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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
One of my favorites, 16 January 2006
10/10
Author: Kelsey from United States

Of Charlie Chaplin's many works, "A Dog's Life" is in my top 5, under "The Kid", "City Lights" and "Modern Times". Though just a short, I think this film is one of Chaplin's funniest and most poignant of them all. It had me laughing the whole time and this is the film that made me fall in love with his hands: It was the miming scene where the Tramp has to pretend to be the bully he's just knocked out, to get the wallet back, simply by using hand gestures! It's a moment that shines for all silent movies, showing how little sound is needed to communicate - it's a favorite scene of mine. This is a great film, and especially when coupled with "The Kid" (Chaplin's best work, I think, and my favorite film of all time) how could *anyone* refuse?

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Good Comedy With Some Particularly Good Scenes, 21 September 2001
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This is an entertaining comedy with a couple of particularly amusing scenes. Chaplin is joined by several of his regular supporting players like Edna Purviance and Henry Bergman, plus Syd Chaplin, and the cast works together well. The story is funny, yet not without some substance either.

As his usual 'tramp' character, Charlie is already living "A Dog's Life" when he befriends a stray dog, and they share some adventures together. Chaplin hits a good balance in keeping himself and the dog sympathetic without overdoing the sentiment. There are some slow stretches that keep it from being even better, but the good parts make up for them and make this definitely worth watching. One particular highlight is a scene where Charlie tries to outwit two thieves - it's very cleverly done and very funny.

Anyone who likes Chaplin's comedies should enjoy this one. It has good comedy, a talented and familiar cast, and some worthwhile material - just about everything you would expect in one of Chaplin's features.

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7 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Entertaining Chaplin short, 28 February 2004
7/10
Author: rbverhoef (rbverhoef@hotmail.com) from The Hague, Netherlands

In 'A Dog's Life' our little tramp takes care of dog, the nice touch in this movie. Other things are familiar. He encounters the police, he tries to steal food from a salesman, has money problems in a bar, has some trouble with two thugs and of course he gets the girl.

The best single moment in this short is when he pretends to be one of the two thugs. With perfect timing this a perfect piece of comedy and just this part makes the movie worth watching. There are other funny moments, especially with the dog's tale. A nice short that is a little too long. The very funny final moments (including the part with the two thugs) make sure we don't think about that too much.

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4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
The Little Tramp as a little tramp., 11 March 2007
9/10
Author: Michael DeZubiria (miked32@hotmail.com) from Luoyang, China

A Dog's Life has more layers than the usual Chaplin films, taking the character slightly more literally than he usually does. The overall appeal of Chaplin's Little Fellow is that he is such an everyman that he can be thrust into an almost endless multitude of situations, and Chaplin uses his limitless talent to mold it into brilliant, humanitarian farce. In this film, the little tramp is more of a homeless fellow than usual (I think he's usually just poor and struggling), and in the process he be-friends another homeless and struggling tramp.

There are some great scenes in the film, although even at only 40 minutes it is a bit too long for the material to support. One scene in particular, where Charlie knocks a bully unconscious, is going to be the most memorable one in the movie, along with a scene where he outsmarts some police officers. There is a charming romance that is neither cloying nor overly involving, just the right amount for a short, light-hearted comedy. This probably would have worked even better as a two reel film, but as it is it stands as one of Chaplin's better three reelers.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Chaplin Expanded, 29 August 2005
Author: Cineanalyst

This was Charlie Chaplin's first film for First National, and with his pictures there, he could create movies of longer, or varied, length, rather than the two-reelers he was obliged to churn out before. His Mutual shorts were a vast improvement over his previous work, but watching them I'd sometimes get the sense that his ideas required more time to elaborate, to fully realize, or unfold. The hilarity of the gags in "A Dog's Life" result from this newly acquired freedom to expand his films.

I don't think it's one of Chaplin's most important works, or one of his best, but "A Dog's Life" is very funny and left me in high spirits. The crying set piece was hilarious. As well, Chaplin continued to use props and settings to his comedic advantage, such as with the missing boards and the door of his fenced home when he eludes a policeman in the beginning of the film.

