A title card says "Back on top again". A tramp huddles in a doorway below a sign saying "Hope". Does this look like the opening to a slapstick comedy? In this, the ninth of Charlie Chaplin's pictures at Mutual studios, it is indeed a good few minutes before we even get a joke. But such was the delicacy and professionalism Chaplin put into his craft audiences did not, and still do not mind.While many of Chaplin's preceding pictures had featured some element of drama or poignancy, you can see in Easy Street that his merging of the two with comedy is now completely seamless. He is continually switching from one to the other, setting up deeper moments then bursting them with a gag. He even uses one to set up the other. An early Chaplin picture might have had us follow Charlie the rookie cop and discover with him how rough his beat is, but what we actually get is several cuts to scenes of fighting on Easy Street, culminating in the mighty Eric Campbell scaring off all comers. Campbell struts around the now empty street for a moment, and then, in the background, Charlie comes plodding round the corner. All those shots of the scuffle go towards building up this iconic and very funny entrance.Although Chaplin himself is on top form here, a couple of honourable mentions should go out to his supporting cast. This is perhaps the ultimate burly bully role for Eric Campbell. When you see him in that melee, he even looks like a big man among other big men, not just because of his gargantuan size but the way he carries that size. I love that close-up of him swallowing the key. If you're a good lip-reader you can tell he's saying "Ya see this? Ya see it?" which you have to imagine in a thick Scotch brogue (Campbell was from Strathclyde). Then there is a lesser-known Chaplin-regular, Charlotte Mineau, playing Big Eric's wife. Mineau was normally just a type-filler for a slightly older woman, but here she gets to show off her own slapstick skills, doing some very athletic bounce-back manoeuvres when Campbell pushes her over. For some unknown reason this was her last appearance for Chaplin.Easy Street is not the funniest Chaplin short by a long shot, but it is surely his best merging of dramatic and comedic elements so far. What other comedian of this period was tackling crime in the slums, domestic violence and drug abuse? Come to think of it, what mainstream filmmaker was? And in spite of its weighty subject matter Easy Street provides the laughs and the entertainment. When you look at how nicely done it is on all levels, you can see not only was Chaplin making by far the best comedies of the time, he was making some of the best pictures of any kind.Here comes the all-important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 1 (1 for)

Deservedly, many consider "Easy Street" one of Chaplin's best short films. Chaplin was in his last year at Mutual and was in top form; "Easy Street" is also considerably different from his other Mutual pictures. Social commentary and the like often appear in much of his work, but here, for the first time, satire underlines this commentary throughout the picture. Thus, depictions of poverty, lawlessness, street and marital violence and drug use mingle comfortably with the usual uproarious comedy--and by this time, matured slapstick and pantomime--one expects from Charlie.In addition to that, Chaplin manages to balance and blend the different styles characteristic of comedy and social commentary. There's the makeup typical of slapstick for Eric Campbell, the impoverished look of other characters and the realistic look for those like Edna Purviance's character. I think the police outfits resembling those of the Keystone Kops, like the one Chaplin dons, are a particularly nice throwback to the Keystone tradition Chaplin began from but had since surpassed.The settings for Easy Street and the surrounding (within the photoplay) area also reflect these dual styles. It certainly looks like a slum, but at the same time, the sets are recognizably artificial--obviously movie studio sets. Furthermore, the props, such as the lamppost, sometimes take on a cartoonish effect. And, for all the harsh violence occurring on it, Easy Street is full with soft contours. Yet, it works well. It would have been great if it expanded spatially to free it and the film from a flat, theatrical position, but such is to be expected from a 1917 production, and to the credit of Chaplin and usual cinematographer Roland Totheroh, they do vary the shots somewhat. The sets are impressive otherwise in creating a confined, dualistic atmosphere.Additionally, Chaplin hadn't been so much the hero of a story since "The Vagabond". "Easy Street" features the most successful variation on Chaplin and Eric Campbell's David and Goliath. Campbell is meaner than ever, and they act out two ingenious, comical set pieces for the tramp-turned-policeman to slay him. The concurrent solutions of force and regeneration are also seamless in concluding this impressively matured and substantive Chaplin short.

