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About The Good for Nothing

Charlie meets a couple and agrees to care for the man's crippled uncle. After the couple breaks up the man's new girl drops some eggs which Charlie slips on while trying to control the wheelchair. Charlie sets up the uncle near another wheelchair on a jetty, from which he lifts a beggar's cup and "invalid" sign. These he places with the uncle, and money begins to roll in. Charlie takes the money and buys himself a drink. Returning, he gets to know the abandoned young woman. After pushing the uncle and his chair into the drink and battling the beggar and two policemen (one of whom arrests the uncle), Charlie beats up his rival and gets the girl.

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• Baxter Martin on 19 January at 11:28

  “The Good For Nothing/His New Profession” (1914, Chaplin)
  
  “The Good For Nothing” would be Chaplin’s 25th film as an actor and 11th as a director. The last couple of shots in this film are Charlie yawning and walking off with the girl as if admitting that the ending to all the slapstick antics is predictable. In this case it is boy gets girl in the end and gets drunk on someone else’s dime (no pun intended!). Two moments which made me laugh out loud are Charlie falling into what seems to be a pile of shit on the sidewalk and attempting to rub it off on the park lawn as he scoots along. The other moment came later are Charlie is flirting with the girl of the story. He fumbles with his hat which has a torn rim, and upon placing back atop his head, he tips it sideways away from the torn rim. Nice!
  Always a few funny moments in these early Chaplin Keystone films. There's also a scene in which Fatty Arbuckle plays a bartender!
  

  
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