Fresh and Exciting

Crappy film

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. Everybody has to have at least one misfire in their careers, even the best directors and actors have not so good films or films they regret. From his early still evolving period before he properly found his stride and fairly fresh from his vaudeville background, like 'His Favourite Pastime', 'A Busy Day' shows that Chaplin is not immune from this. While an important milestone period for him, his Keystone years/films generally were watchable and interesting enough overall but patchy, none being among his best work.'A Busy Day' has a few good points. While a little primitive and not exactly audacious, the production values are far from cheap.There are also a few amusing moments, a little zest on occasions and it was interesting to see Chaplin in drag.Where 'A Busy Day' falls down is that mostly it's not particularly funny. The timing feels limp and there is very little, if any, freshness or originality. There is an over-reliance on slap-stick and it is very broad and very repetitive. There is not much charm here and there is not much to be emotionally invested by. The story is flimsy, so much so things feel over-stretched, there are not many Chaplin short films where a short length feels very dull but 'A Busy Day' is one of them.Found myself uncharacteristically disappointed by Chaplin, which was not expected because generally even in lesser efforts he was one of the better things about them. Here he does not look interested and goes through the motions, there is none of the comedy/directing genius that he is deservedly hailed for. The rest of the cast are not much to write home about.In conclusion, an early career misfire. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Not much is the same about A Busy Day and Kid Auto Races at Venice except that for the early scene in this film where Chaplin is causing a disruption at a parade, where a camera crew are attempting to film. He begins as a member of the audience (a female member, as it were), and almost immediately begins kicking and punching everyone in sight, and repeatedly being thrown into the same policeman, who seems each time to find the incident surprising and annoying but otherwise unimportant.As was the case in The Masquerader, Charlie is oddly convincing as a woman, and it is not until he starts throwing punches and kicks that it becomes clear that he is Charlie and not a woman. His diminutive stature and effeminate demeanor (not to mention the absence of close-ups and the help of almost 100 years of deteriorated film stock) help to pass him off as a woman, but his behavior is so familiar from so many short comedies full of punching and kicking that once the comedic violence starts, it's just Chaplin in a dress doing the same thing that he did in so many other films at the time.Of course, I say all of this in retrospect, because I am sure at the time audiences found the idea of a man dressing up like a woman and starting fights was endlessly hilarious, but the content of the comedy has not fared quite as well as Chaplin's later work. (spoiler) But at least since he insists on ending another film by falling in the water, he puts something of a spin on the idea here.I did, however, also find this film a bit interesting because it was filmed on location, so it shows a little of what Los Angeles looked like almost 100 years ago. I only wish I knew where exactly in LA it was filmed, just because I know the city so well and I love to think about Chaplin shooting his films on the same streets where I have been so many times. In A Day's Pleasure, for example, the opening scene is shot right next to his studio on La Brea Avenue, where I have been countless times, and I find it to be fascinating to look at that film and then go look at what the exact same spot looks like today.

In 1914, Charlie Chaplin began making pictures. These were made for Mack Sennett (also known as "Keystone Studios") and were literally churned out in very rapid succession. The short comedies had very little structure and were completely ad libbed. As a result, the films, though popular in their day, were just awful by today's standards. Many of them bear a strong similarity to home movies featuring obnoxious relatives mugging for the camera. Many others show the characters wander in front of the camera and do pretty much nothing. And, regardless of the outcome, Keystone sent them straight to theaters. My assumption is that all movies at this time must have been pretty bad, as the Keystone films with Chaplin were very successful.The Charlie Chaplin we know and love today only began to evolve later in Chaplin's career with Keystone. By 1915, he signed a new lucrative contract with Essenay Studios and the films improved dramatically with Chaplin as director. However, at times these films were still very rough and not especially memorable. No, Chaplin as the cute Little Tramp was still evolving. In 1916, when he switched to Mutual Studios, his films once again improved and he became the more recognizable nice guy--in many of the previous films he was just a jerk (either getting drunk a lot, beating up women, provoking fights with innocent people, etc.). The final evolution of his Little Tramp to classic status occurred in the 1920s as a result of his full-length films.In this film, Charlie is dressed (awfully convincingly) as a woman. And, unfortunately that's really about all there is to the movie. No real plot other than Charlie in drag slugging people. The movie gets a 3 just because of its historical value and because it's cool to see how pretty a girl he made! These reasons alone are NOT enough reason for you to see this film.

A Busy Day is probably one of Chaplin's first comedies (it's at least in his first year of screen acting, 1914). He is not the Tramp, but actually playing a woman, a henpecking wife who drives her husband to another woman. Alas, film comedy had not matured yet, so, like many of its kindred films, A Busy Day contains only the broadest slapstick comedy: woman hits man, man hits woman, woman kicks man in butt, repeat. However, scrolling through this film's alternate titles, I came upon something utterly interesting: one of those alternate titles was The Militant Suffragette!!! I'm not exactly sure when women got the vote (I know that the first presidential election they voted in was 1920), but, judging from that title, this film may have been criticizing (humorously, not seriously) women who wished to have political rights! Now how's that for history!