BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

deickemeyer This is another two reel comedy manufactured in Mack Sennett's comical factory out in Californy state. It caused so much laughter you couldn't hear what the actors was talkin'. Charles Chaplin was the leading fun maker. Mabel Normand, with several of the actors finished the show artistically. Sennett must have been behind the camera. Continuous laughter greeted the offering. - The Moving Picture World, May 9, 1914

CitizenCaine Caught In A Cabaret explores a couple of Chaplin's ongoing themes in his films while still incorporating many of the familiar elements the public had come to expect from him. Mabel Normand is listed as the writer/director of this film, but Chaplin is known to have contributed his direction as well. Chaplin is a waiter in a drinking establishment who later poses as someone of importance while saving a lady from a masher, as it was called in those days. Chaplin attends a high-hat party and then later on the lady and her friends decide to go slumming in Charlie's establishment. Chaplin has to quickly revert to a slummer himself so as not to give things away. Instead of choosing to end the film by making a point about classicism, Chaplin simply ends it with a pie fight. He stuck to the familiar and was not ready to become a more "serious" comedian yet. ** of 4 stars.

talaxina I recently had the pleasure of finding two DVDs of Charlie Chaplin shorts in one of those "Dollar Stores". And this film was just one of many gems in the set.Written and directed by Mabel Normand, the film showcases her talent in both fields. But, of course, the spotlight shines on Chaplin. In the guise of his well known Little Tramp character Charlie plays a waiter who takes an hour off for lunch and ends up rescuing Mabel from a masher.She invites him to lunch with her, and a comical case of mistaken identity leads to a slapstick free-for-all when Mabel and her high-class entourage wind up dining at the same Cabaret where Charlie works as a waiter.A classic example of Keystone wackiness ! Watch for Roscoe Arbuckle's wife, Minta Durfee, in a supporting role as a wild socialite !

Michael DeZubiria Unfortunately, Caught In A Cabaret, being one of Chaplin's earliest films, has deteriorated pretty badly over the last nine decades or so, and this deterioration seems to have affected the film's continuity, making it look like the editing is botched. As is the case with most of Chaplin's films, the action in Caught In A Cabaret runs slightly faster than real life, which enhances much of the slapstick comedy but also makes several short clips in the film go by so fast that they are virtually incomprehensible. (spoilers) The main theme of Caught In A Cabaret deals with rich vs. poor, a theme that Chaplin later became famous for and which he made use of so often because of his own poverty stricken childhood. This film concerns a working man who pretends to be someone else in order to get accepted into a group of wealthy people. It is not expected that at the end he does not get the girl and winds up walking down a dirt road alone, but his activities throughout the film make his point clear. As he is at a party with the rich people, he gets drunk and makes something of a fool of himself, but when he is working as a waiter, he is fairly heroic, ridding the place of unwanted ruffians and whatnot. Caught In A Cabaret has not survived too well physically, but it is an excellent example of the type of early work Chaplin did as he became famous as one of the most loveable characters in cinematic history.