Diagonaldi Very well executed

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Steffi_P While the Keystone pictures made Charlie Chaplin a star, the Essanays made him world famous. With such success comes great confidence. Shanghaied is a real confidence picture.If you look at the first series of real gags, when Charlie is hitting his soon-to-be crewmates over the head one after the other, the whole thing is done in a single shot. And it is essentially just the same gag repeated several times. The comedy actually lies in the fact that we know exactly what is going to happen, we just don't know exactly when it will happen and how each man will react. For the final mallet blow, the moment leading up to it is stretched out as long as possible for maximum funniness. To be able to pull off a sequence like this, you need to have faith in your own ability to make people laugh, and this is something Chaplin now had.Aiding and abetting Charlie are the usual rogues' gallery of supporting players. Among the notables here are Leo White, appearing without his usual "Frenchman" get-up, but still very funny, and John Rand as the ship's cook. This was Rand's second picture with Chaplin, and the way he brilliantly plays off the tramp without stealing the scene would earn him a long-term placement in the comic's stock company.In fact throughout this picture, it is the other performers who actually do the most, while Charlie appears as a fairly insignificant figure amongst it all. And yet he always remains centre of attention. For example in the scene where he directs the crane which has inadvertently hooked the rest of the crew, he is orchestrating the chaos. To be able to pull this off again requires not only skill but overriding confidence in that skill.And so, we come to the all important statistic – Number of kicks up the arse: 17(!) (3 for, 9 against and 5 other)

JoeytheBrit This is another early Chaplin film made for the Essanay Studio, and while it has its moments it certainly isn't one of Chaplin's best. It's difficult to sympathise with his plight when he finds himself shanghaied into service on a boat because he was responsible for most of his equally reluctant shipmates being there as well. More important than this though, is the fact that it just isn't that funny, with too many gags running for far too long and therefore outliving the laughs they originally generate. There's also a curious lapse in spatial awareness when Chaplin is seen to exit left from one room then enter left into the next room. Given Chaplin's reputation for perfection, this might be down to the print I saw being made up of two prints spliced together with one unintentionally reversed. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing – it was a couple of weeks ago

CitizenCaine Chaplin edited, wrote, directed, and starred in Shanghaied, a comedy at sea. A shipowner, played by future director Wesley Ruggles, wants to destroy his own ship and its contents at sea in order to receive a huge settlement. Chaplin gets mixed up in recruiting sailors for the ship unaware of the plan. Chaplin gets caught aboard the ship as well, and soon he is forced to work on the ship to make do. Meanwhile, the shipowner's daughter, Edna Purviance, stows away aboard the ship. Chaplin falls for the daughter of course, but not before he endures several hardships at sea working as a dishwasher and cook's helper. The film is quickly paced, again with restrained slapstick in favor of a plot; however, the camera's see-saw effect is hopelessly phony. The camera movement changes speeds at times during these scenes, and the sea is obviously no where near as rough as the camera movement would have us believe. Chaplin has several neat bits of physical movement in this one, and get a load of the shipowner's sideburns! **1/2 of 4 stars.

Snow Leopard "Shanghaied" has a plot that is rather complicated for such a short film, but as in most of Charlie Chaplin's earlier films, the emphasis is really on slapstick comedy.The story involves a scheming ship owner and his roughneck captain, who tricks and "shanghais" a group of sailors, including Charlie, to form his crew. The ship owner's daughter is in love with Charlie, and comes along for the ride. It's a bit hard to catch everything in the plot, but the slapstick at sea is easy to follow. Chaplin gets decent mileage out of a few ideas using the shipboard setting, as he and the crew try to handle the cargo and work in the kitchen as the ship rocks back and forth.While not one of Chaplin's best, there are still a few good laughs to be had in "Shanghaied".