Deservedly, many consider "Easy Street" one of Chaplin's best short films. Chaplin was in his last year at Mutual and was in top form; "Easy Street" is also considerably different from his other Mutual pictures. Social commentary and the like often appear in much of his work, but here, for the first time, satire underlines this commentary throughout the picture. Thus, depictions of poverty, lawlessness, street and marital violence and drug use mingle comfortably with the usual uproarious comedy--and by this time, matured slapstick and pantomime--one expects from Charlie.

In addition to that, Chaplin manages to balance and blend the different styles characteristic of comedy and social commentary. There's the makeup typical of slapstick for Eric Campbell, the impoverished look of other characters and the realistic look for those like Edna Purviance's character. I think the police outfits resembling those of the Keystone Kops, like the one Chaplin dons, are a particularly nice throwback to the Keystone tradition Chaplin began from but had since surpassed.

The settings for Easy Street and the surrounding (within the photoplay) area also reflect these dual styles. It certainly looks like a slum, but at the same time, the sets are recognizably artificial--obviously movie studio sets. Furthermore, the props, such as the lamppost, sometimes take on a cartoonish effect. And, for all the harsh violence occurring on it, Easy Street is full with soft contours. Yet, it works well. It would have been great if it expanded spatially to free it and the film from a flat, theatrical position, but such is to be expected from a 1917 production, and to the credit of Chaplin and usual cinematographer Roland Totheroh, they do vary the shots somewhat. The sets are impressive otherwise in creating a confined, dualistic atmosphere.

Additionally, Chaplin hadn't been so much the hero of a story since "The Vagabond". "Easy Street" features the most successful variation on Chaplin and Eric Campbell's David and Goliath. Campbell is meaner than ever, and they act out two ingenious, comical set pieces for the tramp-turned-policeman to slay him. The concurrent solutions of force and regeneration are also seamless in concluding this impressively matured and substantive Chaplin short.

Easy Street is one of the first films that really solidified Chaplin's intentions to continue to represent the poorer people of society. In this film, Chaplin's common rich vs. poor theme is especially prevalent in the way that the predicament of the poor is presented, and especially given the fact that, at this point in his career, Chaplin was earning roughly $10,000 a week.

Although this is one of Chaplin's best short films, it is strange that in the church near the beginning of the film, he turns the hymn book upside down as though he can't read, but then he is soon able to read the help wanted sign at the police station. At any rate, after he leaves the church, having found Jesus, he finds the streets seething with comical violence. He sees that the police are looking to hire, and his hesitant entrance into the police station is one of the funniest parts of the entire film.

Clearly, it's amusing enough to see the tramp in a policeman's uniform, but the way that he and the bully that seems to have claimed ownership of Easy Street interact is also some classic comedy. The irony in this film is that Charlie is trying to get this huge guy under control so that he will stop terrorizing the people, but then when he does, in fact, defeat him, the people are afraid of HIM. As is almost always the case when Charlie performs some heroism in his films (usually inadvertently), he acts like it was no big deal when people arrive (see the scene in The Gold Rush when Jack gets knocked out by a falling clock, and Charlie thought that he had done it).

The part that most clearly represents Charlie's sympathy for the poor in this film is the scene when he catches the woman stealing from the sleeping street vendor. At first, it seems that he is going to turn her in, but he is so heartbroken that he runs to the street vendor (who is still asleep), and steals more food for the woman, and then encourages her to hurry off before the vendor wakes up and realizes what has happened.

This rich vs. poor theme is one of the many that traverses a good majority of Chaplin's career, but there are many other things that can be seen in his later films, like the love interest element of The Bank that can be seen in a very similar form later in City Lights. In this film, there is a short sequence where Charlie sits on a hypodermic needle that had been used by a man to shoot up with (something like that wouldn't be quite as funny if it was done today), and his reaction to the small dose of the drug is almost exactly the same as that in Modern Times, when he pours cocaine onto his food, thinking it's salt.

Easy Street is an entertaining and heartwarming story in many ways, and the ending leaves the feeling that something has really been accomplished in the film. As Charlie calmly walks the sidewalks in his policeman's uniform, everyone on the street is orderly and well dressed, and even the bully tips his hat to Charlie as he walks by. Unfortunately, very few people watch Chaplin's films anymore, but even if only a few are watched, this should definitely be one of them.

