Late last night, before heading off to bed, I happened to watch a couple of Charlie Chaplin shorts on YouTube, The Bank and His Musical Career. These are what I'd call "simple pleasure" movies -- the kinds of enjoyable, reliable movies you can come back to again and again and again over the years and they never fail to make you laugh and bring you joy.
It was fun watching His Musical Career again after recently looking at Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box. I'd forgotten how much the latter owes to the Chaplin film beyond just the basic premise of two moving men carrying the piano up a flight of steps. There's a great sight gag of the moving cart being pulled by a donkey, who is lifted off the ground by the top-heavy weight of the piano. And there's a hilarious moment when the heavy piano is dropped down on to Mack Swain's back. Maybe my favorite bit is when Chaplin is carrying the piano on his back, and he is so bent over and stiff that he can't straighten back up again. And of course there's the gag involving drinking a can of varnish by mistake!
I could go on...but these are the great little moments that makes films like this such reliable and inexhaustible pleasures.
Now sit back and enjoy them for yourselves!
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