I've been a Chaplin fan since I was in grade school, and Easy Street was the movie that converted me for keeps. It wasn't the first of his films I saw, but once I'd seen it I knew that Charlie Chaplin was truly as great as his reputation proclaimed. He's wonderful here, at the peak of his powers, funny and moving and seemingly super-human, like some kind of cartoon dynamo. And today, more than 30 years since I first encountered it (and almost 90 years since it was made!) this is a film I could watch again anytime, not just because it's funny -- although it is -- but also for darker, more melancholy reasons. Easy Street is certainly a comedy, but it's no one's idea of a light-hearted romp: the humor in this story is rooted in poverty, violence and substance abuse, and unfortunately all of these things are just as relevant today as they were in 1917. It's well known that Chaplin grew up in dire poverty, and it's reasonable to assume that the squalid world of this ironically titled work is based on his childhood memories. This film stands as proof that the greatest comedy is born out of pain, and that's why I can return to it again and again, for although human suffering is always topical and always relevant, so is the urge to transcend suffering through humor. In this film Chaplin triumphs over the deprivations of his own childhood, and viewers can share in his triumph.In the opening scene we find Charlie fallen on hard times, no longer the dapper Gentleman Tramp of earlier appearances but a real derelict, ragged, pale, and sleeping on the ground. He is drawn to a nearby mission by the sound of singing, joins the congregation and soon pledges to go straight; he even proves his conversion is genuine by pulling the collection box from his baggy pants and returning it to the startled minister. Before long Charlie has applied for the job of police officer in the roughest neighborhood imaginable, Easy Street, a slum ruled by an enormous bully, magnificently portrayed by actor Eric Campbell. The unfortunate Mr. Campbell, who would be killed in a car accident less than a year after giving this performance, deserves a belated nod of respect for making Easy Street such a memorable experience. Although clearly intended as a comic caricature, Campbell's nameless bully is nonetheless a formidable figure, a mighty beast with a shaved head and heavy eyebrows, and the close-ups that reveal Campbell's stage makeup do nothing to diminish his powerful aura.The film's most unforgettable sequence comes when Officer Charlie, dressed in a Keystone Cop style uniform as he nervously walks his beat for the first time, suddenly comes face-to-face with Campbell, an ogre several times his size. The scene is filmed in a single lengthy take, beginning with a tracking shot as Charlie strolls down the sidewalk, encounters the bully, and then tries to stand up to him. The bully, who appears to be made of granite, becomes increasingly sure of himself as Charlie falters. When Charlie finally resorts to clubbing him over the head, the blows have no effect whatever; in fact, the bully impassively offers his head for more clubbing, just to demonstrate how little it bothers him. Charlie tries to flee, but the bully yanks him back and starts toying with him, like a cat tormenting a mouse before moving in for the kill. Scary, right? Well it's funny in the movie, but scary too, and it comes as a relief when Charlie (in an iconic moment as familiar as Harold Lloyd dangling from the clock) resourcefully uses a nearby gas lamp to subdue the bully -- temporarily, anyway.While the scenes with Campbell are moments to savor, there are also a number of low-key sequences involving the lady from the mission, played by Chaplin's perennial leading lady Edna Purviance, and during these scenes we get a vivid picture of life on Easy Street. Edna takes Charlie to a flat full of kids whose exhausted-looking parents obviously can't cope. Charlie, impressed with the scrawny Dad's ability to father so many children, quietly pins his own badge on the man's chest. It's a sadly funny moment, but the larger picture is bleak, and before the story is over we've been presented with images of domestic abuse and drug addiction. None of this material is prettified or sentimentalized in the "Hollywood" manner; this looks more like newsreel footage, and some viewers may well find it depressing. Easy Street is no stroll in the park, but somehow Chaplin is able to leave us on a note of hope, even while making it clear (with one last gag involving the reformed bully and his wife) that he's fully aware of the wishful thinking involved. Still, it's a beautiful ending to a great movie, one that demonstrates Chaplin's artistry as beautifully as any short film he ever made.

Easy Street starts with Charlie with as a poor, destitute tramp. After attending a storefront revival service, and meeting the always delightful Edna Purviance, he decides to turn his life around. He quickly gets a job as a policeman and he finds himself assigned to Easy Street, the worst neighborhood in the city ruled by tough Eric Campbell. Using his own unorthodox tactics, Charlie eventually subdues Eric and neighborhood and they all live happily ever after.Easy Street was one of the twelve films Chaplin made for Mutual. Mutual gave Chaplin unprecedented freedom and responded by giving them, overall, twelve of the best comedy shorts ever made. Easy Street is easily the best of them. It is a very funny short. This is the film I show when I want to introduce someone to Chaplin or silent films in general. The gags are inventive, and they are extremely well-played by his regular company of Mutual performers. Chaplin himself is at his best in this film, but where would he be without Eric Campbell, the best heavy he ever played against. (Sadly, Campbell would die in a car accident after the completion of the Mutual comedies. His loss would be felt in the First National comedies, which rarely reached the heights of the best Mutual work.)But there is more to Easy Street than laughs. It is unusually mature for a silent comedy of its period. Chaplin usually presented his tramp character as a happy-go-lucky figure - a vagabond by choice, not circumstance. This film starts with the tramp as a down-and-out character, much in need of the new beginning he gets at the mission. In perhaps his first attempt at social commentary, Chaplin provides an unblinking view of ills of the society of the time. The most graphic example is the drug addict shooting up with a needle. People often have a misconception of silent comedies being simply quaint. That isn't quaint. This is a must see.