Tillie’s Punctured Romance is a historically significant film. It’s the first feature length comedy ever and it’s also the last Charlie Chaplin at Keystone film when ordered by release date. It is a pretty epic way to tie him off. Those watching every Chaplin film can see this as a finale to this era. Functionally, the film has a lot of Keystone elements, but now things take longer to progress and the story escalates. Sometimes the movie will seem like a more typical comedy before Keystone antics break out, like when bricks suddenly start being thrown. There’s some filler that is very similar to the types of things viewers would be familiar with. There’s scenes of Tillie, Charlie Chaplin, and Mabel Normand walking around being silly. We deal with things like someone getting drunk for the first time and someone in a hurry to run away from where a problem is.
Despite the filler, the film has a decent pace and isn’t too boring. Keystone two-reelers are often more tedious, as if they had one-reel of material and stretched it out. The main benefit of Tillie is that you’re always curious what will happen next. This studio has functioned as an idea box of sorts and plenty are used here. Some of the “ideas” thrown at the cast aren’t what you would expect. Even if they are, they’re still in a journey that satisfies, even though probably for only one viewing. The main negative is that if you don’t find the studio funny, all you have is the story and characters. They’re alright enough, but they don’t make a strong impact. There are more dialogue scenes than you might expect. They aren’t too bad, but it would’ve been ideal to have fewer of them. They are unexpected as they focus on the main characters in a way that often develops them. It’s nice to see that even the first feature comedy can understand that it’s important to care about the characters.
The two female leads, Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler, make weak impressions. Dressler is particularly similar to Chaplin’s weaker moments of always managing to make messes and be a little too clumsy and dumb to be approachable. Charlie Chaplin is much better, having an aura of confidence and a seductive nature, only to be far weaker and pathetic underneath. It helps that he seems to be getting the best scenes. There’s a great bit where he’s nervous and starts picking at his cane, taking it apart. Chaplin as always is great at falling in a funny way. Charlie is someone you can love to hate. When Tillie accidentally steps on Charlie’s foot after a few occurrences of her accidentally hurting him, he raises his cane, as if to strike her. There’s a scene where a woman upsets Charlie. He goes to backhand her and a cop nearby laughs. Charlie is quick to seduce Tillie, with the latter seeming a little uncomfortable. She’s easily won over. While the romance is obviously underdeveloped, the movie doesn’t put much importance in it, so it’s excusable. It’s arguably part of the joke how fast they decide to wed.
The warm lighting and pretty shots make this one of the better directed Chaplin at Keystone films. Other favorite moments are Mabel’s introduction where she walks up to the camera; a shot of Mabel in front of a street, with us seeing the camera capture down the road; and a slightly shadow-covered policeman being filmed with a low angle, making him seem more intimidating. Charlie Chaplin’s introduction of his back to the camera before turning around looks pretty snazzy and would’ve been a fantastic way to introduce him in his first film. The editing is better than the shorts, but still could use some work.
There’s a scene in front of a movie theater where all the background posters are for Keystone films. The film within a film, A Thief’s Fate, is hilariously cheesy. A man finds a note that fell off a girl that reveals she has money and her family had to work very hard for it. At a party, it appears a man flirts with Charlie. It’s hard to interpret him as something other than a coded queer. There’s a few big fight scenes of varying levels of relevance to the story. They all feel like they were included as it’s such a staple of Keystone. They’re fine enough, with the very last one being kind of cute. They at least look better than a lot of the ones in shorts. They don’t feel very natural to the story, with there not being much build up. Only one is particularly annoying due to it in a way substituting for better character moments.
SPOILERS
When Charlie sees Tillie’s father hide a large sum of money, he leaves to the other room and closes the door. While this isn’t of consequence in the movie, if he actually closed the door in real life, he would be revealing through the sound that he saw the money. When Tillie is upset at a restaurant, surrounding men try to calm her down. Why would they care? After Tillie is arrested, she conveniently has rich relatives who bail her out. It’s funny when in the movie within a movie, the female accomplice of the thief extends her arms and yells when she’s arrested. She also laughs like an over the top villain.
Tillie applies for a job. Does she have a place to live? She has no money, so how could she? One of the funniest moments is when Charlie discovers that Tillie has inherited a fortune from her uncle in a newspaper. He hurries to Tillie to marry her. He gets down on his knees on the wet ground and manages to make a mess. Tillie marries him. Her doing so doesn’t make sense due to how poorly he treated her before. Also, the newspaper said she was the only heir, yet her father was shown to be alive. Later, Tillie decides to kill Charlie for cheating and starts firing at him, often in crowds. It’s a shame that this very out of the blue element is happening instead of something that deals more with the characters’ established emotions and arcs. Tillie keeps having pretty clear shots to hit Charlie and then either doesn’t shoot or doesn’t hit. She appears to forgive Charlie briefly, only to get mad at him right after.
There’s a 180 degree rule break with Tillie firing at Charlie and Mabel. It’s also obvious that the mansion and the dock are two very different areas, yet the editing suggests they’re right next to each other. It seems the uncle really being alive didn’t add anything. You’d think that would be what scared Charlie away, but that instead happens because he was caught cheating. Also, no one made sure the uncle was dead? There is no final joke, with the very last scene light on humor. While the lack of humor is a shame, the positives of the film really play into it as it is cathartic to see Tillie and Mabel both break up with Charlie and hug, as if they’ve gotten over either committing crimes and/or getting upset over things like Charlie. This scene would work far less if the characters were written worse.
OVERVIEW
It probably wouldn’t be hard to make a fifty-minute cut of this eighty-minute film without anything seeming missing. The film also suffers due to the lack of good jokes. The movie has a nice enough story for when you want something like this, but it stretches out its small few novelties until about breaking point. Without Charlie Chaplin, the lack of a good performance might push the movie to being unwatchable. While Chaplin from basically the beginning of his career was giving good performances, he sometimes had times where he seemed to be phoning it in. Even when he was trying, it sometimes wasn’t for the best film. Sadly very few of the thirty-five surviving are worth a viewing. It seems Chaplin understood that as he kept making fewer and fewer films a year until 1920 where he made zero. After that it was once in a while. The good and/or worthwhile Chaplin at Keystone films are Making a Living, Mabel’s Strange Predicament, The Star Boarder, Twenty Minutes of Love, Caught in a Cabaret, A Busy Day, The Face on the Barroom Floor, and The Masquerader. Tillie’s Punctured Romance doesn’t make the list, but wouldn’t be too bad a watch in addition to the others.
The Filme Diary 