This was another early Charlie Chaplin film that he also directed. Since it's for the Mack Sennett Keystone Studio, expect lots of punching, slapping, and throwing of bricks. In Laughing Gas, The Tramp is a dentist's assistant who sometimes acts like he's his boss. One of the ways he takes advantage of that is when he steals kisses from one of the lovely female patients by using one of those tweezers to pull her face toward his. And she seems to like it! That was one of the funniest scenes for me. There's also a funny fight/chase between him and Mack Swain that causes Swain to go guess where! So on that note, Laughing Gas is recommended and is available on a DVD collection called "American Slapstick".
13 Reviews
a few good laughs, a lot of inexplicable punching
planktonrules23 June 2006
I've seen quite a few Chaplin shorts from early in his career and I've noticed that his early stuff (done for Keystone Studios) is pretty dreadful stuff. Unlike his wonderful full-length films from the 20s and 30s, the films from 1914-1915 are incredibly poorly made--having no script but only vague instructions from the director. In most cases, the films had almost no plot and degenerated to people punching and kicking each other.
This short is quite a bit better than the norm. While at times the plot degenerates to a lot of punching and kicking for absolutely no reason at all, the film also has a few decent laughs as Charlie pretends to be a dentist. Nothing outstandingly funny, but compared to the generally boring stuff he did for the studio, it's a big improvement.
This short is quite a bit better than the norm. While at times the plot degenerates to a lot of punching and kicking for absolutely no reason at all, the film also has a few decent laughs as Charlie pretends to be a dentist. Nothing outstandingly funny, but compared to the generally boring stuff he did for the studio, it's a big improvement.
Chaplin Is A Dental Assistant
CitizenCaine29 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Chaplin plays a dental assistant in this one. There are several moments highlighting physical comedy and sight gags in this film. The hitting, slapping, and falling bits are better timed and funnier than in most early Chaplin efforts, though of course we've seen it all before. The tremendous size difference between Chaplin and the dentist he works for is used to particular good advantage. Chaplin's bit on the staircase, his trick rolling his hat on his arm, and his use of the pincers to steal a kiss are also very funny gags. As with most of Chaplin's early films, the film is uneven. However, Chaplin edited and directed this film, and the film moves at a frenetic pace and has much quicker edits between scenes than any previous Chaplin film. ** of 4 stars.
You don't need laughing gas to laugh at this!
weezeralfalfa30 September 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This early Charlie Chaplin/Max Sennett comedy short much reminds me of the 1928 Laurel and Hardy silent "Leave 'em Laughing" , which is actually 10 min. longer, but seems about the same length, because the segment that takes place in a dental office, is actually much shorter than that in the present film. Laughing gas, as an anesthetic and laugh inducer, is involved in both films. In this film, laughing gas is used on only one patient, and he walks out before any dentistry is performed. There is little laughing by the actors. In contrast, in the L&H film, L&H laugh raucously and continuously for the last 8 min., mostly while driving a car....... So, what do we have to laugh about, in this film? Yes, every now and then someone gets slugged, or kicked, or pushed or hit by an opening door. After he knocks down 2 people, Charlie steps on their chest, on his way somewhere. Little actual tooth pulling happens, and, then, not by the dentist, but by Charlie, who is his assistant. When Charlie takes it upon himself to be in charge, he chooses a pretty young woman who just arrived over an older woman, who's been there a while, and who seems to be in great pain. That other woman immediately leaves. In the chair, Charlie pinches her nose with the pliers, and turns her head toward him, so that he can kiss her. He repeats this several times(poor nose!). The woman seems startled, but doesn't vigorously object. However, when he suddenly lowers her into a prone position, she gets up and leaves. Then, Charlie extracts a tooth from a man, using oversized pliers. To get a good grip on the tooth, he straddles the man. This is followed with a throwing melee, involving several in the waiting room. At the conclusion of this melee, the dentist's wife, who accidentally had her skirt pulled off by Charlie earlier, arises from the couch, and slugs Charlie, then collapses back on the couch.......Loved that Dixieland background music, which raises my evaluation a notch......See it at YouTube!
Charlie at the dentist
TheLittleSongbird27 May 2018
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 'Laughing Gas', 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. 'Laughing Gas' 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.
'Laughing Gas' 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, 'Laughing Gas' is not bad at all.
While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on 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, 'Laughing Gas' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.
Overall, pretty decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox
He did do better than 'Laughing Gas', 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. 'Laughing Gas' 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.
'Laughing Gas' 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, 'Laughing Gas' is not bad at all.
While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on 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, 'Laughing Gas' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short.
