Chaplin edited, wrote, directed, and produced his fifth film for the Mutual Film Corporation, and as with each of his previous films with the company, they're all a departure from the preceding film. In this film, Chaplin plays a tailor's assistant who gets fired from his job (by Eric Campbell) for his inability to properly measure a lady for a dress. He gets booted out by Campbell and happens upon a cook in a kitchen who almost immediately has to hide him from what appears to be her spouse or employer. Plenty of fun ensues as Chaplin does not care to be holed up in close quarters with a smelly or burned offering from the cook. Chaplin runs into his old boss in a glitzy mansion, as his boss is there to impersonate a count, so he can wed Miss Moneybags (played by Edna Purviance) and avoid toiling away as a tailor. His ex-boss quickly decides Chaplin can pose as his secretary, so he can continue his pursuit of Purviance as the "count". From here on in, chaos ensues. Chaplin ends up competing with his ex-boss for Purviance's hand, namely on the dance floor where Chaplin exhibits the most anatomically unfeasible dance moves one could imagine. There's plenty of fun at the dinner table also as spaghetti and watermelon are both served! Audiences loved when the common man got the better of the upper-crust, and so it's no wonder Chaplin used this idea of posing as or being mistaken for upper class society with regularity. However, in this film, the antics and plot development are much more harried than usual. *** of 4 stars.

Monday Septembeer 17, 7:00pm, The Paramount TheaterAn enormous tailor (Eric Campbell) impersonates Count Broko in order to attend the party of beautiful heiress, Miss Moneybags (Edna Purviance). He discharges his assistant (Charles Chaplin) for incompetence, then discovers him at the party. The tailor pleads with his former employee to pose as his secretary, but Charlie rushes instead to announce he is the Count, and a competition for Miss Moneybag's attention ensues. When the real Count (Leo White) arrives, the tailor is arrested, while Charlie waddles down the sidewalk and into the distance. In The Count, Chaplin revisits the theme of the role playing impostor intruding on the upper classes as he satirizes established social conventions. He invents bizarre dining etiquette as he shares a meal while seated between the tailor and the composed but concerned heiress, then vies with another guest (Albert Austin) for her attention on the impossibly slippery floor, in an outrageous dancing finale.

In 1914 and early 1915, Chaplin did his first comedy shorts. In general, they were pretty awful--with almost no plot and consisting of him mugging it up on camera and hitting people. However, in 1915 he left Keystone Studio and began making better films with Essenay (though there are some exceptions) and finally, in 1916, to Mutual where he made his best comedy shorts. These newer films had more plot and laughs and usually didn't rely on punching or kicking when they ran out of story ideas.This film isn't bad, but it does seem a bit hard to follow thanks to a lack of title cards in the film to explain the action. My assumption is that the original version had them but they weren't in the prints used to make THE ESSENTIAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN COLLECTION set. Charlie is a tailor's assistant and his boss finds an invitation for the county to a fancy dinner. The boss decides to go in the count's place so he can try to marry the rich young lady throwing the party (though what woman in her right mind would want this creep?). Charlie also goes to the same home, but to visit with the cook. Later, he sneaks away and crashed the party and finds his evil boss putting the moves on this lady. Shortly afterwords, the REAL Count shows up and the ruse is exposed.Like another reviewer stated, this is pretty reminiscent of THE RINK, though THE RINK is a clearly superior film because THE COUNT has very few laughs. An interesting story but just not all that funny. I did, however, love Chaplin's physicality in the film--he was incredibly agile and watching him move was a treat.

This two-reel comedy, one of a dozen Chaplin made under his Mutual contract, offers a story line he followed time and again throughout his career: lower class Charlie fakes his way unto upper class society under an alias, fools people for a while, then wreaks havoc. Sometimes Charlie's fraud is deliberate (as in this film), while on other occasions people mistake him for something he is not, but whatever the case the idea was one Chaplin used regularly, starting with an early Keystone of 1914, Caught in a Cabaret, and recurring in other short comedies of 1915-16 such as A Jitney Elopement and The Rink. The premise turns up as late as 1940 in The Great Dictator, although in that instance the farcical aspect of the plot has turned into a darker political statement. Without getting overly analytical about the matter, it would appear that this scenario held some sort of deep meaning for Chaplin, who grew up in poverty and yet wound up wealthy and celebrated, hobnobbing with some of the most famous people in the world. Was this man insecure about the wealth and power he'd earned? It's not so far-fetched to wonder if Chaplin, recalling his roots in the London slums, might have sometimes felt like a fraud when he found himself dining with the likes of Winston Churchill, Lady Astor or Bernard Shaw.Anyhow, getting back to the matter at hand: The Count stands as one of Charlie's lightest and most playful short comedies, perhaps not one of his very best but highly enjoyable nonetheless. There's a lot of good byplay between pint-sized Charlie and his most memorable "heavy," the enormous Eric Campbell, who wears an outrageous beard this time around. Campbell plays a tailor and Charlie is his assistant, soon fired for ineptitude; but before long the former apprentice gets mixed up in the conniving tailor's scheme to impersonate a count, in order to court a wealthy heiress (Edna Purviance). I especially enjoyed the bit when Campbell explains his scheme to Charlie, and punctuates the speech with his elbow in a "Get it?" gesture, until Charlie finally slides a wooden chair into place to protect himself. Through various complications Charlie himself is mistaken for the count, and receives royal treatment at a grand party at Edna's mansion, while his boss is forced to serve as his assistant. The party is the setting for a number of amusing comic set-pieces, including a dinner of spaghetti and watermelon (when did you last see these dishes served together?), and a dance in the ballroom. For me, the dance is the film's highlight, as it displays Chaplin at the peak of his physical skill, sliding and gliding about with almost supernatural agility. Only Mickey Mouse could move so well, and with such comic grace!The Count may not rank with Chaplin's greatest short comedies, but if any of his contemporaries had made this same film it would probably be regarded as something special. It's hard for me to be objective about this particular movie because The Count was one of the first Chaplin comedies I ever saw, way back in grade school, when I borrowed an 8mm print from my local library, threaded it up on my projector, and threw the beam onto a wall of my room. It was the first inkling I had that Chaplin's reputation as a great comedian was so well deserved, the first time I said to myself: "Hey, this guy really IS funny!"