Absolutely amazing

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

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. He did do better than 'Between Showers'. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'Between Showers' is a long way from a career high, but does have historical significance for obvious reasons. 'Between Showers' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and a good deal of other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious, the humour only amusing and lacking freshness at times. For someone who was new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'Between Showers' is not bad at all. While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. The Tramp did become more likeable later but again he was still evolving. Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'Between Showers' is mildly humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short. Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but not bad at all. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Chaplin is groomed like the tramp and he looks like the tramp but he could be anybody in this disjointed tale about three mashers, a puddle, and an umbrella.The editing is poor enough to lose the plot from time to time, if there is a plot that extends beyond the individual slapstick-filled scenes.The film has a certain slight charm as an historical curiosity. Here it is -- 1914 in Los Angeles, and what looks like Echo Park might have looked in 1914 Los Angeles.A dog wanders innocently in and out of a scene but nobody cares. The pratfalls are backward somersaults. It's all very casual and lacks poetry.

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.Apart from one or two moments, this film has little to offer other than guys slugging each other and mistreating women. No laughs--just amateurish crap by today's standards.

The ten minute short film Between Showers is best seen, perhaps, as a historical document. More than ninety years old, it serves as a reminder that movies has both changed and not changed since that time. This is obviously a silent, which calls for a visual kind of humour. The plot is thus fairly straight forward and serves as an excuse for the characters to fall on their butts and fight in an overly theatrical manner, judged by today's standards anyway. However, it is interesting to see Chaplin's crude and early attempts at what he and others (Jackie Chan to name one of our contemporaries) would later perfect – well timed physical humour. No doubt intended as entertainment for the moment, Between Showers lacks the social commentary of the 22 years younger masterpiece Modern Times, but it contains a seed, albeit small, of the breathtaking acrobatics displayed therein.Of historical interest.