Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. From his post-Essanay period after leaving Keystone, 'The Fireman' is not one of his very best but is one of his best early efforts and among the better short films of his. It shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career, from 1914, The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'The Fireman'. The story is more discernible than usual and is never dull, but is sometimes a bit too busy and manic.On the other hand, 'The Fireman' looks pretty good, not incredible but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.While not one of his most hilarious or touching, 'The Fireman' is still very funny with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick and has substance and pathos that generally were not there with Keystone. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight. The ending is great fun.Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality and substance of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well, particularly a charming Edna Purviance.In summary, very good and one of the best from Chaplin's 1916 output. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This 1916 Chaplin short film builds a lot on its factors from the past. It's about 24 minutes long, a duration found for several of Chaplin's shorts. Eric Campbell is the main antagonist again and Edna Purviance plays the damsel in distress, although she doesn't appear until 9 minutes in. Before that it's Chaplin versus Campbell at the fire station and as always the huge Eric Cambell gets in trouble from Charlie's accidental actions. And of course, as you could expect from the location, there's lots of water splashing and foam action going on.After the comedic action, it gets a bit more serious, when Purviance enters the picture. Attempted insurance fraud, a big dangerous fire threatening a woman's life and some more critical scenes turn it into quite a drama. Of course, it's still paired with Chaplin's slapstick routine, so it's nothing too hard to digest. Nonetheless,I have to say I wasn't too fond of this film. The fire station action wasn't half as funny as it could have been, romance was almost non-existent here and was usually a factor that elevated some of Chaplin's other works, because it was displayed with so much heart and there's a scene where Campbell's character punches Charlie with full power in the face. Surprisingly, or probably not surprisingly given the tone of Chaplin's films, he gets up pretty quickly, but that was a scene of unnecessary brutal violence that is rather uncommon for most of Chaplin's films. On a more positive note, my favorite scene was the one where Chaplin stops the alarm from ringing as he wants to finish his board-game with another fireman, which made me quite laugh. All in all, I'd recommend this one only to Chaplin fanatics and for everybody else there's better choices to get into his filmography.

The Fireman soon strikes me as a perfect example of just how good Chaplin's earliest films could be. So many of the Keystone and Essanay comedies are rough and simple comedies with a lot of comical punching and kicking and not much else. This one has a developed story, multiple sets, location shooting, a nice love story, even a full-sized structure fire. It's also one of the earliest and best examples of Chaplin using reverse motion in his films. Here, it is used several times, and with surprisingly convincing effect, to show people going up and down the fireman's pole and to drive the horse-drawn fire engine forwards and backwards.Charlie is in good form as he is working diligently on the fire truck, and then quickly stands at attention and salutes when the fire chief boots him on the rear while he works. He salutes each time only to be rewarded with a good thrashing, once again showing a hard working guy getting abused and mistreated by his superiors. Finally, he decides he's had enough and fights back, only to be demoted to the cook's assistant, a job at which he is satisfactorily unqualified. Lots of comic mayhem ensues.But the movie really gets good after Charlie attempts to serve dinner and soon finds the fire chief, covered in soup from head to toe, chasing him all over the station. A couple of distinguished guests arrive, and the well-dressed man tells the chief that if he allows his house to burn down so he can get the insurance money, he'll offer up his daughter's hand in marriage. What a loving father. The chief agrees, and it's an ominous sign when the daughter shows a clear interest in Charlie rather than the chief.The chief orders the men to ignore the fire alarm, showing what a responsible leader he is, so they all ignore a genuine fire call until it's almost too late. Soon they realize their error and head with all possible speed to the site of the emergency, which sure looks to me like they really set a house on fire for the movie. I'm also curious to know where exactly the exterior shots were filmed, because I come from Los Angeles and it's always fascinating to me to know where exactly shots like that were taken so I can see what it looked like more than 90 year ago.There is a healthy amount of poetic justice in the film, which is one of it's strongest points. Every action has a reaction, and all corrupt decisions are punished by fate. The corrupt man sets his house on fire, only to accidentally do so with his daughter upstairs, and not only has he asked the firemen not to respond, they are already busy with the "honest fire" anyway. He runs on foot to find them, and when he tells Charlie, the real love interest, about the fire, Charlie steals the fire truck and heads over there, leaving the rest of the team with no way to fight the real fire.The truck breaks in half on the way to the other fire, so Charlie is forced into the role of a hero. It's clear as he's climbing back down the wall on the outside of the house with the woman on his back that she's a dummy, but it's a clever effect and it works well enough. When I see things like that, and especially things like the reverse motion used in parts of the film, I always wonder how they were received when shown to the movie's original audiences. Film was still an embryonic art form, and the general public had extremely little knowledge or understanding of it. I am willing to bet that a good part of the audience was totally stunned by seeing the horses walk backwards, and not because they're stupid, just because they had never seen something like that before, and it would have been much more difficult for a layman in 1916 to imagine running a film clip in reverse than it is for us today, when it is one of the simplest special effects that we can do. Lately I've been watching a lot of Chaplin's old comedies, and I always try to view them in reference to the time in which they are made, but even so, some of them are genuinely crude and look like they were slapped together in a few hours (which many of them were). But The Fireman is definitely one of the strongest of all of the early comedies that I've seen.

Monday September 10, 7:00 pm, The Paramount Theater, SeattleReferring to Chaplin's Mutual films and The Fireman, in his book American Silent Film, William K. Everson explains, "The weakest of them, the purely slapstick entries, such as The Fireman, are still superior to the best of the Keystones and Essanays; and the best of them (The Immigrant, Easy Street, The Rink) could stand with his best work from any period." The Fireman relies entirely upon the physical brutality found in those earlier films for much of its humor. Charlie suffers the indignities of his fellow firemen and flirts with the chief's (Eric Campbell) sweetheart (Edna Purviance). She visits the station with her father who tells the chief, "Let my house burn. I'll get the insurance and you can wed my daughter." Of course, it goes wrong, there is "An honest fire," and Charlie rescues Edna from her burning house while the other firemen are occupied in truest Keystone fashion.