Overall, pretty decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox
Early Chaplin, and quite a brawl
wmorrow5928 December 2006
Viewers accustomed to the Charlie Chaplin of City Lights and Modern Times may be startled to see just how rowdy his early Keystone comedies could get. In some cases these movies amount to little more than 10 or so minutes of wild slapstick, and when the prints are in poor condition even rudimentary plot-lines become incoherent. A few of the Keystones display a degree of finesse and are well worth watching (I'd put The New Janitor and The Masquerader on the short list of Charlie's most enjoyable early films), while others are of interest only to Chaplin buffs determined to see all his work, even the scrappy and unpleasant stuff—which brings us to Laughing Gas. Charlie plays a dentist's assistant in this one, more of an office helper than an actual dentist, though he takes an active role in anesthetizing patients. This short presents Charlie at his most violent: hurling bricks, kicking butts, and fighting with practically everybody, especially Mack Swain. I enjoy good slapstick, but I found this short exasperating to watch. Admittedly, the print I saw was in bad shape and thus difficult to follow, especially towards the end, but I suspect that even if a pristine camera negative of Laughing Gas turned up in a vault somewhere it wouldn't make much difference, quality-wise. For audiences of 1914 it was an exciting novelty to see the knockabout action of vaudeville and burlesque transferred to the new medium, but nowadays it's difficult to find genuine humor in something like this, for me anyway.
Chaplin was still in his apprenticeship at this point and had only recently started directing his films. He obviously didn't care whether viewers liked his screen character or not, but just wanted to keep the tempo fast and frantic. (Or was he trying to please his boss, Mack Sennett?) It's clear that the action in this film, like most of the Keystones, was loosely improvised from scene to scene, without any larger sense of purpose. On that level, buffs may be interested to compare this early, "unedited" Chaplin with the later perfectionist who demanded multiple takes. Typical gag: Charlie, pretending to be the dentist while his boss is away, flirts with a pretty young patient, then takes a pair of pincers, pinches her nose, and yanks her face over for a kiss. Okay, it's a little on the rough side but a decent gag. But overkill sets in rapidly as Charlie repeats the business three or four more times to diminishing returns. (Maybe it got a big laugh on the set?) Early on, however, there's a nicely performed bit of physical comedy: Charlie follows his employer's wife up some stairs, stumbles, attempts to steady himself by grabbing her, and yanks her dress off. It's startling and cleanly performed without looking over-rehearsed, and is perhaps the funniest bit in the film. Otherwise, it's non-stop fighting. Silent comedy fans with a special interest in Chaplin's work will want to see Laughing Gas, but there's no strong reason to seek it out otherwise unless you crave slapstick in its most chaotic form.
Incidentally, the actress playing the dentist's wife (i.e. the one who loses her dress) is Alice Howell, who went on to star in a series of her own. Stan Laurel later cited her as one of the finest comediennes of the silent screen. I haven't seen enough of her films to form an opinion myself, but the nice contribution she makes to Laughing Gas whets my appetite to see more of her work.
Chaplin was still in his apprenticeship at this point and had only recently started directing his films. He obviously didn't care whether viewers liked his screen character or not, but just wanted to keep the tempo fast and frantic. (Or was he trying to please his boss, Mack Sennett?) It's clear that the action in this film, like most of the Keystones, was loosely improvised from scene to scene, without any larger sense of purpose. On that level, buffs may be interested to compare this early, "unedited" Chaplin with the later perfectionist who demanded multiple takes. Typical gag: Charlie, pretending to be the dentist while his boss is away, flirts with a pretty young patient, then takes a pair of pincers, pinches her nose, and yanks her face over for a kiss. Okay, it's a little on the rough side but a decent gag. But overkill sets in rapidly as Charlie repeats the business three or four more times to diminishing returns. (Maybe it got a big laugh on the set?) Early on, however, there's a nicely performed bit of physical comedy: Charlie follows his employer's wife up some stairs, stumbles, attempts to steady himself by grabbing her, and yanks her dress off. It's startling and cleanly performed without looking over-rehearsed, and is perhaps the funniest bit in the film. Otherwise, it's non-stop fighting. Silent comedy fans with a special interest in Chaplin's work will want to see Laughing Gas, but there's no strong reason to seek it out otherwise unless you crave slapstick in its most chaotic form.
Incidentally, the actress playing the dentist's wife (i.e. the one who loses her dress) is Alice Howell, who went on to star in a series of her own. Stan Laurel later cited her as one of the finest comediennes of the silent screen. I haven't seen enough of her films to form an opinion myself, but the nice contribution she makes to Laughing Gas whets my appetite to see more of her work.
Trash
AnonymousbutDilpreet00227 July 2020
This is easily the worst Charlie Chaplin film I have watched till now.
It uses the same style of comedy Charlie later became synonymous with. But it's so poorly made that you can not laugh even if you wish to. It's all about kicking, hitting, throwing bricks and falling over each other which to this day, remain the most overused cliches in slapstick.
It uses the same style of comedy Charlie later became synonymous with. But it's so poorly made that you can not laugh even if you wish to. It's all about kicking, hitting, throwing bricks and falling over each other which to this day, remain the most overused cliches in slapstick.
Pasible Chaplin Material
nuts4clara29 May 2019
A so-so Chaplin entry where the material is not as good as it should be. The interaction with Chaplin and the pretty dental patient is good, but the film as a whole is crying out for better slapstick. 6 out of 10 stars.
