By the Sea (1915)

It is windy at a bathing resort. After fighting with one of the two husbands, Charlie approaches Edna while the two husbands themselves fight over ice cream. Driven away by her husband, Charlie turns to the other's wife.

Director:

Charles Chaplin (uncredited)

Stars:

Charles Chaplin, Billy Armstrong, Ed Armstrong

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Charles Chaplin	...	Stroller

Storyline

Charles Chaplin, with his big feet performing their usual mirth-provoking perambulations, wanders down to the sea shore. There is some wind blowing, so Chaplin anchors his hat to his head with a cable. He meets a pedestrian whose hat is similarly attached. The two bump, their hats fly off and they scramble for them. When the hats finally are recovered, each has the wrong one. This causes considerable embarrassment when the two cables go taut as the two men separate. Anger soon takes the place of embarrassment when the cables become hopelessly entangled, and they battle all over the beach. After they have fought themselves weary, they shake hands and decide to have a drink. They get ice cream cones and each insists the other have the honor of paying for them. This is unsatisfactory to the drug clerk and another row starts. They smear each other with ice cream and incidentally bespatter a six-foot dandy, which precipitates still more trouble. While the battle is still in progress ...

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Genres:

Short | Comedy

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Certificate:

TV-G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 April 1915 (USA)

Also Known As:

Charlie by the Sea

Filming Locations:

Venice, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company

Technical Specs

Runtime:

14 min

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Edited into Chase Me Charlie (1918)

User Reviews

The highlight is the string!

While on a windy beach The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) turns his attention to two married women and ends up getting in trouble with their husbands. This film feels like a bit of a step back after Chaplin's previous films. It feels much closer to His New Job than the likes of The Champion or The Tramp in that it is a knockabout comedy and a farce which lacks character development. Despite this there is still much to like.

I especially enjoyed Chaplin's use of string attached to his jacket and hat which stops his hat blowing away in the wind. It's a great idea and it's almost a shame it didn't catch on! The idea is used successfully in a couple of ways; Firstly in a scene in which Chaplin and Billy Armstrong gets their strings intertwined and end up tangled up and inevitably fighting and in a second scene while trying to woo Bud Jamison's wife. In this scene Chaplin manipulates the string behind his back to make it seem as though the hat is jumping off his head. It's a simple, clever and very funny idea.

Apart from those two examples and a brief fight involving ice creams there isn't much else of note in this film. There are of course Bud Jamison's over the top eyebrows and the background setting of an almost deserted Los Angeles beach is quite interesting but compared to Chaplin's later films this feels a little weak.

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