I love this movie so much

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Gags made on the sake of film studios at such an early time is really something. There are a lot of memorable and I would say iconic moments, the chair moving scene, lunch scene, kissing scene etc are so great. But at the same time, this must be one of the most politically incorrect of the shorts I have seen of Chaplin being racist, homophobic and ironically showing hard work of a labourer getting no recognition and unions strike for nothing and being anarchists. Still considering the time it can be given a little slack.

It's lowbrow slapstick and they knew it, with one of the actors walking off the set after a pie throwing scene saying, "I don't go for this highbrow stuff."Still, thank God for the pie throwing sequence, for its the only genuinely humorous sequence here - with the two "actors" - Charlie and his senior - going against script and throwing pies at each other out of contempt. Elsewhere there are a few chuckles, Chaplin brushing the bear rug's hair for the sets finishing touches comes to mind, but in the early sequences with the totem pole and the trap door, you can see the jokes coming a mile away. Later in his career - in films like 'Pay Day' and 'City Lights' - to name a couple of examples, Chaplin would set up an obvious trap for a slapstick comedian to fall into, but would cleverly find ways to avoid it, thus maintaining the element of surprise. No such cleverness is present here however, and they fall into that trap over and over again.This kind of silliness is run of the mill for 1910's comedy and Chaplin could have written this stuff in his sleep.

In 1914 and early 1915, Chaplin did his first comedy shorts. In general, they were pretty awful--with almost no plot and consisting of him mugging it up on camera and hitting people. However, in 1915 he left Keystone Studio and began making better films with Essenay (though there are some exceptions) and finally, in 1916, to Mutual where he made his best comedy shorts. These newer films had more plot and laughs and usually didn't relay on punching or kicking when they ran out of story ideas.This film is one of these later Mutual Films and has a pretty decent amount of plot. Charlie is a carpenter's assistant on a movie set and his boss mostly sits around doing nothing--making Charlie do all the work. Later, the crew goes on strike and Charlie gets to act (although in real life, Chaplin's sympathies would have definitely been with the workers). In addition, a lady sneaks onto the set and disguises herself as a male laborer. Charlie realizes this and falls for her, though everyone else thinks she's a guy. I particularly liked the scene where Charlie is making out with the lady and really smooching it up good--and his boss looks on with horror! Overall, this is a pretty typical Mutual film--neither better or worse than the average one and worth a look if you get the opportunity.An interesting scene was the one where Charlie picks up the MANY chairs and then the prop piano. This exact same scene was replicated by Syd Chaplin (Charlie's half-brother) years later in THE BETTER 'OLE.

Chaplin plays the part of David, the lowly assistant to the oafish stage hand Goliath, and as is to be expected, everything goes wrong in the most hilarious ways. Being an early short Chaplin comedy, a good portion of the comedy is slapstick, with such elaborately acted scenes as the one with the stage pillar prop that just would not seem to stand up. Poor David works like a slave for the lazy Goliath, but at first, he just keeps messing things up - he just can't seem to do anything right. But later, when he starts working really hard and doing things right, his boss always walks in just as he sits down to rest, and he gets into trouble for loafing on the job, and Goliath, who spends most of his time sleeping, gets all of the credit for David's work.Not only does this film satirize the falsity of film and stage, but it also goes into actual filming, in the surprisingly effective pie throwing scene. Eventually, all of the workers go on strike, leaving only David and Goliath on stage and, as is common in Chaplin's films, he ends up the victor as a result of some inadvertent events concerning a trap door and a lot of guys fighting. The ending of this film is unusually violent for a generally light Chaplin comedy, but the comedic value is never diminished.