He tells audiences what to do, but it is difficult to join in
Horst_In_Translation21 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Laughing Gas" is an American live action short film from 1914, so this one is already over a century old and it also runs for 14 minutes. With this age, nobody can be surprised that here we have a black-and-white silent film. The writer, director and lead actor is the legendary Charlie Chaplin and this is a film from his very first year in the entertainment industry. The title already gives away that many characters are laughing in this little movie and why they do so. Most of the action is linked to a dentist for which Chaplin works and he causes a great deal of mayhem there, not just with gas, but also with people's teeth etc. This is one of the rare Chaplin (short) film that could have needed more intertitles actually as I felt that the story was not too easy to understand at times and it was more than just a little bit awkward to see everybody constantly laughing in this film and you as an audience member have no clue what is actually going on. Admittedly, the comedy at that point from Chaplin is still far away from the level of his career-best works because here we have the approach for example of Chaplin punching a guy and that is the joke. So as a whole, this one can impossibly receive a positive recommendation. I give it a thumbs-down unless you are a gigantic Chaplin fan and suggest you watch something else instead.
Chaotic and rushed
the-antichrist-is-near21 January 2022
The low quality (as obvious for a movie over a hundred years old) doesn't help with smoothning the plotline, which is very thin. The whole film feels rather rushed and overly chaotic due to all the slapstick without any pauses.
Asides from that, the acting is great!
Asides from that, the acting is great!
A cross section of Chaplin's first year in film-making.
Anonymous_Maxine10 May 2007
It is no secret that Charlie Chaplin spent most of his first year in film-making churning out simple short comedies for Keystone Studios, in which he spent most of his time either kicking, punching, and throwing bricks at people or planting kisses on uncomfortable women. Laffing Gas is kind of a cross section of Chaplin's first year in film because it has all of those elements, as well as about the same ending as most of the other Keystone films, but it also shows a lot of Chaplin's most brilliant talents, the tricks that he does with his body and his cane and his hat.
Also, I am not sure if it was just the copy that I watched, but part of the film plays in regular motion, rather than the slightly fast motion of most of the other short films, so you can see pretty clearly what it actually looked like when they were filming the fight scenes. Early in the film, Charlie walks into the dentist's office where he works and immediately has a fistfight with another guy, the receptionist, I guess, in the office. And this guy is tiny, by the way .Chaplin was a little guy himself, but this other guy makes Chaplin look like a giant. Anyway, they have a fight scene that is in normal speed, so it almost looks like slow-motion.
The film is also one of the more violent of the Keystone films; at one point a guy gets hit in the face with a brick and then seems to spit out some teeth, soon landing himself in the dentist's office and being worked on by Charlie, who threw the brick in the first place, with a pair of what looks like bolt-cutters. There is a brief use of laughing gas in the film, but most of it is another ten minute slapstick fight scene interspersed with some genuinely brilliant moments.
Also note that one scene in the film is filmed on the sidewalk in front of a place called the Sunset Pharmacy, which I imagine was a real place somewhere on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. If anyone knows anything about that, please let me know!
Also, I am not sure if it was just the copy that I watched, but part of the film plays in regular motion, rather than the slightly fast motion of most of the other short films, so you can see pretty clearly what it actually looked like when they were filming the fight scenes. Early in the film, Charlie walks into the dentist's office where he works and immediately has a fistfight with another guy, the receptionist, I guess, in the office. And this guy is tiny, by the way .Chaplin was a little guy himself, but this other guy makes Chaplin look like a giant. Anyway, they have a fight scene that is in normal speed, so it almost looks like slow-motion.
The film is also one of the more violent of the Keystone films; at one point a guy gets hit in the face with a brick and then seems to spit out some teeth, soon landing himself in the dentist's office and being worked on by Charlie, who threw the brick in the first place, with a pair of what looks like bolt-cutters. There is a brief use of laughing gas in the film, but most of it is another ten minute slapstick fight scene interspersed with some genuinely brilliant moments.
Also note that one scene in the film is filmed on the sidewalk in front of a place called the Sunset Pharmacy, which I imagine was a real place somewhere on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. If anyone knows anything about that, please let me know!
Better than his other movies i have saw.
abhihari-9400022 March 2021
I think Chaplin is over rated because i have saw couple of movies but none of his act entertained me. I was constantly looking at watch to when it will end.
But i must say that this was somewhat better than his films i watched earlier. But my suggestion is avoid it if you can.
Do something fruitful. This is my 1st review.
The sole purpose of writing the review is to save your time as i havewasted mine.
Laughing Gas review
JoeytheBrit28 June 2020
A chaotic early Chaplin film for Keystone, and as with most of his movies for Mack Sennett's studio, it's not exactly subtle. The little comic spends most of his time throwing bricks and kicking arses, and it's clear that everyone involved was winging it. There are a few laughs, and the action is too frantic to get boring.
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