Making a Living

For his first film, Charlie Chaplin does not yet wear his tramp costume but is dressed as a dandy, a character clearly inspired by Max Linder.

This is a good example of the one- or two-reel slapstick comedies which constituted a large part of American film production at the time. While there is a story which keeps the viewer's interest, it is mainly an opportunity to accumulate as many visual gags as possible. Only four inter-titles are used in the film and they are not even really necessary. Although the filming consists mostly of wide shots and three quarter shots, always with a static camera, the editing gives a very dynamic progression of the action, with a systematic use of cross- cutting. The fact that it is mostly filmed on location in the streets of Los Angeles and in the office of the L.A. Times gives it authenticity and adds now a historical interest with views of the city and of different parts of a newspaper office in 1914, notably shots of a Linotype used for the composition of the newspaper.

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