By the Sea (1915) User Reviews

By the sea shore

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 7 June 2018]

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors.

From his Essanay period after leaving Keystone, 'By the Sea' is not one of his very best or even among the best of this particular period. It shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career, from 1914, The Essanay period is something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'By the Sea'.

'By the Sea' is not one of his all-time funniest or most memorable, other efforts also have more pathos and a balance of that and the comedy. The story is still a little flimsy, there are times where it struggles to sustain the short length, and could have had more variety and less more of the same repeition.

On the other hand, 'By the Sea' looks pretty good, not incredible but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work (even when deadlines were still tight) and not churning out as many countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious.

While not one of his funniest or original, 'By the Sea' is still very entertaining with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight.

Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well.

"Wifey's away"

[Steffi_P · 5/10 · 10 October 2009]

Just as Chaplin was starting to broaden his films with more structure and storyline in works such as A Jitney Elopement and The Tramp, he appears to have a taken a small step backwards. By the Sea is perhaps the last of his films to hark back to the simple frolics of his days at Keystone.

While it is fairly simplistic in its arrangement of gags, By the Sea does at least show Chaplin's well-developed use of space. Rather than simply stepping into the frame, the little tramp approaches the camera as he strolls along the street, giving his character presence in what was by now his trademark entrance. When he and the straw hat man begin tussling, they start framed quite close to the camera, but Chaplin opens out the space as things become more exaggerated, giving the two men all that room on the beach to run around in without breaking the shot. Then, when the other man begins to throttle Charlie, he brings him forward – a much smoother manoeuvre than actually cutting to a closer shot. There are still one or two problems – for example when the tramp flirts with Edna, Miss Purviance is shown in profile, and the match up of shots is a bit awkward. By the time he was at Mutual studios Chaplin would have learnt to set the angles a bit better to make this kind of shot more natural.

Charlie's sparring partner here is Billy Armstrong, who was something of a replacement for the scene-stealing Ben Turpin, Chaplin's co-star in his first three Essanay pictures. Armstrong is very good, fulfilling his roll as a Chaplin-counterfoil by, basically, falling over funnily. But Chaplin makes the same mistake as he did with Turpin, giving him too large a part so that the pair of them become almost a double-act. More than anything else, it is this tendency towards ensemble comedy that makes By the Sea look like a relic of the Keystone era. This was territory Chaplin did not revisit, and from now on he would concentrate on building up and defining his little tramp character.

And so, we come to the all-important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 3 (2 for, 1 against)

Ab initio.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 3 October 2007]

An early rendition of Chaplin's tramp that lacks much of the inventiveness of his later works. Much of what is enjoyable about it, at least for me, is the picture it yields of a Los Angeles that is underpopulated. There are beach scenes in which a background bather, heedless of the working crew and camera, runs down the strand and jumps into the water. In another shot, a man walks his dog through the seagulls. In still another, a pack of careless and innocent dogs romps and loafs in the background. In 1915 rural roads were unpaved and dusty. Malibu was an empty beach. The San Fernando Valley was home not to strip malls but acre after acre of orange groves. "Smog" was not yet a word.

The movie is funny enough to watch, but not achingly so. Better things were to come.

Very simple, obviously, but definitely one of Chaplin's more endearing short comedies.

[Anonymous_Maxine · 9/10 · 25 July 2001]

By The Sea is one of Charlie Chaplin's very early short comedy skits, and while the plot is necessarily simple, the comedy is effective and the message is clear and fairly heartwarming.

The film concerns some guy on the beach who gets into a hilarious scuffle with another guy on the beach (Chaplin), because they both drop their hats (which, for some reason, are tied to themselves with pieces of string) and subsequently become entangled with one another as they try to get their hats back. Needless to say, they very soon start fighting, in the traditionally comical brawls that are commonplace in nearly all of Chaplin's films.

The plot actually thickens when a woman walks by and Charlie tries to act like he hasn't been fighting, holding his unconscious adversary up while he amusingly tips his hat (like no one else can) by pressing it against the pole that he is leaning on. This type of childishly charming acting is what Chaplin is most famous for and what he is best at, and it works very well here, too. Chaplin has come to be known for his presentations of different class levels in his films, but in By The Sea, one of the themes that is more prevalent is his dislike of authority figures (a standpoint that is shared by Alfred Hitchcock, who had a deathly fear of police officers). When he is fighting with the man on the beach, an officer comes up to break up the fight, accidentally gets knocked unconscious, and Charlie steps on him as he and the other man walk away, soon to agree to a truce.

