Tillie's Punctured Romance

Charlie Chaplin plays a close approximation of his Tramp character in this quick cut of superficial slapstick with an undercurrent of dark humor. I wasn't aware until after the fact that this was actually the very first feature-length comedy in cinematic history, but in retrospect that explains a lot. In some ways the film is downright visionary, but in many others it clearly isn't quite sure what to do with itself. The plot is barely one-note, cyclical and redundant to the end - the same characters keep getting put in the same situations over and over again - which leads me to believe it was just a case of a single-reel premise stretched over the length of a full flick. Chaplin, still discovering his on-screen sea legs, shows a ton of command and potential, but his performance is often raw and uneven. Mabel Normand is adorable as his on-screen counterpart, a fellow con-artist out to get her cut of the riches Chaplin so gracelessly pursues. A curiosity as a vivid piece of living, breathing history, it doesn't have much up its sleeve and really drags despite a very short runtime.