What to expect
Chaplin uses the revolving door, the well, and the spa’s rigid routines as comic systems that can be reversed. The short is an especially clear example of architecture generating gags.
How to ease in
The premise is enough: the Tramp is hiding drink inside a place devoted to abstinence. Watch how props and doorways transfer intoxication from one body to an entire institution.
Heads-up
A wealthy drunk arrives at a health spa with a suitcase full of alcohol and turns the institution’s promise of discipline into collective disorder.
The spa tries to separate cure from pleasure, then one suitcase contaminates the distinction. I like how the building itself seems to become tipsy before the guests do.
Open the note ↓
The spa tries to separate cure from pleasure, then one suitcase contaminates the distinction. I like how the building itself seems to become tipsy before the guests do.
— Momo
Credits & versions
Version map
Where to go next
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