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.
He did do better than 'The Masquerader', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Masquerader' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch.
'The Masquerader' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused.
For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Masquerador' is not bad at all, pretty good actually.
While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable, with shades of his distinctive style here, and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick.
Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Masquerader' is still very amusing and hard to dislike. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short. It is Chaplin's second endeavour in drag, 'A Busy Day' being the previous one, and the far more successful one.
Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but pretty good and perhaps one of his better efforts from the early Keystone period. 7/10 Bethany Cox
He did do better than 'The Masquerader', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Masquerader' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch.
'The Masquerader' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused.
For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Masquerador' is not bad at all, pretty good actually.
While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable, with shades of his distinctive style here, and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick.
Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Masquerader' is still very amusing and hard to dislike. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short. It is Chaplin's second endeavour in drag, 'A Busy Day' being the previous one, and the far more successful one.
Overall, far from one of Chaplin's best but pretty good and perhaps one of his better efforts from the early Keystone period. 7/10 Bethany Cox