The Idle Class (2010 screening)

Charles Chaplin: The Idle Class (US 1921). The masked ball. Mack Swain (Edna's Father), Charles Chaplin (in dual role as Gentleman Husband and Tramp, but here as Tramp posing as a Gentleman), Edna Purviance (Wife). Edna and her Father believe they are in the company of Edna's husband. Please click on the photo to expand it.

Joutilas luokka / Fåfäng gå... US 1921. D: Charles Chaplin. Chaplin's music version © 1971 Roy Export, music associates Eric James, Eric Rogers. 32 min. Viewed at Finnish Film Archive, Orion, Helsinki, 21 Oct 2010. – The Idle Class also belongs to the Chaplin films that I have most seldom seen. Chaplin has a double role: as a tramp and as a gentleman. The gentleman is married with Edna, but he is such a drunkard that Edna refuses to share quarters with him at the holiday hotel. The tramp also plays a gentleman, including in a golf sequence where he enters the golf course very inadequately equipped. In a masked ball where the real gentleman Chaplin wears a full armour and the tramp appears as himself, chased by the police, Edna gets profoundly confused. "You look so strange". While not one of Chaplin's famous masterpieces, The Idle Class is a fascinating study of the same themes as in City Lights. – I stayed to watch the beginning of A Dog's Life, such a superior film to both Sunnyside and The Idle Class. Chaplin's 1970s music to all is good. In A Dog's Life it's irresistible.

See also my blog remarks: Film Concert The Idle Class (Charles Chaplin / Frank Strobel / RSO 2013).