One A.M.
1916 · 27m · USA
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
A wealthy, thoroughly drunk gentleman arrives home by taxi in the early hours of the morning and spends the entire film in a virtuoso solo battle against his own household objects — stairs, a pendulum clock, a revolving table, and an almost sentient folding Murphy bed — as he tries to get himself upstairs and into bed.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Chaplin solo, drunk, in formal wear, losing a war of attrition against a Murphy bed — this is Chaplin distilled to pure prop combat. Strange and great.
Chaplin's solo virtuoso piece against an animate household, performed without the Tramp, anticipates the choreographed-objects logic of Mr. Bean by sixty years. The Murphy-bed sequence alone justifies the running time.
Chaplin solo for the entire 26:50 (per YouTube) battling a Murphy bed, a pendulum clock, and his own staircase — the choreography of him versus inanimate objects is a virtuoso solo-comedy performance with no foil to share the load. Different from his Tramp playbook.
Reviews
Chaplin, by himself, creates all the action that is necessary to produce the laughs for which he has become noted, and there is no doubt that this is the most exacting role the comedian has ever essayed.
A tour de force of Chaplin's superb pantomime and comic creativity performed in a restricted space, a brilliant experiment.