Mabel Normand [Charles Chaplin] - Mabel's Strange Predicament (1914)

Mabel's Strange Predicament (1914)

USA/Silent/Black & White

Directed by Mabel Normand

Produced by Mack Sennett

Written by Henry Lehrman

Cast: 

Charles Chaplin as The Tramp

Mabel Normand as Mabel

Chester Conklin as Husband

Alice Davenport as Wife

Harry McCoy as Lover

Hank Mann as Hotel Guest

Al St. John as Bellboy

In a hotel lobby, an inebriated tramp runs into an elegant lady (Mabel), where he promptly gets tangled in her dog's leash. Later they meet again in the hotel corridor, with Mabel having been locked out of her room, and following a subsequent adventure in and out of several hotel rooms,  Mabel ends up in the room one of a man where she hides under the bed. Enter the man's jealous wife and Mabel's lover.

Mabel's Strange Predicament is a 1914 American film starring Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, notable for being the first appearance of Charlie Chaplin in his Tramp costume.

The Tramp was first presented to the public in Chaplin's second film Kid Auto Races at Venice (released February 7, 1914) though Mabel's Strange Predicament, his third film in order of release, (released February 9, 1914) was produced a few days before. It was for this film that Chaplin first conceived of and played the Tramp. As Chaplin recalled in his autobiography:

"I had no idea what makeup to put on. I did not like my get-up as the press reporter [in Making a Living]. However on the way to the wardrobe I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I wanted everything to be a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large. I was undecided whether to look old or young, but remembering Sennett had expected me to be a much older man, I added a small mustache, which I reasoned, would add age without hiding my expression. I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked on stage he was fully born."

— Chaplin, My Autobiography, p. 154

Mabel's Strange Predicament is one of more than a dozen early films that writer/director/comedian Mabel Normand made with Chaplin; Normand, who had written and starred in films before Chaplin, mentored the young comedian. Chaplin's Tramp is shown swigging from a flask toward the beginning of the film and subsequently becoming so drunk that he staggers when he walks and falls down repeatedly near the end. His portrayal of drunkenness remains convincingly realistic. The Tramp also keeps his derby cocked throughout the proceedings, a touch that Chaplin abandoned later in his career.