The Pawnshop (1916)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writer:

Charles Chaplin (writer)

Release Date:

2 October 1916 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Short

Plot:

Charlie competes with his fellow shop assistant. He is fired by the pawnbroker and rehired. He nearly destroys everything in the shop and and himself...

Plot Keywords:

Burglar | Clock | Pawnshop | Romantic Rivalry | Ring

Cast

Charles Chaplin	...	Pawnshop assistant
Henry Bergman	...	Pawnbroker
Edna Purviance	...	His daughter
John Rand	...	Pawnshop assistant
Albert Austin	...	Client with clock
Wesley Ruggles	...	Client with ring
Eric Campbell	...	Burglar
James T. Kelley	...	Old bum / Female client with goldfish
Frank J. Coleman	...	Policeman

Also Known As:

At the Sign of the Dollar (USA)
High and Low Finance (USA)

Runtime:

32 min | Germany:24 min (restored version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Certification:

Canada:G (Ontario) | Argentina:Atp

Company:

Lone Star Corporation

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

Brilliant

One of the funniest movies every made, and definitely one of Chaplin's finest. It refreshingly lacks the pathos that Chaplin (sometimes unwisely) inserted in his later movies.

This short is memorable because of its unrelenting comedy "business," such as the famous scene in which a customer brings in an alarm clock and Chaplin examines it like a doctor, eventually taking a pair of pliers and yanking out its innards. This and other routines were later stolen by other comedians. For example, the scene in which an old actor comes in to sell a ring. This bit was stolen, in every single detail--down to Chaplin spitting crackers while crying--by Abbott & Costello.

Chaplin's constant tussling with another shop assistant, played by John Rand, is hilarious. Oddly, Rand did not receive screen credit for his role, even though he appears in almost every scene and is brilliant.

The Pawn Shop also provided good roles for other Chaplin regulars, including Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell, Albert Austin (as the customer with the clock), and Henry Bergmann as the pawn shop proprietor.

One interesting sidelight to this film is that the Bergmann character wears a skullcap and is identifiably Jewish--which is accurate enough, given that most urban pawnshops were owned by Jewish people at the time. This means that two of the main characters, he and Purviance, were Jewish. That was unusual at the time, particularly because the characters are not stereotyped.