A tailor's apprentice burns Count Broko's clothes while ironing them and the tailor fires him. Later, the tailor discovers a note explaining that the count cannot attend a dance party, so he dresses as such to take his place; but the apprentice has also gone to the mansion where the party is celebrated and bumps into the tailor in disguise…
Acting
Chaplin's drunk-count bit—elegant, then spectacularly not.
Direction
Chaplin blocking three simultaneous disguises in one frame.
Practical Effects
Every prop gag landed in 1916 without second takes.
Director
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Tailor's Apprentice
Edna Purviance
Miss Moneybags
Eric Campbell
The Tailor
Leo White
Count Broko
Henry Bergman
Charlotte Mineau
Mrs. Moneybags (uncredited)
James T. Kelley
Butler (uncredited)
Eva Thatcher
Cook (uncredited)
Albert Austin
Guest (uncredited)
John Rand
Guest (uncredited)
Loyal Underwood
Guest (uncredited)
Frank J. Coleman
Policeman (uncredited)
Lloyd Bacon
Orchestra Conductor (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was Chaplin's fifth short for Mutual, filmed in May 1916 at their new $10,000-a-week salary.
The drunk-count routine directly influenced Chaplin's later City Lights scene—he refined the same physical vocabulary for fifteen years.
US
