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Storyline
Charlie is trying to get a job in a movie. After causing difficulty on the set he is told to help the carpenter. When one of the actors doesn't show, Charlie is given a chance to act but instead enters a dice game. When he does finally act he ruins the scene, wrecks the set and tears the skirt from the star. Written by
Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
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Essanay PRESENTS THE ONE AND ONLY CHARLES CHAPLIN IN ANOTHER IRRESISTIBLE ABSURDITY.
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Did You Know?
Trivia
This is the first of fourteen Essanay Films that Chaplin made after leaving Keystone when Mack Sennett would not meet the comedian's $1000 a week demands. Essanay gave him $1250. The first film, "His New Job," is the only Chaplin film made on location in Chicago.
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Goofs
A taped "X" on Ben Turpin's neck, used by Charlie to strike a match against, disappears when the gag is over.
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Besides being pretty good in itself, "His New Job" is also interesting in that it is a clear improvement over the previous features that Charlie Chaplin had made when he was with Keystone Studies. While the Keystone features were not bad, and often contained some excellent material, overall they generally gave the appearance of having been thrown together quickly, which often left a lot of unrealized potential in some of their ideas and themes. And, while these Essanay features themselves were usually not quite as good as his later Mutual features, they did give Chaplin a chance to perform quite a few kinds of material, and most of them are well worth seeing.
In this one, Charlie's character is competing with some other hopefuls who are trying to break into the movies. Ben Turpin and Charlie have quite a few scenes together, and although their scenes are primarily knockabout slapstick, they do work well as a team. The action takes place in several settings, and on average it is fairly creative in its use of the settings and props. Most of the gags come off all right, and overall the feature works pretty well.