Pay Day
1922 · 28m · USA
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
A laborer on a construction site receives his pay, but his domineering wife demands all the money; he manages to keep enough for a night of drinking, then sneaks home pretending he just woke up for work.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Reversed-film brick-catching is a wonderful little trick, but the henpecked-husband premise dates badly. Solid middle-tier Chaplin.
Chaplin's reverse-motion brick catch and his pioneering night photography make this minor-key marital comedy a quietly significant technical experiment. The story itself is more domestic vignette than masterwork.
The reverse-film brick-catching sequence is exactly the kind of in-camera trick that demands choreography in reverse — you throw the brick away, you film yourself throwing, and the reversed shot has to look natural at speed. Plus early successful night photography. 21m confirmed.
Reviews
Nothing has been said about Chaplin that has not been said a dozen times already.
He made even ushers chuckle.