1916
2.5/4 Stars
The rink is one of Charlie Chaplin’s early short films. It tells the story of his “tramp” character as he works as a waiter, gets into trouble with an oversized angry customer, gets into an altercation at a skating rink, meets a girl, and returns to the skating rink for the grand finale. The film is 20 minutes long.
Given the age of this picture, it is no surprise that it seems dated in many ways. The editing is frenetic and the film seems sped up to accentuate the fast and out of control nature of the roller skating rink. There are still highlights though, such as the large woman getting punched in the face, Chaplin’s acrobatic maneuvers on roller skates, and his grand escape by hitching his cane to the back of a car while still on roller skates. This escape must have been an inspiration to Marty McFly, who would later replicate the same stunt with both a skateboard and then again a hoverboard.
The DVD that I have suffers from a lousy audio-track. Shot before the age of “talkies”, this film was intended to be accompanied by live piano. Instead, there is a relatively lame music track that has countless ill-advised sound effects dubbed in to “enhance” the humor. Hearing a duck quack or kissy noises hurts the overall impact of the film.
Overall though, this is an entertaining piece that still has value. This said, it is far from Chaplin’s best work.
How Mr. Terry manages to criticize the editing, sound and cinematography of a film made before the Treaty of f-ing Versailles is beyond me. This review is the critical equivalent of the 1939 German invasion of Poland minus the valient Polish popular resistance which -- had it been emulated by the cowardly Belgians and French --might have contributed to an early end to the Second World War. I think it's safe to say that, if the reviewer had been around during the era of this film's production, he might have discouraged the entire industry from evolving, robbing us of such modern classics as "Pearl Harbor," "Troy," "City Slicker's 2: The Quest for Ulee's Gold" and most recently "Valkyrie."
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain about this, but it's not likely the film was sped up intentionally at the time of production. This is more likely a result of film speed standards having changed over the years, and then a conscious (or perhaps budget-conscious) decision on the part of whomever transferred this to DVD, to leave the frame rate affected. (It may be that they were trying to convey the look of the film as it had been played back at some specific point in the history of cinema.)
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