The genius of Charlie Chaplin lay in the fact that he didn't just do comedy. As he honed his craft, his stories became an intricate balance between pure comedy, action and poignancy. And yet he wove his comic style into the latter two, so they flowed seamlessly into the grand plan.The Bank begins, sensibly, with the out-and-out comedy. Like many of the shorts he made at Essanay, this involves Charlie's little tramp character causing mayhem in a once-orderly environment. His role here as a janitor in a bank is ideal for this pattern. While most of the time our eyes will be on the tramp and his antics, Chaplin actually often draws our attention to the trail of destruction he leaves behind him, resulting in maximum laughs. For example, in one shot the tramp messes up the workstation of a couple of suited employees, and while he saunters casually into the background, we are left with the two clerks fuming in the foreground. In the shot where Charlie inadvertently puts his mop in a clerk's hat, he draws our eyes towards the point where the gag is about to take place by having that clerk move around more and putting a white space around him. The arrangement looks random but this is a genuine technique that works upon audiences.Gradually, a plot begins to crystallize out of all this silliness. This is where the emotional angle comes in. Unusually for him, Chaplin uses a lot of close-ups, putting the slapstick on hold for a bit, and highlighting the expressions of his characters. He demonstrates his considerable acting talent, showing how his complete control over his body could be turned to giving a deep and moving performance. He lets the moment run long enough for the audience to appreciate, but prevents it from overbalancing the whole picture by punctuating it with a couple of gags as Charlie takes out his suffering on his rival janitor.The action finale of the Bank is probably the most elaborate and precise of its kind that Chaplin had constructed so far. It works both as part of the comedy and as an exciting moment in its own right. It has the frenetic pace of a good action sequence, but it is also effectively a series of gags, as characters are knocked down into roly-poly pratfalls, or Charlie's fight with a robber spins into a dance. The whole thing is impeccably staged and timed.This might be a good time to mention a few of the supporting players from the Bank. Billy Armstrong plays the second janitor, with whom Charlie evidently has an inexplicable (yet very funny) feud. There was usually a character like this in Chaplin's Essanay pictures, and on several memorable occasions it was Armstrong. With his gangly form and spectacular pratfalling, he was ideal. This was also the first time Chaplin worked with John Rand, here playing the top-hatted chief bank robber. He had a kind of preposterous look to him, but was versatile enough to fulfil a variety of roles in Chaplin's pictures over the next twenty years.The Bank is Chaplin's first truly perfect feature, and due to its excellence should be seen by absolutely everyone.Last but not least, the all-important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 4 (2 for, 1 against, 1 other)

Charlie works as a janitor at a bank.But when Charlie is holding the mop it means only more mess.Edna is the secretary of the bank and Charlie has a big crush on her.But she has a fiancé, the cashier that's also called Charlie.A big misunderstanding happens but Charlie gets to safe the day when he gets to rescue Edna from the bank robbers.But then he wakes up and realizes it was only a dream.The Bank from 1915 is Charles Chaplin's tenth picture for Essanay films and it's a departure from the tramp character.Tramp or no tramp, Charlie does his thing good.It's great to watch him mopping the floors and constantly hitting those big shots with his mop.It's most tragicomic when Charlie finds Edna's message to Charlie, that other Charlie, and he thinks it's for him.He gets her a rose and writes her a message and then finds out it's not him she loves.Chaplin works with his usual cast here.Edna Purviance is naturally the woman he loves.Leo White is Clerk.Billy Armstrong is Another Janitor.Lloyd Bacon plays Bank Robber.Carl Stockdale is Charles, the Cashier.This Chaplin short will make you laugh...after more than 90 years.

Apart from the very end of this short, I think this might be one of the very best Chaplin shorts I have seen. The pacing was excellent, the story cute and involving and everything seemed to fit together just right--until the ending. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!!!Some may like the way the film ended, but I felt REALLY disappointed and irritated at the way they chose to conclude the film. You see, Charlie is a janitor and when the bank is later robbed, Charlie foils the robbers and gets the girl--this works out so well and everything is perfect. However, this all turns out to be a dream! I think Chaplin did this because of his infatuation with pathos in many of his films and while this did make the ending very poignant and sad, it also seemed to undo and ruin everything that occurred before he awoke and found he was just a lowly janitor and not a hero after all.

This is one of the best of Charlie Chaplin's many early short films (i.e. from 1914-1916). Besides containing a lot of slapstick humor, the bank setting leads to some interesting subplots and themes.Charlie is a janitor in the bank, and he usually manages to create more messes than he cleans up. Much of the first part of the movie is a series of comic misadventures while Charlie is trying to do his job, producing a lot of laughs. Then we find that Charlie has his eyes on a girl, and meanwhile some bank robbers come on the scene.All of it leads to some good comedy, while also having some moments of humanity similar to those in the great films that Chaplin would create later. Charlie's character in this one is sympathetic and memorable. "The Bank" is a short feature with humor and substance, and it is one of the best examples of Chaplin's earlier work.