The Fireman

Charlie Chaplin and friends find work in a crooked fire station, where a wealthy businessman makes an arrangement with the chief to conveniently ignore a house fire so he can cash in his insurance policy. Just enough plot to introduce a smidgen of conflict and move us from one setting to the next, lest the scenery grow too static and the props outlive their usefulness. In the first act, Charlie flops around the fire house. Sleeping through alarm bells, miraculously sliding up poles, booting his coworkers in the ass and grossing everybody out with his cooking. Standard silent movie physical humor. The second half whisks us away to the scene of the emergency, where our insurance scam has taken an undesirable turn and the fire must be put out after all. Here, the stakes mount and Chaplin closes the show with a hilarious window rescue scene involving a three-story ladder and an obvious mannequin stand-in. Not one of the comedian's most memorable short films, but (as usual) his physical presence elevates what would have otherwise been a very simple, pointless story. A bit over-stretched, as these things go, but there are far worse ways to burn half an hour.