Easy Street (film)

Easy Street
Directed by Charles Chaplin
Edward Brewer (technical director)
Produced by Henry P. Caulfield
Written by Charles Chaplin
Vincent Bryan
Maverick Terrell
Starring Charles Chaplin
Edna Purviance
Eric Campbell
Cinematography Roland Totheroh
George C. Zalibra
Edited by Charles Chaplin
Distributed by Mutual Film Corporation
Release dates
  • January 22, 1917 (1917-01-22)
Running time
 19 min USA,
Germany 24 min (restored version)
Country United States
Language Silent film
English intertitles
Easy Street

Easy Street is a 1917 short action-comedy film by Charlie Chaplin.

Plot

In a slum called Easy Street, the police are failing to maintain law and order.

The Little Tramp is sleeping rough outside a mission near the streets of a lawless slum. He is reformed somewhat at the mission where there is singing and religious education. His religious awakening is inspired by a beautiful young woman who pleads for him to stay at the mission.

Spotting a help wanted ad for a job at the police station, the Little Tramp accepts and is assigned the rough-and-tumble Easy Street as his beat. Upon entering the street he finds a bully roughing up the locals and pilfering their money. The Little Tramp gets on the wrong side of the bully and following a chase the two eventually come to blows culminating in the Little Tramp inventively using a gas lamp to render the bully unconscious.

The bully is taken away by the police but manages to escape from the station and returns to Easy Street. After a long chase the Little Tramp manages to knock the bully unconscious by dropping a heavy stove on his head from an upstairs window. On returning to his beat on Easy Street the unruly mob knock the Little Tramp unconscious and drop him into a nearby cellar where he manages to save the aforementioned beautiful young woman from a nasty drug addict after accidentally sitting on the drug addict's needle. Supercharged by the effects of the drug he takes on the mob and heroically defeats them all and as a consequence restores peace and order to Easy Street.

Cast

Sound version

In 1932, Amedee Van Beuren of Van Beuren Studios, purchased Chaplin's Mutual comedies for $10,000 each, added music by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples and sound effects, and re-released them through RKO Radio Pictures. Chaplin had no legal recourse to stop the RKO release.[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ SilentComedians entry
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