I've been a Chaplin fan since I was in grade school, and Easy Street was the movie that converted me for keeps. It wasn't the first of his films I saw, but once I'd seen it I knew that Charlie Chaplin was truly as great as his reputation proclaimed. He's wonderful here, at the peak of his powers, funny and moving and seemingly super-human, like some kind of cartoon dynamo. And today, more than 30 years since I first encountered it (and almost 90 years since it was made!) this is a film I could watch again anytime, not just because it's funny -- although it is -- but also for darker, more melancholy reasons. Easy Street is certainly a comedy, but it's no one's idea of a light-hearted romp: the humor in this story is rooted in poverty, violence and substance abuse, and unfortunately all of these things are just as relevant today as they were in 1917. It's well known that Chaplin grew up in dire poverty, and it's reasonable to assume that the squalid world of this ironically titled work is based on his childhood memories. This film stands as proof that the greatest comedy is born out of pain, and that's why I can return to it again and again, for although human suffering is always topical and always relevant, so is the urge to transcend suffering through humor. In this film Chaplin triumphs over the deprivations of his own childhood, and viewers can share in his triumph.

In the opening scene we find Charlie fallen on hard times, no longer the dapper Gentleman Tramp of earlier appearances but a real derelict, ragged, pale, and sleeping on the ground. He is drawn to a nearby mission by the sound of singing, joins the congregation and soon pledges to go straight; he even proves his conversion is genuine by pulling the collection box from his baggy pants and returning it to the startled minister. Before long Charlie has applied for the job of police officer in the roughest neighborhood imaginable, Easy Street, a slum ruled by an enormous bully, magnificently portrayed by actor Eric Campbell. The unfortunate Mr. Campbell, who would be killed in a car accident less than a year after giving this performance, deserves a belated nod of respect for making Easy Street such a memorable experience. Although clearly intended as a comic caricature, Campbell's nameless bully is nonetheless a formidable figure, a mighty beast with a shaved head and heavy eyebrows, and the close-ups that reveal Campbell's stage makeup do nothing to diminish his powerful aura.

The film's most unforgettable sequence comes when Officer Charlie, dressed in a Keystone Cop style uniform as he nervously walks his beat for the first time, suddenly comes face-to-face with Campbell, an ogre several times his size. The scene is filmed in a single lengthy take, beginning with a tracking shot as Charlie strolls down the sidewalk, encounters the bully, and then tries to stand up to him. The bully, who appears to be made of granite, becomes increasingly sure of himself as Charlie falters. When Charlie finally resorts to clubbing him over the head, the blows have no effect whatever; in fact, the bully impassively offers his head for more clubbing, just to demonstrate how little it bothers him. Charlie tries to flee, but the bully yanks him back and starts toying with him, like a cat tormenting a mouse before moving in for the kill. Scary, right? Well it's funny in the movie, but scary too, and it comes as a relief when Charlie (in an iconic moment as familiar as Harold Lloyd dangling from the clock) resourcefully uses a nearby gas lamp to subdue the bully -- temporarily, anyway.

While the scenes with Campbell are moments to savor, there are also a number of low-key sequences involving the lady from the mission, played by Chaplin's perennial leading lady Edna Purviance, and during these scenes we get a vivid picture of life on Easy Street. Edna takes Charlie to a flat full of kids whose exhausted-looking parents obviously can't cope. Charlie, impressed with the scrawny Dad's ability to father so many children, quietly pins his own badge on the man's chest. It's a sadly funny moment, but the larger picture is bleak, and before the story is over we've been presented with images of domestic abuse and drug addiction. None of this material is prettified or sentimentalized in the "Hollywood" manner; this looks more like newsreel footage, and some viewers may well find it depressing. Easy Street is no stroll in the park, but somehow Chaplin is able to leave us on a note of hope, even while making it clear (with one last gag involving the reformed bully and his wife) that he's fully aware of the wishful thinking involved. Still, it's a beautiful ending to a great movie, one that demonstrates Chaplin's artistry as beautifully as any short film he ever made.