Easy Street (1917)
Inspired by a mission worker to reform, a homeless tramp takes a job as a policeman patrolling the slum of Easy Street, where he must face down the neighborhood bully terrorizing every officer sent before him and somehow bring order to the block.
Widely ranked among Chaplin’s finest short comedies, Easy Street pairs its slapstick, including Eric Campbell’s towering bully bent over a gas lamp, with real sympathy for slum poverty, a combination of comedy and social conscience Chaplin would keep deepening for the rest of his career.
Background
Easy Street is widely ranked among the finest of the short comedies Chaplin made during his time at Mutual Film Corporation. It follows his Tramp character, reformed by a kindly mission worker, as he takes a job as a policeman assigned to patrol a desperately poor slum district, where he must face down a towering neighborhood bully who has already driven off every officer sent before him. Eric Campbell, a frequent collaborator of Chaplin’s during this period, plays the bully.
What to watch for
Watch for how the film pairs its slapstick, including an elaborate sequence involving a street gas lamp, with genuine sympathy for the poverty of the neighborhood the Tramp is meant to police, a combination of comedy and social conscience that Chaplin continued to develop throughout the rest of his career. It is considered one of the high points of his work in the short-film format, before he moved primarily toward features.
