Charlie Chaplin's first movie with Essanay (hence the title) casts him as a guy attempting to get a break in a movie, only to repeatedly make a mess of the production. There's plenty of funny gags, as is often the case in these relics of early cinema. The plot isn't the most complex, since Chaplin hadn't fully ironed out his style. A notable thing about the movie is that it features a young Gloria Swanson, years before her role as a certain big star amid small pictures.* It's not a great movie, but as far as I'm concerned, any Chaplin movie is a good one. You'll probably like "His New Job".*Swanson later testified on behalf of John Lennon when he was trying to gain US citizenship.

There is something uniquely charming about the short comedies that Chaplin made that poke fun at his art form or that show us a little bit of the mechanics of how these movies are made. The most notable example other than His New Job is the charming and fun Behind the Screen, although this film is a lot of fun, too. It starts out in the waiting room, apparently for the opportunity to interview for a job as a film extra. He immediately begins flirting with a woman in the room, and soon does the old hat gag where someone demands that he take it off but he keeps putting it back on, finally doing that cute trick where he flips it up in the air. I feel like I've seen him do that in at least four or five films, although I have to say that he does it best in The Immigrant. It seems that the characterization is getting pretty developed by this point, and that the little tramp has earned a good following of fans who want to see him in each new Chaplin film. There is less and less effort put into giving him a role in each film, he generally just comes out and plays himself. There are lots of traditional Chaplin antics in the waiting room as he competes for the film extra position, although when he finally gets into the interview room and blows into that earpiece, it might be the first time I've literally laughed out loud at one of these short comedies in quite a while. Charlie is dressed as a soldier for his part in the film within the film, although as is to be expected, things soon go wrong and his lack of acting talent becomes abundantly clear. I always find it a little amusing when actors play roles in which, at some point, they lament the fact that they have no acting talent. But my favorite part of the film is that it shows us behind the scenes, what some of the film sets looked like back in 1915. I always find it fascinating when I catch a glimpse of something real in these old movies, even if it's something tiny, like wafting smoke or the unintentional movement of curtains or a throw rug. It is endlessly fascinating to me to imagine what it was like to really be there, what the set looked like to the naked eye, in real life and in color. Here, we are treated to some shots of the inside of the soundstage, which I guess is the next best thing. Generally, the movie is clever and fun, but other than some interesting behind the scenes shots there's really nothing new here. The ending is even a little violent, but this is still one of the more fun of Chaplin's earliest work.

Film " His New Job " was Chaplin's created on a film studio "Essanay" the first film where it has received almost full creative freedom after success Keystone's of comedies where it strongly depend from Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand. Chaplin's art becomes independent, rather distinct from other Hollywood production of those years."His New Job " - the first film in which Small the Tramp finds a human face and own destiny is a wanderer, the jobless, unfortunate person, all shifts trying to find work. And it receives it on a film studio where it should suffer mockeries of the director, the partner, to be at war with the personnel and other actors. Certainly, all this is still very far from the present satire and from the best Chaplin's tragicomedies.It still the comedy of tricks full of hilarious fights, jumps, gestures. A comedy using only miracles of a pantomime in which Chaplin already then has reached improbable heights. Chaplin's laughter meanwhile cheerful and carefree - final stages, stages of fight where Chaplin wins all and everything, brightly speak about it, but the first steps by " New times " have been already made.Faultlessly made comedy of tricks and now can deliver a lot of pleasure and laughter as till now was not in world cinema of the image, able will be compared to image of the Tramp on capacity, dimensions, vitality...

Besides being pretty good in itself, "His New Job" is also interesting in that it is a clear improvement over the previous features that Charlie Chaplin had made when he was with Keystone Studies. While the Keystone features were not bad, and often contained some excellent material, overall they generally gave the appearance of having been thrown together quickly, which often left a lot of unrealized potential in some of their ideas and themes. And, while these Essanay features themselves were usually not quite as good as his later Mutual features, they did give Chaplin a chance to perform quite a few kinds of material, and most of them are well worth seeing.In this one, Charlie's character is competing with some other hopefuls who are trying to break into the movies. Ben Turpin and Charlie have quite a few scenes together, and although their scenes are primarily knockabout slapstick, they do work well as a team. The action takes place in several settings, and on average it is fairly creative in its use of the settings and props. Most of the gags come off all right, and overall the feature works pretty well.