The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

"Laughing Gas" is an American live action short film from 1914, so this one is already over a century old and it also runs for 14 minutes. With this age, nobody can be surprised that here we have a black-and-white silent film. The writer, director and lead actor is the legendary Charlie Chaplin and this is a film from his very first year in the entertainment industry. The title already gives away that many characters are laughing in this little movie and why they do so. Most of the action is linked to a dentist for which Chaplin works and he causes a great deal of mayhem there, not just with gas, but also with people's teeth etc. This is one of the rare Chaplin (short) film that could have needed more intertitles actually as I felt that the story was not too easy to understand at times and it was more than just a little bit awkward to see everybody constantly laughing in this film and you as an audience member have no clue what is actually going on. Admittedly, the comedy at that point from Chaplin is still far away from the level of his career-best works because here we have the approach for example of Chaplin punching a guy and that is the joke. So as a whole, this one can impossibly receive a positive recommendation. I give it a thumbs-down unless you are a gigantic Chaplin fan and suggest you watch something else instead.

Chaplin plays a dental assistant in this one. There are several moments highlighting physical comedy and sight gags in this film. The hitting, slapping, and falling bits are better timed and funnier than in most early Chaplin efforts, though of course we've seen it all before. The tremendous size difference between Chaplin and the dentist he works for is used to particular good advantage. Chaplin's bit on the staircase, his trick rolling his hat on his arm, and his use of the pincers to steal a kiss are also very funny gags. As with most of Chaplin's early films, the film is uneven. However, Chaplin edited and directed this film, and the film moves at a frenetic pace and has much quicker edits between scenes than any previous Chaplin film. ** of 4 stars.

It is no secret that Charlie Chaplin spent most of his first year in film-making churning out simple short comedies for Keystone Studios, in which he spent most of his time either kicking, punching, and throwing bricks at people or planting kisses on uncomfortable women. Laffing Gas is kind of a cross section of Chaplin's first year in film because it has all of those elements, as well as about the same ending as most of the other Keystone films, but it also shows a lot of Chaplin's most brilliant talents, the tricks that he does with his body and his cane and his hat.Also, I am not sure if it was just the copy that I watched, but part of the film plays in regular motion, rather than the slightly fast motion of most of the other short films, so you can see pretty clearly what it actually looked like when they were filming the fight scenes. Early in the film, Charlie walks into the dentist's office where he works and immediately has a fistfight with another guy, the receptionist, I guess, in the office. And this guy is tiny, by the way .Chaplin was a little guy himself, but this other guy makes Chaplin look like a giant. Anyway, they have a fight scene that is in normal speed, so it almost looks like slow-motion.The film is also one of the more violent of the Keystone films; at one point a guy gets hit in the face with a brick and then seems to spit out some teeth, soon landing himself in the dentist's office and being worked on by Charlie, who threw the brick in the first place, with a pair of what looks like bolt-cutters. There is a brief use of laughing gas in the film, but most of it is another ten minute slapstick fight scene interspersed with some genuinely brilliant moments.Also note that one scene in the film is filmed on the sidewalk in front of a place called the Sunset Pharmacy, which I imagine was a real place somewhere on Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles. If anyone knows anything about that, please let me know!

Viewers accustomed to the Charlie Chaplin of City Lights and Modern Times may be startled to see just how rowdy his early Keystone comedies could get. In some cases these movies amount to little more than 10 or so minutes of wild slapstick, and when the prints are in poor condition even rudimentary plot-lines become incoherent. A few of the Keystones display a degree of finesse and are well worth watching (I'd put The New Janitor and The Masquerader on the short list of Charlie's most enjoyable early films), while others are of interest only to Chaplin buffs determined to see all his work, even the scrappy and unpleasant stuff—which brings us to Laughing Gas. Charlie plays a dentist's assistant in this one, more of an office helper than an actual dentist, though he takes an active role in anesthetizing patients. This short presents Charlie at his most violent: hurling bricks, kicking butts, and fighting with practically everybody, especially Mack Swain. I enjoy good slapstick, but I found this short exasperating to watch. Admittedly, the print I saw was in bad shape and thus difficult to follow, especially towards the end, but I suspect that even if a pristine camera negative of Laughing Gas turned up in a vault somewhere it wouldn't make much difference, quality-wise. For audiences of 1914 it was an exciting novelty to see the knockabout action of vaudeville and burlesque transferred to the new medium, but nowadays it's difficult to find genuine humor in something like this, for me anyway.Chaplin was still in his apprenticeship at this point and had only recently started directing his films. He obviously didn't care whether viewers liked his screen character or not, but just wanted to keep the tempo fast and frantic. (Or was he trying to please his boss, Mack Sennett?) It's clear that the action in this film, like most of the Keystones, was loosely improvised from scene to scene, without any larger sense of purpose. On that level, buffs may be interested to compare this early, "unedited" Chaplin with the later perfectionist who demanded multiple takes. Typical gag: Charlie, pretending to be the dentist while his boss is away, flirts with a pretty young patient, then takes a pair of pincers, pinches her nose, and yanks her face over for a kiss. Okay, it's a little on the rough side but a decent gag. But overkill sets in rapidly as Charlie repeats the business three or four more times to diminishing returns. (Maybe it got a big laugh on the set?) Early on, however, there's a nicely performed bit of physical comedy: Charlie follows his employer's wife up some stairs, stumbles, attempts to steady himself by grabbing her, and yanks her dress off. It's startling and cleanly performed without looking over-rehearsed, and is perhaps the funniest bit in the film. Otherwise, it's non-stop fighting. Silent comedy fans with a special interest in Chaplin's work will want to see Laughing Gas, but there's no strong reason to seek it out otherwise unless you crave slapstick in its most chaotic form.Incidentally, the actress playing the dentist's wife (i.e. the one who loses her dress) is Alice Howell, who went on to star in a series of her own. Stan Laurel later cited her as one of the finest comediennes of the silent screen. I haven't seen enough of her films to form an opinion myself, but the nice contribution she makes to Laughing Gas whets my appetite to see more of her work.