Perhaps, the most interesting aspect of this one is the elaborate pantomime that goes on. The creation of the world within a silent film often created problems for lesser filmmakers on what the role of sound is within that world. There is obviously sound in the world of "A Dog's Life", but the tramp continually ignores it and oft prefers to use pantomime to express himself--or others, as in the elaborate scene using his hands. This demonstrated a lot of thought on Chaplin's part, and it's something that could be done only in the silent era. For all the comic genius in America at the time, the fact that the clowns couldn't talk shouldn't be overlooked, for it was full of advantages.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
"Thoroughbred mongrel", 15 June 2010
8/10
Author: Steffi_P from Ruritania

Just like his little tramp alter ego, Charlie Chaplin liked to think big, and had always aimed to extend the scale and scope of his pictures, never content to be a two-reel sideshow. At 35 minutes, A Dog's Life could hardly be described as his first full-length feature, but it arguably represents his break away from shorts.

Just the opening shot of A Dog's Life shows how Chaplin is starting to inject some grand sweep into his storytelling. The camera begins amid city rooftops, tilting down to reveal Charlie sleeping amid the rubbish behind a ramshackle fence. The way this purpose-built set is shot demonstrates how Chaplin was as much a "proper" director as a comic. He several times has a shabby sign advertising "rooms" visible in the background – a subtle reminder that the tramp is too poor even for the cheapest accommodation.

It's a nice touch how Charlie's canine friend is introduced in a handful of cutaways during this opening scene – treating him as a real character rather than just a plot device. But this is not to the detriment to his human companions, and indeed leading lady Edna Purviance gets a more substantial part than she did in many of the shorts. She makes a really great character here, giving an impression of a naïve but feisty youngster, certainly more than just a token female. It's this kind of characterisation that gives A Dog's Life the kind of comprehensive structure of a feature film, as opposed to a comedy short in which people just turn up on screen for a bit of funny business.

On a quick side-note, this is the earliest Chaplin picture which features a score written by him (although since he wrote the music in retrospect some decades later it's not the first he wrote). It's another testament to the breadth of his genius, showing both considerable musical ability as well as his own irreverent personality. Numbers like the dance hall rag are of course very "silent comedy", but pieces like the opening theme have a truly deep and epic feel to them. Even here though, the Chaplin cheekiness shines through, with different parts of the orchestra playing off each other in a kind of question-and-answer routine.

Chaplin would repeat this "little companion" routine, swapping dog for tot in his first genuine full-length feature The Kid. A Dog's Life remains a worthy predecessor, part of the comedian's ever upward trajectory at this point in his career. It would take more battling with studio heads for Chaplin to get his ideas fully realised, but it was pictures like this that began to get silent comedy taken seriously.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Every Dog Has Its Day, 14 September 2008
9/10
Author: CitizenCaine from Las Vegas, Nevada

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Chaplin combines many stock elements in his first film for First National Pictures: He plays a tramp, gets chased by several policemen, plays an everyman trying to improve his lot in life, choreographs incredible scenes requiring precise comic timing, includes several riotous sight gags, saves a girl, and lives happily ever after apparently. The film opens with policemen trying to nab Chaplin from stealing food from a sidewalk vendor. The precise comic timing involved is extraordinary, but Chaplin and his company pull it off perfectly. For a scene so rehearsed to appear so spontaneous is incredible. Even when Chaplin saves a dog from a wild pack of dogs, it seems like a chaotic ballet on film. The lunch wagon scene is also well-choreographed. The wagon vendor is none other than Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's brother. The scene builds slowly and becomes increasingly hilarious as Chaplin continues to eat items from a tray at the counter while his brother's head is turned. Chaplin hides his dog in his pants when he enters a dance hall, which is where he meets Edna Purviance, a singer of songs of sort. Henry Bergman has a very funny bit playing an overwrought patron affected by one of the songs. Chaplin finds money taken by thieves and finds an ingenious way to rob the other by becoming a puppeteer of sorts. Another chase ensues with everyone after the money, including Chaplin, the thieves, and the police. Chaplin also has time to rescue Edna Purviance from the dance hall proprietor who fails to pay her for her work. Chaplin ends up a happy farmer married to Edna Purviance, which does seem like a tacked on ending, but the film is otherwise terrific in every sense of it being a Chaplin film. ***1/2 of 4 stars.

