TheLittleSongbird Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. From his post-Essanay period when he was working for Mutual, 'One A.M.' is not one of his very best. His Essanay and Mutual periods show a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career, from 1914, The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence periods where his style had been found and starting to settle. 'One A.M.' is among the best of his early work and for me it is one of the best of his output under Mutual.Certainly other efforts of his have more pathos and a balance of that and the comedy than 'One A.M', which is very comedy-oriented. On the other hand, 'One A.M' looks pretty good, not incredible but it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. Appreciate the importance of his Keystone period and there is some good stuff he did there, but the more mature and careful quality seen here and later on is obvious here and preferred.'One A.M' is one of his funniest from this period and does it without being over-reliant on slapstick. Some very impressive stunts here. It moves quickly and there is a more discernible and busier story to usual, even if at times it could have had more variety.Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives a very funny and expressive performance and at clear ease with the vast physicality of the role. It was essential for him to work, being a one-man show and he succeeded brilliantly, for me it was one of his best performances up to this point of his career.In summary, very well done indeed. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Steffi_P With The Vagabond, the picture before this, Charlie Chaplin had made his first story in which the drama was strong and professional enough that it could have stood up on its own without the comedy. In One A.M. he takes things the other way, dispensing with any semblance of a plot and simply having fun in a stripped down one-man situation short.Unburdened with any need for narrative or supporting players to spar with, Charlie simply does what he can with the various props around the home of his wealthy drunkard character. While much of the act looks semi-improvised, as ever Chaplin shows sensibility in framing and timing. There is a great example here of how he makes the audience anticipate a gag and builds up a kind of suspense to it. Every time Charlie attempts the staircase, the camera tilts up with him, bringing an over-sized pendulum into view for a few seconds before he tumbles back down again. We know that sooner or later he is going to make it, only to be knocked back down again by the pendulum, only we don't know when. This build up makes the eventual blow funnier than if it had happened out of the blue.As you can imagine, with one character and one location stretched over two reels the humour is a bit hit and miss. In particular there is a lot of repetition, with some recurring gags rolling round once or twice too often. It is in fact the small, by-the-way moments that provide the best laughs, such as Charlie taking the opportunity to pour himself a drink when he happens to land in front of the whiskey decanter. After all, Chaplin was a smart comedian as well as a pratfalling clown. In any case, the situation of One A.M. is one most of us will be able to relate to, and perhaps have a wry chuckle at its embarrassing familiarity, even those of us not fortunate to have a tiger-skin rug or a revolving table in our homes. Which brings me onto another point; I think it's significant that he chose not to play this one as his usual little tramp character. Not only does it make sense for this well-off chap to have a house full of fun stuff, but I think it is more satisfying for the audience to see the upper class twit lurch around making an ass of himself, as opposed to the downtrodden tramp.And now, it's time for that all-important statistic -Number of kicks up the arse: 1 (1 for, although I'm not sure if it should count against stuffed cats)

RainDogJr This one is a good Chaplin short film however not extremely good. The situation is really simple and really great and Chaplin manages to make it very entertaining. We have a drunken -wealthy- Chaplin who will watch a moving house and who will have some complications after a nights of drinks and of course before he can be finally resting. Chaplin is alone this time, once we don't watch any more the taxi driver that left him in his house and that is played by Albert Austin, and of course he is capable of anything, practically his character is enough to make very difficult the way to bed to himself!One of the moments that in my humble opinion is one of the funniest things of this short film happens pretty soon. Picture this: drunken Chaplin arrives home and he can't find his keys however he manages to enter to his house by the window. Once there he finally finds his keys so he goes out, again by the window, to finally open the door to enter to his house!!! After that hilarious moment drunken Chaplin finds many obstacles and some of these situations are also really funny. Basically anything will cause a problem to drunken Chaplin (the stairs, his bed, etc.) but eventually he manages to be in peace to finally sleep, after all it seems that the bathtub can be as comfortable as a bed! Finally, 8.5 out of 10.

jojo-36 This is wonderful early Chaplin stuff. His use of props and gimmickry are definitive. How do you suppose he could fall down the stairs that many times and still get up unhurt? The man was a genius!!.