Eventually, Charlie and the other guy become friends with each other, going out for ice cream. But it seems all the while that they are on the verge of breaking out into another fight – it is clear that they don't trust each other. Even while they are eating their ice cream (which, it turns out, neither is able to pay for), they are knocking each other down and exchanging blows.

Throughout the film, there is a subplot involving Charlie's amorous advances toward two different girls. One is involved with a huge brute of a man that we see in a quick shot early in the film, and one is involved with the man with whom Charlie spends the majority of the film fighting with. The film ends with all five of them sitting on a bench on the beach as Charlie woos one of them after another, not knowing that the two men are right beside him, and they all begin to fight, causing all of them to fall over backward on the bench. While it's true that Charlie encountered numerous hardships during this film, and that the ending wasn't necessarily happy for him, it is still an amusing comedy that serves the purpose that it was meant to serve. Films that are barely nine minutes long can only do so much, and By The Sea really accomplishes a lot.

Fairly mediocre, even for its day

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 5 October 2015]

"by the Sea" is a 1915 black-and-white silent short film by Charles Chaplin. This means, he not only starred in it, but also wrote the script and directed this 14-minute movie that has its 100th anniversary this year. The story was not particularly memorable in terms of dramatic and comedic values. Chaplin has done better on several occasions, but those who admire him more than I do will possibly enjoy this one nonetheless as he cast some of his regular co-actors such as mostly Edna Purviance of course. I don't think this is a particularly good choice to start with in terms of Chaplin, also not if you only include his short film works. There are certainly more interesting films out there by him from around that time. Not recommended.

Largely Routine Short With a Few Laughs

[Snow Leopard · 29 May 2001]

"By The Sea" is one of Charlie Chaplin's many short films, consisting mostly of simple slapstick comedy. In it, Charlie's tramp character visits the sea-side and gets involved in a series of mishaps with other vacationers.

Most of the comic elements are fairly routine: banana peels, melting ice cream, unstable park benches, and so forth. Chaplin does this kind of humor as well as anyone, so there are a couple of good laughs, but in this movie there is not any of the depth that he would display in his more memorable films.

This is a pretty routine short for Chaplin, but that's still not too bad by most standards.

Slapstick By The Sea

[CitizenCaine · 6/10 · 13 July 2008]

Chaplin edited, wrote, directed, and starred in this slight slapstick comedy on a beach front. The film contains many of Chaplin's sight gags for the first time. It may be the first film to make use of slipping on a banana peel, used thousands of times since probably. Besides that gag, Chaplin uses the hat tipping gag, uses his cane to make time on a park bench, and the funniest is the opening scene with the man in the straw hat. Several laugh out loud moments make this an enjoyable Chaplin film, although there are some gags we've seen before. The slapstick scene in front of the ice cream stand is one of them. The film is mainly an exercise in physical comedy and sight gags, the last of which involves the cast on a bench in the sand. For a brief moment in the headlock scene, Chaplin predates Stan Laurel's head-scratching trademark. **1/2 of 4 stars.

too short, too simple and not too satisfying

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 6 May 2006]

This is the shortest Chaplin short I have ever watched. As a result, there is absolutely no time for the development of a story--something SUPER-important to good Chaplin films. In addition, this film is almost pure slapstick--with tons of pratfalls, slapping, hitting, etc. Because of this, the film has absolutely no depth or quality about it. It's just people getting hurt with little reason for this other than cheap laughs. So, I would NOT recommend this film to those who are not very familiar with Chaplin's work--they will get the wrong idea about him. They would incorrectly assume he wasn't that funny and his films were quickly slapped together. While this might be true of the very earliest films he made in 1914, by 1915 he was, aside from this film, doing better and more well-crafted work.

A gale of merriment

[deickemeyer · 26 December 2019]

There is something new under the sun in the way of comedy business. Charlie Chaplin proves this in the opening scenes of his latest comedy, a lively breeze being utilized to fan the audience into a gale of merriment. Only exteriors are used. Fifteen minutes of fun. - The Moving Picture World, May 15, 1915

Funny

[TheOtherFool · 7/10 · 19 October 2004]

Charlie is enjoying a day by the sea, with several people to annoy and kick butt with and some women to fall in love with.

The best scene is when Charlie's hat as well as the hat of a (then) innocent bystander fall of, and they somehow get entangled with each other. That really is some hilarious stuff...

As this, on the whole, is a funny tramp short in which Charlie does some nice tricks with his hat and other object that come in his way. The ending is great, when all characters are sitting in a bench, as it's flipping over...

