"Mabel's Married Life" is a 14-minute black-and-white movie from 1914, so this one is already considerably older than a whole century. Wow. It was directed by the legendary Mack Sennett and the script is by the two protagonists themselves: Chaplin and Normand. The fact that Normand is mentioned in the title and not Chaplin in this movie already tells you what a big star she was back then, still in her 20s just like Chaplin. The story is relatively simple, even for such a brief movie. A bully hits on Mabel and Charlie is of course too weak and tiny to stand up to him. So Mabel gets him a dummy which Charlie is supposed to use for his training. But the dummy will not be subdued this easily. This little movie is certainly among Normand's most known works, also because of her famous co-lead of course. One of Chaplin's movies biggest strength is that, even without intertitles, the action and plot are so physical that you can not only understand the action, but even enjoy it. And this is a massive deal-breaker when it comes to silent films. I give this one here a thumbs-up. Worth checking out and the only slightly boring/forgettable thing was probably the bar scene. Mabel and Chaplin have great chemistry and work together very well.
Review of Mabel's Married Life