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Chaplin and Man's Best Friend, 10 February 2008
7/10
Author: ackstasis from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

During the 1950s, while formulating the idea that would later become his greatly-unappreciated 'A King in New York (1957),' Charles Chaplin toyed with the notion of resurrecting the Little Tramp in modern times. "I was wrong to kill him," he would later remark to a reporter; "there was room for the Little Man in the atomic age." However, perhaps due to his advancing age and dwindling health, the director ultimately decided against the move. But he was not to deny the public entirely of his beloved creation: in 1959, Chaplin slightly re-edited and compiled three short films from his earlier days into a feature-length offering, which was entitled 'The Chaplin Revue.' One of these short films, 'Shoulder Arms (1918),' I had already seen, and 'The Pilgrim (1923)' followed just a few days ago. 'A Dog's Life (1918)' was ordered first in the compilation, and, though lacking in the narrative development that I would have liked, it is a delightful comedy short, with a good dose of the pathos that Chaplin would continue to employ with such great success throughout his distinguished career.

'A Dog's Life' was Chaplin's first film for First National Films, a company founded in 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest first-run cinema chains. Two of the corporation's biggest contracts were held by Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, respectively, each representing cinema's first multi-million dollar agreements {Chaplin, along with Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffiths, would go on to form his own struggling studio – United Artists – in 1919}. What is perhaps most impressive about the film is the way in which Chaplin parallels the daily struggles of the Tramp with those of the young dog, Scraps, a Thoroughbred Mongrel {the animal actor was apparently named Mut}. In support of the old adage that good will always be rewarded with good, Chaplin comes to the aid of Scraps when he is being attacked by a gang of predatory dogs, and, in return, the intelligent canine ultimately retrieves the means by which our hero may retire into the country with his sweetheart (Edna Purviance). As in 'The Pilgrim,' the chemistry between Purviance and Chaplin is somewhat unconvincing, but she does elicit a fair amount of empathy in her portrayal of an exploited and cruelly-treated bar singer.

Much of the film's 40-minute running time involves Chaplin's discovery of a large amount of cash, buried by a pair of malicious thieves who pick-pocketed a bumbling old aristocrat. As the criminals realise that the Tramp has uncovered their stash, they will stop at nothing to retrieve their dishonest earnings, and it will take every ounce of Chaplin's – and the dog's – resourcefulness if they are able to outsmart these dim-witted but determined thieves. In the film's most hilarious sequence, the Tramp knocks one of the men unconscious at his table, and, substituting the man's arms for his own, delicately manipulates the other into surrendering the winnings. However, it is at the film's conclusion that 'A Dog's Life' ultimately comes undone, and the final resolution is both abrupt and contrived. Additionally, it seems a bit fraudulent for the Tramp to achieve financial security at the expense of an innocent man, even if he is too wealthy and obtuse to even notice that a fortune is missing. But, then again, who am I to deny the humble Little Fellow a happy ending, especially after all Chaplin put him through?

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3 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
The Kid / The Dog, 23 September 2004
Author: caspian1978 from Boston, MA

Played as a double feature, A Dog's Life is the short comedy that played with one of Chaplin's famous and most adored comedies The Kid. Set in the same atmosphere of the depressing ghettos of 1918, The Tramp becomes friends with a stray dog. A lost soul much like himself, the Tramp and the tramp become friends and become a team. After finding a stolen loot, the two work together to re-take the money they found. The ending is cute and nothing more. For a short, it does the trick of making the audience laugh. The title indicated that this is the story of the dog, when in fact, the Dog is the Tramp! Both are homeless and without love in their lives. By the end of the movie, they both end up finding true love and end up living a better life, together.

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4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
a familiar formula, 3 May 2006
7/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

This film was one of three that were later combined by Chapin into a compilation that was released to theaters in the late 1950s under the title "The Chaplin Review".

Of the three films combined for The Chapline Review, this is probably the most familiar in style and, to me, the least interesting. While it is STILL a very good film, it just didn't seem all that new or different. We have the Little Tramp down on his luck and looking to feed himself when he stumbles upon a poor lonely dog being picked on by the other dogs. So, he adopts it and they both set out on some adventures. I know this may sound strange, but to me this film felt a lot like an earlier incarnation of THE KID--though of course in this case it's a cute mutt and not Jackie Coogan. A very good and entertaining short with no serious flaws.

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