How sad is this?

Absolutely Brilliant!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. He did do better than 'The Fatal Mallet', still made very early on in his career where he was still finding his feet and not fully formed what he became famous for. Can understand why the Keystone period suffered from not being as best remembered or highly remembered than his later efforts, but they are mainly decent and important in their own right. 'The Fatal Mallet' is a long way from a career high, but has a lot of nice things about it and is to me one of the better efforts in the 1914 Keystone batch and a decent acting collaboration with Mabel Normand. 'The Fatal Mallet' is not as hilarious, charming or touching as his later work and some other shorts in the same period. The story is flimsy and the production values not as audacious. Occasionally, things feel a little scrappy and confused.For someone who was still relatively new to the film industry and had literally just moved on from their stage background, 'The Fatal Mallet' is not bad at all. While not audacious, the film hardly looks ugly, is more than competently directed and is appealingly played. Chaplin looks comfortable for so early on and shows his stage expertise while opening it up that it doesn't become stagy or repetitive shtick. Mabel Normand is quite charming.Although the humour, charm and emotion was done even better and became more refined later, 'The Fatal Mallet' is humorous, sweet and easy to like, though the emotion is not quite there. It moves quickly and doesn't feel too long or short. Overall, pretty decent. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Mabel Normand again teams up with Chaplin in another slapstick comedy. Mack Sennett is on hand as a fellow suitor with Chaplin. The film starts immediately with violent brick throwing between Chaplin, Mabel Normand and her beau. Pretty soon there are three men after Mabel, trying to best each other or bop each other in the head. Charlie and Mack Swain end up all wet and Mack Sennett ends up with Mabel, surprise surprise. Many familiar slapstick moments are in this film, and the violent brick-throwing is a bit jarring and unnecessary. However, in silent comedy there was a need to provoke reactions in the audience rather then having to employ over-exaggerated mannerisms to get points across. I saw two versions of this film with reverse camera angles in each film, and I'm wondering if this was a mistake on the restoration part of it. One version appeared to be restored, although they both could have been. *1/2 of 4 stars.

Fatal Mallet, The (1914) *** (out of 4) Chaplin, along with two other guys, fights for the affection of a woman. Instead of using their fist the guys instead throw bricks at one another. This is a very funny film that has some outrageous violence that makes for a good time.A Busy Day (1914) ** (out of 4) Chaplin plays a woman(!) who gets tired of her husbands and decides to fight with him in public. This here really doesn't have a single funny moment but it's still interesting to see Chaplin playing a woman.Caught in a Cabaret (1914) *** (out of 4) Chaplin is mistaken as a Greek Ambassador and must keep a girl's family from finding out. This one here is a real riot with some wonderfully funny fight scenes but the real highlights are the title cards, which feature some very funny one-liners. Also of note is that this storyline would play a big part in future Chaplin films.Knockout, The (1914) *** (out of 4) To show off his braveness, Fatty Arbuckle challenged a professional boxer to a fight. Fatty is funny as usually and like the above film, this one here gets the laughs from violence ranging from punches to items being thrown. Chaplin has a small but funny cameo as the referee.

Rather to my surprise, I actually quite liked this one. Considering that I don't care for slapstick, that the entire plot of this film consists of people hitting each other, and that I'm not Charlie Chaplin's greatest fan, this was extremely unexpected; but in fact, there are good things to be said for a film that consists of nothing whatever but a single, simple gag ingeniously elaborated. Mack Sennett gets better and -- dare one even suggest it in such a context? -- more subtle results here by simply staging repeated variations on a theme than he would have done by throwing in the semblance of a plot (or what passes for one in Keystone territory), let alone by introducing more characters or invoking the Keystone Kops...Despite or even because the whole film is occupied by hitting people over the head, there is scope for some finer detail, such as the shifting alliances of convenience between the various opponents as old grudges are overlaid by more immediate opportunity, and moments of realisation: my favourite was the sequence where Mack Swain comes to and realises that he has been locked in with a Mack Sennett who is going to be *very* angry when he wakes up... and the way that his knees (all that is visible) shake beneath the sackcloth while he tries to hide. But I felt that the player who really shines in this film is Mabel Normand, who has the advantage over the men of being on the receiving end of less constant violence, and thus can really milk her outraged reactions when her suitors' attacks accidentally spill over. The little sequence at the beginning where she sweet-talks Charlie into a close approach after he kicks her in error -- only to knock him unexpectedly flying with the full strength of her diminutive frame -- is laugh-out-loud funny, which is more than can be said for much of Keystone's standard fare.