Chaplin gets involved with his landlady and her husband and a comedy of errors ensues and is revealed by the landlady's son before it's all over. This is another typical Keystone production filled with some sight gags, particularly on the tennis court, goofiness, exaggerated mannerisms, and out of place scenes which have nothing to do with anything. Chaplin's scene with the ice box is a case in point. We've seen his drunken bit a bit too much by now. As it is, these early Keystone films were largely experimental with performers feeling their way and ad-libbing through films, trying to find what's right for audiences and maybe discover something new. This film does nothing new for Chaplin. *1/2 of 4 stars.

Star Boarder, The (1914) ** (out of 4) Lower Keystone short features Charles Chaplin playing the landlady's pet, which doesn't sit too well with the other tenants and it certainly doesn't go over well with the woman's jealous husband. While this film doesn't really work it at least features a couple funny sequences with Chaplin doing his magic. Even though we still don't see the Chaplin the world would end up loving, these early shorts at least show him growing as an artist. One of the better scenes in the film is when Chaplin is trying to learn how to play tennis. The facial expressions of anger are quite funny as is another scene where Chaplin notices the woman's husband is standing behind him yet he tries to play dumb as if he didn't see the husband. The rest of the film is pretty weak without too many laughs, although the ending is a pretty nice kicker.

For about the first two thirds of The Landlady's Pet ( that's the real title, by the way - The Star Boarder was the former title, but ultimately it was changed) it seems that it is going to come across as three distinctly separate parts - the first third, where Charlie is the "star boarder," the landlady's favorite lodger to the chagrin of her jealous husband, the drunken scene, and the obnoxious son's disruptive magic lantern show.But as soon as the lantern show begins it becomes clear that it is going to tie the rest of the film together, which is something that Chaplin wasn't doing much during that first year making Keystone short comedies for Mack Sennett. The drunken scene is sort of a straggler, it doesn't seem to have any reason for being there other than that Chaplin can do it so well (so well, in fact, that Robert Downey Jr. included it as part of his performance in the phenomenal 1992 film about Chaplin's life), the conclusion of the film and the tying up of loose ends is a welcome surprise.Watch for Gordon Griffith, a mainstay in Chaplin's earliest films, stealing the show as the landlady and her husband's obnoxious son. It's easy to see why Chaplin kept casting him in his films!

Charlie Chaplin was still working out the kinks in his Little Tramp character with this rather tame comedy of errors. This one generated barely a chuckle from me, perhaps due to the lack of chemistry between Chaplin and his so-called leading lady in this film, playing a landlady whom everyone thinks Charlie is in love with.Perhaps had Mabel Normand been given the role of the landlady, there might have been a bit more spark. Certainly Chaplin's later leading lady, Edna Purviance, would have been perfect in the role. But such as not to be.There are a few funny moments, such as when Charlie bats a tennis ball out of sight (reflecting perhaps the real-life Chaplin's growing interest in the sport?), and a pointless though funny sequence in which Charlie raids a fridge and gets drunk.The best and funniest sequence comes near the end when the landlady's son, who secretly photographed the comedies of errors between his mom, his dad, and Charlie, puts on a special "parents gone wild" slide show and the usual Keystone mayhem ensues. The boy, incidentally, is played by Gordon Griffith, who appeared in a number of Chaplin's Keystone comedies before making a name for himself as Tarzan's son.The Star Boarder falls somewhere in the middle ground of Chaplin's Keystone comedies. There's enough humor to hold one's interest, but it can't be considered one of his better works.