomen; he is thrown off and surreptitiously kisses the old man’s hand. He goes into the kitchen to help the daughter and passes dishes through the clothes wringer to dry them—passes a cup twice, as it seems not to be dry the first time. Then his hands. The jealous assistant provokes a fight; Charlot has a handful of dough and is about to throw it when the boss appears. With the same motion Charlot flings the dough into the wringer, passes it through as a pie crust, seizes a pie plate, trims the crust over it, and goes out to work.
At the pawnshop counter pass a variety of human beings. Charlot is taken in by a sob story about a wedding ring; he tries to test the genuineness of goldfish by dropping acid on them. Sent to the back room, he takes his lunch out of the safe, gets into another fight, in which he is almost beating his rival to death when the girl enters. Charlot falls whimpering to the floor and is made much of. He returns to the counter and the episode of the clock begins.
A sinister figure enters, offering a clock in pawn. Charlot looks at it; then takes an auscultator and listens to its heart-beat; then taps it over crossed fingers for its pulmonary action; then taps it with a little hammer to see the quality, as with porcelain; then snaps his thumb on the bell. He takes an augur and bores a hole in it; then a can-opener, and when he has pried the lid off he smells the contents and with a disparaging gesture makes the owner smell them, too. He then does dentistry on it, with forceps; then plumbing. Finally he screws a jeweler’s magnifying glass into his eye and hammers what is left in the clock, shakes out the contents, measures the mainspring from the tip of his nose to arm’s length, like cloth, squirts oil on the debris to keep it quiet, and, lifting the man’s hat from his head, sweeps the whole mess into it and returns it with a sad shake of the head.
A pearl-buyer has meanwhile come in and Charlot retraces his steps to the back room (carefully stepping over the buyer’s hat) and begins to sweep. His broom becomes entangled with a piece of tape, which fights back and gets longer and longer. Suddenly Charlot begins to tight-rope upon it, balancing with the broom, and making a quick turn, coming forward for applause. A final quarrel with the other assistant ensues. As they are swarming round the legs of the kitchen table, the boss comes in and Charlot flees, leaps into a trunk, and is hidden. As the others enter the room, the pearl-buyer, who has stolen all the valuables, holds them up with a revolver. Charlot leaps from the trunk, fells the robber, and embraces the lovely maiden for a fade-out.
All of this takes about thirty minutes. I have put down nearly everything, for Chaplin is on the scene virtually all of the time. I am fairly certain that ninety per cent. of this film could not have been made, even badly, by anyone else. Analysis of A Dog’s Life would give the same result: the arrival at the climax being a little more certain and the drama of the climax (the curtain scene—compared with the clock scene above) being more involved in the course of action.
Here follows a complete list of all of the pictures in which Charlie Chaplin has appeared—all of those officially recognized by him:
Keystone—1914: Making a Living, Mabel’s Strange Predicament, The Kid Auto Racers, His Favorite Pastime, The Film Johnny, The Cruel Cruel Love, The Dogcatcher, Mabel at the Wheel, The Star Boarder, Twenty Minutes of Love, Caught in the Rain, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, The Rounders, The Knockout, Caught in the Cabaret, A Gentleman of Nerve, Mabel’s Busy Day, Mabel’s Married Life, Dough & Dynamite, His Trysting Place, Laughing Gas, His Prehistoric Past, Half Reel—Scenic Yosemite Valley.
Essanay Film Company—1915–16: His New Job, A Night Out, The Champion, The Tramp, The Jitney Elopement, In the Park, By the Sea, The Woman, The Bank, Work, A Night in the Show, Shanghaied, Carmen, Police.
Mutual Film Company—1916–17: The Floorwalker, The Fireman, The Vagabond, One A. M., The Count, Behind the Screen, The Rink, The Pawnshop, Easy Street, The Cure, The Immigrant, The Adventurer.