Once at the very beginning of 1914, the name of Charlie Chaplin, the British comedian of the music hall who came to conquer America, was unknown to anyone. But his talent and charm quickly transformed him from a full-time actor into a movie star. Not wanting to remain only an actor, Chaplin took up directing and by the end of the year began to think about leaving Keystone. In principle, this was quite to be expected, since his recent works no longer resemble what was being done in the studio. That in the plot appeared tragicomism, the size of the filmed material was huge and allowed to divide the picture into several parts for screenings in cinemas, the shooting period was delayed. It definitely went against Keystone policy, but it was these films that made money (because Chaplin was in the lead role). Among these atypical last works of the master of 1914, I would like to include the short film "His place of dates".
From the point of view of the plot, we have a typical sitcom. Two men (Charlie Chaplin and Mac Swain) accidentally exchanged cloaks during a quarrel in a public institution. One of them had a bottle of milk in his pocket for a young child, and the other had a love letter. It is easy to guess what their wives felt when they got into the hands of such dirt on the spouses (and the fact that this is someone else’s cloak, none of them understood). In general, a disaster with a fight, a chase, the involvement of a policeman in the park (whom everyone is trying to “reconcile”, as if there was no incident) – everything is loved by fans of Chaplin’s eccentric comedies. Charlie's character is not what he used to be.
The main difference between his Tramp (although I wouldn’t call the main character of “His Date Place” the Tramp) is the presence of a wife and a child. Just imagine: Charlie is a family man. Hard to believe, honestly. But that was it. However, at some point, this fact is forgotten when watching (especially in the scenes Chaplin with Swain). Because you can see that the hero wants to return to that crazy element of mischief, where he left for the sake of boring family life. However, a few years later, in 1921, when the film “Baby” Chaplin will continue to joke about the troubles of the young father, but that will be another story. . .
8 out of 10