If you're into the physical Chaplin humour you will sure like By The Sea. 7/10.

quick and simply and funny, if not Chaplin's very best

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 6 September 2008]

This is the kind of shtick put up to please those paying a nickel (or less) 'back in the day' when seeing this for nine minutes could amount to a decent time. What Chaplin is after here is just straight up pantomime, and this is both the strength and weakness of the short. It's great to see bits like Tramp and the man switching hats in the wind, or Tramp and the woman cavorting on the beach, or the "fighting" that ensues between him and a huge handle-bar mustached man. But it seems a little too quick, as if it was shot in a day (or less) and done mostly to cash in on good lighting on a beach. I chuckled throughout, don't get me wrong, though I'm sure there are better ones out there starring the Tramp.

A couple of funny moments...

[JoeytheBrit · 7/10 · 20 August 2005]

For me this is one of the few Chaplin Essanay movies that contain any real laugh-out-loud moments - although they do come fairly early in the film, and nothing else in it compares to these two sequences. The first is the scene in which Chaplin and another man (Billy Armstrong) get their hats, which are attached to them by pieces of string, entwined and then proceed to repeatedly knock each other over as they try to disentangle themselves. The second is the moment in which Chaplin appears to be staring intently at something in the sand in order to get his adversary to lower his head enough to grasp it in a headlock. Chaplin's regular retinue – Purviance, Jamison, McGuire, etc – are all present in this one and offer solid support.

Not his best

[rbverhoef · 7/10 · 25 March 2003]

Although there were some funny things in 'By the Sea' I didn't like it very much. Of course Charlie Chaplin was great in his own way, but it was more predictable than his other shorts, there were less funny moments and the story wasn't a real story. Not a real start and not a real end. For the performance of Chaplin still 7/10.

Screwball comedy without any dialogue

[raskimono · 9/10 · 22 March 2004]

This movie follows the rules of a screwball comedy, a bunch of odd-ball characters in a setting acting foolishly and building to a riotous crescendo. The movie when two men at the seaside collide and entangle themselves a string around their legs. Their petty fights go on to involve a woman, her suitor, a young wife, an icecream stand, a couple of policemen and all this set on the windy day of the sandy beaches. If the aim is to show the happenings at the beach, such as a Jacques Tati comedy which are character study comedies, it fails. But I do not think that is the intention, for no one exists on the beach beyond the characters we are watching. I do remember seeing a man in the background running towards the water. No, this movie wants to make you laugh, and so it does as the pettiness of the characters scramble you into the issues of pettiness that have been blown up into a mountain by you and in this cries out the laughs of this movie. Well-done and acted. Not as technical as other Chaplin shorts but funny as hell.

Fifteen minutes of good humor

[scsu1975 · 6/10 · 30 November 2022]

This is a quick-moving farce, with Charlie getting involved in an altercation at the shore right off the bat. After he and his opponent (Billy Armstrong) agree to end hostilities, they get some ice cream, then start fighting again over who is going to pay for it (that's Snub Pollard behind the counter). Another man (Bud Jamison) gets hit with ice cream in the crossfire and more fisticuffs ensue. Meanwhile, Charlie flirts with Jamison's wife (Edna Purviance). Later, he flirts with Armstrong's wife (Margie Reiger).

Fun to watch, this movie is (thankfully) shorter and more to the point than some of Chaplin's other efforts.

The highlight is the string!

[tgooderson · 5/10 · 20 June 2012]

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.

www.attheback.blogspot.com

The first banana slip gag!

[sean-ramsden · 30 April 2020]

By The Sea is a short film by Charlie Chaplin during his time at his 2nd film studio, Essanay. Apparently, it is the first film to have a man slip on a banana peel. So, surely that's enough reason to give this film a watch?

Unfortunately, it is nowhere near one of Chaplin's best, or even near an average Chaplin film. There are really only 2 comic moments. 1. When he slips on the banana peel. 2. The men's hats being flown around in the wind. There are a few other moments which may produce a giggle from audiences but nothing enough that will make you want to watch it again.

The story is very slim and not completely clear. Edna Purviance stars in a role that is not necessary. I can only see the point of her being there so that there's a bit more of a story to the non-existent plot. Any excuse to film at the beach! Chaplin is still in a stage where he did not worry about camera work, just as long as he could capture the whole scenario in one plain camera angle.

In Chaplin's early days he would sometimes make up the story as he went along, I feel it is likely that he did the same with this short. It is by no means awful, but it is one that you may think at the end 'hmm, that was decent', and then proceed to forget you ever watched it.

6/10!