Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Ehirerapp Waste of time

Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Adam Peters (72%) Chaplin highlights his roller-skating talent in this briskly paced 20 minuter set around Charlie as a waiter. There's some nice somewhat more subtle jokes centred around Charley working out the bill by seeing what customers have split onto their clothes, and a mix-up in the kitchen leading to a diner served a scrubbing brush. Charlie's character is not a complete down and out, or very wealthy, but more fun loving and fancy free, and once he's given an hour of free time he hits the rink. This is very much a standard Chaplin early movie that benefits from his skating ability and charm, although the version I saw is a poor cheap money grab as it needed some restoration.

Robert J. Maxwell Chaplin was almost always amusing but it occurred to me while watching this story of a waiter who woos a girl at a skating rink that in his earlier films he was more often the perp than the vic.This was released in 1916 and Chaplin is a rude waiter who humiliates guests and steals money. If a stranger happens to be bending over and fastening a lady's roller skate, Chaplin can't help giving him a swift kick in the pants when he passes by. There's nothing here about "the little people." If the tramp is little, it's because that's his most comfortable social niche.Ten years later, in "The Gold Rush," Chaplin had introduced humanity into his character, an innocent who is more sinned against than sinning.Ten years after "The Gold Rush", he was sending social messages about worker alienation. (That's what happens when your work permits you to take no pride in having done it well. Anyone up for McDonald's Chicken Nuggets?) But in movies like "Modern Times," the milieu is only a peg from which to hang gags that are more hilarious than ever. And movies about poverty in 1936 were hardly uncommon anyway.The gags here are sometimes spectacular, and always speedy. The tramp could certainly skate well.

MissyH316 This is one of my top favorite Chaplin shorts, because of the abundance of slapstick action and of course Charlie's jaw-dropping roller skating skills! Another reviewer mentioned that this left us wishing he'd have put the skates on more often. It'd be 20 years before we'd see the likes of this again in "Modern Times". But I absolutely LOVE this one!In that context, I thought this might be a good example of how my overall opinion of Chaplin's earlier work differs from some other fans & critics. I don't subscribe to the notion that his Tramp character wasn't so "likeable" in the early days as he became more even-tempered so over time. His aggressive tendencies when aggravated or impatient were much less restrained early on. But I actually enjoy seeing this in the Tramp; the aggression, to me, actually makes him more attractive in a "manly" way and I like/love him no less for it. Chaplin's little guy has a lot of backbone and is no pushover (figuratively). An adversary's size (or sometimes gender) made no difference to him; he's no more afraid of the monstrous Eric Campbell than he is of anyone else. You didn't mess with Charlie! As a fairly short and un-intimidating woman, I've often wished *I* had that kind of chutzpa in the face of bullies. ;-) The 3 Stooges were often the same way: after a point, you didn't mess with them, either! Several key players who worked with the Stooges like director Del Lord and supporting stars Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent, all cut their teeth in Sennett's silent movie slapstick. Jamison is in several of Chaplin's early shorts, and Del Lord was once the driver of the Keystone Cops. So you can see it's possible that the little Tramp's persona in some ways foreshadowed and shaped those of the Stooges.

bob the moo Chaplin is a waiter in a chaotic restaurant. After he work he visits a skating rink for roller skates where he meets a girl but upsets plenty of others. She invites him to a skating party later – but can he win her heart whilst avoiding others?Based on a sketch this short required Chaplin to expand the set-up to cover the longer running time and it occasionally shows. The restaurant scene is good but the real meat is in the two skating scenes that are fast and well choreographed to be amusing and skilfully done.Chaplin is good as the little tramp and is even better when called on physically in the skating scenes. He shows his talent in those scenes much more than the others, however the actual plot needed a little more of the relationship in the wings even if it is just a short film.Fans, however, will enjoy it regardless.