Looking for work in His New Job; aka, Charlie's New Job (1915), Charlie Chaplin is in the waiting room of an outer office, hoping for any job at all on a movie set.

He's being a little too friendly with a young woman who doesn't like the attention. We're reminded right away that in his earliest films, Chaplin's "the tramp" character looked right but was not yet the set-upon innocent he would become. He'll be assaultive throughout the film, a prankster who risks injury to others without just cause.

Another man (Ben Turpin) comes in looking for the same job & begins harrassing Charlie, who holds his own pretty well as they end up attacking one another to see who can be first in for the interview.

Hired to do work on the set with the carpenter (Arthur W. Bates), Charlie's clumsiness causes problem atop problem, mostly pretty ordinary gags.

One recurring gag is "running into door, falling down"; so to be sure, this one doesn't contain Charlie's best gag writing.

The director (Charles J. Stine) needs an extra for a Napoleonic duel scene & sends Charlie to get in costume. He's looks at the room doors, one for extras, one for the star, & intentionally selects the star's room & puts on the star's costume, an intentional act of troublemaking.

Heading back to the set, he gets side-tracked by a game of craps, so shows up late missing the instructions for the scene. He's been put in more consequential scenes than the director intended, with no idea of what's going on.

The gags continue to be poor ones: knocking part of the set over; stabbing people intentionally with his prop sword; clumsily putting the sword back in its sheathe, & getting in random fist fights, injuring people who've done him no harm at all. The humor just isn't in this one.

Charlie didn't get along with Ben Turpin & would soon block Ben from being cast as a co-star; The Champion (1915) would be their last film together. With His New Job Ben comes so close to stealing the show, due more to Charlie's failure to write himself a good enough part than because Ben's all that good. Charlie may well have wanted him out so as not to be upstaged again.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl