After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

When I was around 11 I LOVED Charlie Chaplin films. I thought they were great displays of physical comedy. My favourites of his movies were The Kid and City Lights. I remembered his shorts being a little dated in terms of humour, and it is. With that being said it does not make this un-enjoyable.The plot of this short is that everybody's favourite tramp emerges on a road. He saves a woman from being mugged by three incompetent thieves and while repetitive it is fun to watch the Tramp fight them. He goes to the woman's house asking for a reward. Her father says that the reward will be to give the Tramp a job. While that is going on he (un)intentionally causes pain to the people around him (and that has actually aged well after 98 years). The three bumbling thieves then re-emerge and with the drop of a hat The Tramp accepts in helping them steal this woman's money. In reality however it was a scheme to fight the thieves off another time, the unfortunate twist on this story is that the woman is in love with someone else.Now for a comedy film to still hold up enough for fresh eyes to enjoy it after 98 years is pretty damn impressive. It is actually pretty funny seeing this character's antics causing others (or himself) pain whether it is intentional or not. Because those parts are the parts that hold up.I am also giving this movie extra credit because at the time film was in it's experimental phase with directors like this trying to get across a story that is funny while also getting invested. In the case of The Tramp, call me crazy but in 26 minutes - even with all his antics I was actually invested in the character (or maybe that's nostalgia resurfacing from his other movies) I was a little sad that he didn't get the girl.So if you love old fashioned slapstick humour then this is easily for you. I am definitely going to give his full-length films another shot but I am going to start with the ones I haven't seen yet. As a comedian Charlie Chaplin was funny when I was 11 and it is still funny now when I'm 17.

Charles Chaplin is a tramp who gets in trouble with three hobos.He also saves a girl of his dreams from the hobos, a beautiful farmer's daughter played by Edna Purviance.The girl is grateful at the little tramp and he takes him home with her and he starts working at the family farm.Being a farmhand isn't really his cup of tea and also the hobos show up again causing some trouble.Happiness doesn't often seem to follow the tramp and he notices the girl of his dreams is already taken.Chaplin's The Tramp (1915) marked the beginning of his most known character as we know him today.The difference between this and his more slapstick character in the earlier films was the sad ending and showing he cared for others, rather than just himself.Chaplin works so great together with Edna Purviance, just like he did in so many other films.Ernest Van Pelt plays The Farmer.Paddy McGuire plays Farmhand.Lloyd Bacon is Edna's Fiancé/Second Thief.Leo White is First Thief while Bud Jamison plays Third Thief.The Minister is played by Billy Armstrong.This short comedy holds some funny stuff inside.Charlie walking around with that pitchfork is funny.Or Charlie trying to milk the cow from its tail.Obviously The Little Tramp hasn't spent too much time on a farm.Also using the mallet in the end.Charles Chaplin was born 120 years and one day ago.For his second film, Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) he wore baggy pants he borrowed from 'Fatty' Arbuckle, size 14 shoes that belonged to Ford Sterling, a tiny jacket from Keystone Kop Charles Avery, a bowler hat belonging to Arbuckle's father-in-law and Mack Swain's mustache trimmed down to toothbrush size.The Tramp was born!

Of course, Chaplin's early career is over-flowing with famous short comedies, but The Tramp is probably one of the most well-known of the early two-reelers, especially since it is one of the most direct studies of the famous character after whom the film is named. A lot of the Keystone and Essanay films have dated pretty badly, and The Tramp is no exception. Many people may find a lot of the plot confusing or pointless, just random slapstick comedy, although I have a feeling that some of it was not meant to be much more than that. It starts out with the tramp wandering down a dusty road, soon knocked over by the gusts of wind created by two speeding cars, only to pick himself up and dusts his wildly over-sized pants off with the handy little brush that he carries with him, apparently for just such an occasion. There are some clever an amusing sight gags involving things like a pitchfork and huge bags of flour and lot of mallets to the head, but not much in the slapstick department that is entirely memorable.What the film is more famous for is certain elements of the tramp's personality that we learn here, such as his efforts to be proper and presentable despite being broke and wearing pants big enough for two or three of him, along with a jacket that's too small. We also see him protecting a young woman from the bullies of several oafish men, each of whom could easily have brained the little fellow (as Chaplin later lovingly called him), except that he is too smart for them.The film is most memorable for the closing shot, however. Things don't go as planned, we are not given a happily ever after ending, and the movie closes with the tramp again wandering alone down a dusty road, at first seemingly depressed, until after a second or two, he perks up and all but dances down the road. He didn't get what he wanted and he's still poor and lonely, but he faces his life with a smile and seems like he's off to make the best of it. In a lot of ways, that sums up one of the recurring themes that Chaplin espoused throughout his lengthy career. Smile.

`The Tramp' is significant for establishing Chaplin's working-class character in the popular consciousness, but it lacks the ingenuity and surprise of Chaplin's later films. The tramp's trademark appearance and mannerisms became universally beloved, but they are not what made Chaplin great. His genius is in his vision of how to use filmmaking techniques to confound and endear his audience. Here, the closest he comes is when he devises umpteen ways to tell a joke using a pitchfork. Many of them just aren't that funny.Rating: 5.5