Laughing Gas (1914)

Release Date:

9 July 1914 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Comedy

Plot:

Charlie pretends to be a dentist though he is only his assistant. When a patient can't stop laughing...

Plot Keywords:

Dentist | Pain | Laughing Gas

Cast

Charles Chaplin	...	Dentist's Assistant
Fritz Schade	...	Dr. Pain, the Dentist
Alice Howell	...	Mrs. Pain - the Dentist's Wife
Slim Summerville	...	Pedestrian / Patient
Josef Swickard	...	Patient
Mack Swain	...	Patient
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Helen Carruthers	...	Pretty Patient (uncredited)
Fred Hibbard	...	Bearded Patient (uncredited)
Gene Marsh	...	Patient (uncredited)

Directed by
Charles Chaplin		(uncredited)

Produced by
Mack Sennett	....	producer

Original Music by
Robert Israel		(2011 new score)

Cinematography by
Frank D. Williams

Film Editing by
Charles Chaplin		(uncredited)

Production Companies

• Keystone Film Company

Distributors

• Mutual Film (1914) (USA) (theatrical)
• FilmAnnex (2006) (worldwide) (all media)
• Grapevine Video (????) (USA) (VHS)
• Inter Arte Films (1974) (Spain) (re-release)

Also Known As:

"Busy Little Dentist" - USA (alternative title)
"Laffing Gas" - USA (alternative title)
"Tuning His Ivories" - USA (alternative title)

Runtime:

16 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Norway:A (1932)

Company:

Keystone Film Company

A cross section of Chaplin's first year in film-making.

It is no secret that Charlie Chaplin spent most of his first year in film-making churning out simple short comedies for Keystone Studios, in which he spent most of his time either kicking, punching, and throwing bricks at people or planting kisses on uncomfortable women. Laffing Gas is kind of a cross section of Chaplin's first year in film because it has all of those elements, as well as about the same ending as most of the other Keystone films, but it also shows a lot of Chaplin's most brilliant talents, the tricks that he does with his body and his cane and his hat.

Also, I am not sure if it was just the copy that I watched, but part of the film plays in regular motion, rather than the slightly fast motion of most of the other short films, so you can see pretty clearly what it actually looked like when they were filming the fight scenes. Early in the film, Charlie walks into the dentist's office where he works and immediately has a fistfight with another guy, the receptionist, I guess, in the office. And this guy is tiny, by the way .Chaplin was a little guy himself, but this other guy makes Chaplin look like a giant. Anyway, they have a fight scene that is in normal speed, so it almost looks like slow-motion.

The film is also one of the more violent of the Keystone films; at one point a guy gets hit in the face with a brick and then seems to spit out some teeth, soon landing himself in the dentist's office and being worked on by Charlie, who threw the brick in the first place, with a pair of what looks like bolt-cutters. There is a brief use of laughing gas in the film, but most of it is another ten minute slapstick fight scene interspersed with some genuinely brilliant moments.

Also note that one scene in the film is filmed on the sidewalk in front of a place called the Sunset Pharmacy, which I imagine was a real place somewhere on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. If anyone knows anything about that, please let me know!