This is an excellent example of what the Tramp could do; the premise is simple as the Tramp is working as a waiter (and there's some wackiness there with misunderstandings with a customer), and when he gets a few cents he goes to the roller rink. The stunts that he does over and over show off just how keen he was to get a gag just right, but it all comes down to us believing that Chaplin can really do this. I don't know if this took the number of takes that he would later do on his features (he could be a perfectionist actually as far as doing dozens of takes if he didn't like something), and it's amazing to think that he made this short, as he did for a lot of his films at the time, in a relatively short amount of time. The logistics for how he goes on the skates makes me almost think watching it 'Tony Hawk, eat your heart out!' That it's all consistently funny and charming, that it doesn't let up for 24 minutes, is the icing on the cake.
Review of The Rink
