Greenes
Please don't spend money on this.
BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Bluebell Alcock
Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies
Lee Eisenberg
One of Charlie Chaplin's really early movies casts him as a pawnshop employee who, through no fault of his own, has a tendency to make a mess of everything. The whole thing is a riot, especially the sequence with the ladder. I think that it was a few years later when Chaplin started incorporating social themes into his movies. In the meantime, the man known as the Tramp knew exactly how to show some absolutely hilarious stuff. The daughter is played by Edna Purviance, who was probably his most frequent co-star, appearing in his movies as late as the '50s.All in all, if we appraise "The Pawnshop", it's worth a whole lot! Just plain fun.
Tom Gooderson-A'Court
Charlie Chaplin's sixth film for Mutual is one with very high highs and disappointingly low lows. It features a scenario and story which doesn't really go anywhere but also features several moments of slapstick that are amongst his best to date.Chaplin stars as a pawnshop assistant and gets in a long running fight with fellow employee John Rand. Typically inept at his job, Chaplin is eventually fired only to be taken back on straight away after his boss Henry Bergman has a change of heart. Meanwhile Chaplin's attentions are drawn to Bergman's daughter Edna Purviance who is busy baking in the back of the shop. Trouble appears late on as a thief, Eric Campbell enters the shop intent on taking it for everything it's got.As I mentioned the plot is a little basic here. There is no character development and the romantic component is only hinted at. Where the film is successful is with its slapstick elements. Two areas stand out for me. The first is Chaplin's long fight with John Rand. Chaplin portrays a peculiar but extremely funny fighting style and his character in general looks like he's off his head on something. The standout though is while the fight is happening; Edna Purviance hears the ruckus and comes to investigate. Although Chaplin is beating Rand to a pulp, when he hears Edna approaching he falls to the floor and into a foetal position, faking pain. Edna immediately starts yelling at Rand for hitting the poor, defenceless Chaplin and while she does so Chaplin repeatedly checks out her bum and turns to the camera with a cheeky grin on his face. It's a fantastic scene.Other great moments include Chaplin being ordered to wash up and putting the crockery through a mangle and a scene in which he values a clock by taking it to pieces, destroying it and then turning it down as it's broken. Moments like these remind me just how inventive and clever Chaplin was capable of being with his comedy. It's just a shame here in The Pawnshop that the comedy isn't coupled with a more impressive plot.www.attheback.blogspot.com
Robert J. Maxwell
This is funnier and more inventive than some of his earlier work, and it's completely free of the pathos that would be found in his later work.Chaplin is an assistant in a pawn shop that's run by a jumbo-sized, bearded older man who is alternately hysterical and furious and who, in both appearance and demeanor, reminded me of my cabinet-maker grandfather. Chaplin shows an amazing physical dexterity in some of the slapstick episodes and I couldn't help comparing them to the same sorts of gags that showed up in Laurel and Hardy. Without knocking Laurel and Hardy, the approaches are entirely different. Laurel and Hardy try desperately to be polite, efficient, and relatively normal. The pace is slower and more deliberate. Chaplin is faster, more aggressive, meaner. He kicks people in the pants for little reason. And he's a whirlwind of action. Even when he pretends to be unconscious in order to gain the attentions of his girl friend, he falls to the floor in a twinkling and is up just as fast to receive her ministrations.The most memorable scene probably has to do with a customer who brings in an alarm clock. Behind the counter, Charlie exams it as a doctor would examine a patient, percussing its case, twinging its bell, and then he dismantles it roughly before handing the hatful of disordered pieces back to the guy and rejecting it with a shrug.I think I prefer the shenanigans in the back room but partly because they involve that apoplectic owner and, I guess, because after Charlie knocks an armed robber unconscious he breaks the fourth wall, and whips around with a quick TA-TAH to the camera before the film ends.
Snow Leopard
"The Pawnshop" is a pretty good Charlie Chaplin comedy, with some routine stretches but also some very good slapstick. It features Charlie as an assistant in a pawnshop, engaged in a heated rivalry with another employee, trying to stay on the good side of the boss and the boss's pretty daughter, and occasionally waiting on a customer. The beginning has some very funny moments, with some slapstick that makes good use of the props, which include a feather duster and a ladder. There is a funny finale with Eric Campbell - one of Chaplin's best regular supporting players - playing a thief. The parts in between have some good moments, too, but they overdo it a bit with Charlie's fights with the other shop assistant. Overall, this is an average short feature for Chaplin, which means it is pretty good by most other standards.
