Caught in the Rain (1914)

According to my 57 film Charlie Chaplin box set from Brentwood Home Video, this one's called In the Park and it fits in with his Essanay period in 1915. Indeed Chaplin made a film called In the Park in that very timeframe, but this ons isn't it. In this case In the Park is the reissue title of a film made a year earlier called Caught in the Rain. Now In the Park is not a great title, given that only the first couple of the twelve minute running time are actually spent in a park, but it's no worse than Caught in the Rain as that only happens in one scene for even less time. Go figure.

Anyway, it's not bad for one of Chaplin's 1914 movies, but it's hardly a great one. He's apparently a little drunk and so decides to try it on with Alice Davenport who has been temporarily left alone on a park bench by her husband Mack Swain. Swain of course is the inevitable large guy with facial hair and he gets more than a little upset when he realises what's going on. Then it's quickly out of the park and into the same hotel I just watched Chaplin wander around drunk in in A Night Out. In fact most of the gags are the same too, with lots of falling down stairs and getting caught in the wrong bedrooms.

Not bad, but it's all been done before, and obviously this wasn't the last time it was done either, even by Chaplin himself. There's even a short Keystone Kops type routine at the end.