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 after leaving Keystone, 'The Count' is not one of his very best but is one of his best early efforts and among the better short films of his. It shows 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 period where his style had been found and starting to settle. Something that can be seen in the more than worthwhile 'The Count'. The story is more discernible than usual and is never dull, but is sometimes a bit too busy and manic.On the other hand, 'The Count' 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.While not one of his most hilarious or touching, 'The Count' is still very funny with some clever, entertaining and well-timed slapstick and has substance and pathos that generally were not there with Keystone. It moves quickly and there is no dullness in sight. The ending is great fun.Chaplin directs more than competently, if not quite cinematic genius standard yet. He also, as usual, gives an amusing and expressive performance and at clear ease with the physicality and substance of the role. The supporting cast acquit themselves well, particularly Eric Campbell.Overall, very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

guisreis This is a somewhat surrealist comedy of manners. What if the most nonsense tailor, after having been fired, pretends to be a rich count in a fancy party, stealing the place of his ex-boss (Eric Campbell)? They both are interested in the same woman, who is predictably Edna Purviance, in a Popeye-Bluto-OliveOil-type triangle. Very funny and campy short film. It lacks the emotional element of other films from Chaplin, but the gestures of Charlie are hilarious as often. The spectator may expect a lot of action and trouble, which come from the insane behavior of the tramp as a tailor, from the confusions caused by the party crash, the lack of etiquette from the working class guy, the crush for two women in the party, and the rivalry between ex-boss and ex-employee.

Tom Gooderson-A'Court Charlie Chaplin's fifth film for Mutual is a somewhat simpler film than its immediate predecessors The Vagabond and One A.M. and is more reminiscent of his Essanay work, albeit it more sophisticated and slightly funnier. Chaplin plays an inept Tailor's assistant who gets fired for burning a Count's trousers. His boss (Eric Campbell) finds an invitation to a party at the house of Miss Moneybags (Edna Purviance) and decides to impersonate the rich Count in order to marry the attractive, rich girl. Chaplin is also at the party having snuck in through the back door and beats Campbell to the impersonation. All hell breaks lose though when the real Count arrives, along with the Police to chase out the impostors.The Count features lots of funny moments but lacks the knockout blow of the likes of One A.M. or The Bank. It's testament to the quality of Chaplin's Mutual films that I felt disappointed by The Count even though it is far superior to a lot of his Essanay work.Although there were no huge laughs to be found here I still chuckled a lot. For me the funniest scene was the opener in which Chaplin is taking a woman's measurements. First he measures her ears, then her lips before mistakenly giving her a five foot waste and finishing off by measuring one finger. It was totally bonkers. I also liked his embarrassment with regards to going near any of her more private areas and measured her bottom with a ruler from about four feet away. Another funny scene comes late on in the final chase. Here Chaplin is chased through a house and across a slippery dance floor in a very well choreographed sequence.There are obvious comparisons to be made between this film and A Jitney Elopement in which Chaplin again impersonates a Count to gain Edna Purviance's affections. Chaplin is able to create humour in both films around the dinner table, a trait that continued into the rest of his career. Personally I prefer A Jitney Elopement to The Count but both films have their merits.One final thing of note here is Eric Campbell's beard. It is simply extraordinary even by his standards. I've never seen anything like it before. Ridiculous facial hair is something that is evident in most of Chaplin's earlier films but I think it reaches new levels in The Count.www.attheback.blogspot.com

charlytully In this short, subtitled "The Phoney (sic) Nobleman" on-screen, Charlie Chaplin plays a tailor's apprentice fired for mis-measuring a woman's waist, since he had his measuring tape circling BOTH the customer's bottom AND the mannequin's middle at the same time. The tailor's apprentice makes the notation "Waste--five feet," which apparently is not accurate enough to meet his employer's standards. Which is an analogous situation to the accuracy displayed by IMDb, versus Wikipedia's standards. While Wikipedia requires a source footnote for every claimed "fact," IMDb frequently runs with unattributed MISinformation. Take the running time of this short as an example. IMDb baldly claims it is "34 minutes." My DVD time counter states otherwise: 20 minutes, 32 seconds. Hence, IMDb is claiming--seemingly with no authority--that my DVD was missing 37.5 per cent of this film. However, I studied the 12 user reviews about THE COUNT previously submitted to IMDb during the past 10 years, and EVERY SECOND described in ALL of them were contained in the 20:32 on my DVD. Logically, this means there is either 12-minutes of secret self-contained prologue and\or epilogue material contained in some arcane description of the original no one at IMDb sees fit to share with us ordinary users, OR the folks who run this site just plug in any old "technical specifications" with no effort to check for accuracy. (As an underemployed fact checker, I not only would be happy to help out with this possible need--hopefully on on full-time, paid basis, but I know of several other people that are qualified and able to pitch in during this time of need.)