Easy Street is a 1917 short action-comedy film by Charlie Chaplin.
Plot
Easy Street - Kristin Chenoweth as the wonderful Lily St Regis *I was named after the hotel* ^_^ I just had to put it up!!
In a slum called Easy Street, the police are failing to maintain law and order.
The Little Tramp is sleeping rough outside a mission near the streets of a lawless slum. He is reformed somewhat at the mission where there is singing and religious education. His religious awakening is inspired by a beautiful young woman who pleads for him to stay at the mission.
Spotting a help wanted ad for a job at the police station, the Little Tramp accepts and is assigned the rough-and-tumble Easy Street as his beat. Upon entering the street he finds a bully roughing up the locals and pilfering their money. The Little Tramp gets on the wrong side of the bully and following a chase the two eventually come to blows culminating in the Little Tramp inventively using a gas lamp to render the bully unconscious.
The bully is taken away by the police but manages to escape from the station and returns to Easy Street. After a long chase the Little Tramp manages to knock the bully unconscious by dropping a heavy stove on his head from an upstairs window. On returning to his beat on Easy Street the unruly mob knock the Little Tramp unconscious and drop him into a nearby cellar where he manages to save the aforementioned beautiful young woman from a nasty drug addict after accidentally sitting on the drug addict's needle. Supercharged by the effects of the drug he takes on the mob and heroically defeats them all and as a consequence restores peace and order to Easy Street. By the end of the film, even the bully has become a respectable, churchgoing citizen.
Review
A reviewer from Variety wrote, "The resultant chaos and several new stunts will be bound to bring the laughter, and the star's display of agility and acrobatics approaches some of the Douglas Fairbanks pranks. Chaplin has always been throwing things in his films, but when he 'eases' a cook stove out of the window onto the head of his adversary on the street below, that pleasant little bouquet adds a new act to his repertory. Easy Street certainly has some rough work in it--maybe a bit rougher than the others--but it is the kind of stuff that Chaplin fans love. In fact, few who see Easy Street will fail to be furnished with hearty laughter."
Cast
- Charlie Chaplin ... The Derelict
- Edna Purviance ... The Mission Worker
- Eric Campbell ... The Bully
- Albert Austin ... Minister/Policeman
- Lloyd Bacon ... Drug Addict
- Henry Bergman ... Anarchist
- Frank J. Coleman ... Policeman
- William Gillespie ... Heroin addict
- James T. Kelley ... Mission Visitor/Policeman
- Charlotte Mineau ... Big Eric's Wife
- John Rand ... Mission Tramp/Policeman
- Janet Miller Sully ... Mother in Mission
- Loyal Underwood ... Small Father/Policeman
- Erich von Stroheim Jr. ... Baby
- Leo White ... Policeman (uncredited)
- Tom Wood ... Chief of Police (uncredited)
Sound version
In 1932, Amedee Van Beuren of Van Beuren Studios, purchased Chaplin's Mutual comedies for $10,000 each, added music by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples and sound effects, and re-released them through RKO Radio Pictures. Chaplin had no legal recourse to stop the RKO release.
See also
- Charlie Chaplin filmography
References
External links
- Easy Street on IMDb
- Easy Street at AllMovie
- Article at InDigest Magazine about the film recently being scored by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver)