Tom Gooderson-A'Court A ship owner intends to scuttle his ship and asks his Captain to round up a crew. The Captain in turn hires a Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) to help him 'Shanghai' (forcibly conscript) some sailors. This backfires for the tramp though as he himself is Shanghaied. On board ship the Tramp attempts to help out with a variety of different tasks but unsurprisingly is useless at all of them. Meanwhile the ship owner's daughter (Edna Purviance) has stowed away aboard ship in an attempt to stop the crime of scuttling and save her lover, the Tramp.After the wonderful highs of The Bank, this film was a huge come down. It is by far my least favourite Charlie Chaplin film to date although there are inevitably some good moments to be found.The only joke that made me laugh out loud was Chaplin's ridiculous naval salute which was somewhere between blowing a raspberry and a high five. While that is hilarious, the rest of the film isn't. The only other joke that made me even smile was when Chaplin throws a rescue rope behind him by accident. The rest of the gags were mediocre. Chaplin was to find success with a nautical theme just a couple of years later in The Immigrant and you can see the workings of some of the jokes from that classic film during Shanghaied. The most notable of these was the dinner during choppy seas. In addition to one or two decent jokes there is also some nice close-up work, something which was rare for Chaplin at the time. In one scene the fuse of some dynamite is shown in very close zoom rather than the traditional wide shot of the whole set. This marks further development of Chaplin's ever expanding film craft. The one final aspect of the film that I enjoyed was Chaplin's incredible tray handling skills. This is something he revisited years later in Modern Times but while it is more spectacular there, it feels much more real here.As well as The Immigrant the film also has shades of Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr in that both central characters are bumbling buffoons in love with a ship owner's daughter. Keaton's later film undoubtedly takes some elements from Shanghaied but adds much more and is a far superior film.My main problems with this film were that the story felt under developed and there weren't enough jokes. It feels like Chaplin got an idea of 'the Tramp on a ship' and just made it up as he went along (something that was often the case in early Chaplin films). While this was sometimes very successful, here it is far less so.www.attheback.blogspot.com

JoeytheBrit This is another early Chaplin film made for the Essanay Studio, and while it has its moments it certainly isn't one of Chaplin's best. It's difficult to sympathise with his plight when he finds himself shanghaied into service on a boat because he was responsible for most of his equally reluctant shipmates being there as well. More important than this though, is the fact that it just isn't that funny, with too many gags running for far too long and therefore outliving the laughs they originally generate. There's also a curious lapse in spatial awareness when Chaplin is seen to exit left from one room then enter left into the next room. Given Chaplin's reputation for perfection, this might be down to the print I saw being made up of two prints spliced together with one unintentionally reversed. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing – it was a couple of weeks ago

Petri Pelkonen Charlie Chaplin and his Tramp character gets shanghaied by crooks.This means some harsh work on a ship.This all happens after a shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money.Charlie also happens to be in love with the shipowner's daughter.And she stows away to get to Charlie and gets on board of the ship, that is about to be exploded.Shanghaied (1915), which was shot largely on board of SS Vaquero, was Chaplin's 11th film for Essanay.Alongside Charlie we see who else but the lovely Edna Purviance, who plays Daughter of the Shipowner.Wesley Ruggles plays Shipowner.Bud Jamison is Second Mate, The Other Man.Billy Armstrong is First Shanghaied Seaman, while Paddy McGuire plays the second and Leo White plays the third.John Rand is Ship's Cook.Fred Goodwins is Cabin Boy in Coveralls and Lee Hill is Sailor in Rain Hat.Chaplin does his usual antics and makes people laugh.We see Charlie with a mallet, hitting a bunch of men in the head and therefore they get shanghaied, just like Charlie does a minute later.Charlie tries to serve food during the gale and he becomes seasick.And then Chaplin with the bomb...It's a riot!

MartinHafer This is a pretty enjoyable Chaplin short from 1915. While certainly not among his best, it is worth seeing and is far from a bad film. In fact, up until the rocking ship segment of the film, it was probably a good bit better than average. Charlie was offered a job helping some sleazy ship's captain from kidnapping a crew for his boat--which the owner already intended to blow up for the insurance money (this is DEFINITELY not a ship you'd want to work). In the end, he, too, is conked on the head and becomes an unwilling crewman.However, despite a good beginning, soon Chaplin chooses to incorporate a rocking boat sequence into the film while he worked as a dishwasher. I've seen rocking boat scenes in two other Chaplin films already before this (including A PERFECT DAY and one other that doesn't immediately come to mind). I really hated this because although Chaplin was known for his attention to detail, these scenes by him were always handled very sloppily. Once again, the boat rocked way too fast and way too quickly--while the ocean appeared very calm. It just looked stupid and didn't make me laugh. A rolling boat COULD have been very funny--but not one that looks like that! Well, after this lousy part of the film, the short got better and involved Charlie saving the boat and the lives of everyone. At least it ended well.