Chaplin is groomed like the tramp and he looks like the tramp but he could be anybody in this disjointed tale about three mashers, a puddle, and an umbrella.The editing is poor enough to lose the plot from time to time, if there is a plot that extends beyond the individual slapstick-filled scenes.The film has a certain slight charm as an historical curiosity. Here it is -- 1914 in Los Angeles, and what looks like Echo Park might have looked in 1914 Los Angeles.A dog wanders innocently in and out of a scene but nobody cares. The pratfalls are backward somersaults. It's all very casual and lacks poetry.

Charlie Chaplin had only starred in a few movies and had just debuted the Tramp when he appeared in Henry Lehrman's "Between Showers". The plot involves a stolen umbrella, but is mainly an excuse for a bunch of physical humor. Cinema was still in its relative infancy, and the absence of sound meant that people had to do a lot of the acting with their faces. Despite the simple plot, it's a fun 15 minutes. It's ironic seeing a city block in LA surrounded by water, now that California's running out of water.Anyway, pretty fun. Chester Conklin (the policeman) later played the technician in "Modern Times".

Just watched this, an early Charlie Chaplin performance in a Keystone-Mack Sennett film, on the Internet Archive site. It only showed 8 minutes of what according to this site was 15 minutes of this short but what I did see was quite funny and fascinating nonetheless. In this one, a masher (Ford Sterling) steals a cop's umbrella, unbeknownst to the cop, and encounters a woman who's trying to cross a water-flooded street which he sees as an opportunity to woo her. Chaplin's Tramp character arrives at this point and tries to to the same. There's a funny bit where he almost falls into the water. After this come a few more highly amusing stuff in which Charlie and Ford start to poke each other before the thing abruptly ends. Like I said, I found the thing quite amusing so on that note, Between Showers is worth a look. P.S. A few minutes ago, I watched much of the rest on YouTube so it seems I've now seen the entire short.

Chaplin's fourth film is also historic in that it demonstrates inklings of the tramp we would come to identify with in later films. The plot is simple like most them from this era. A man steals an umbrella from a policeman, attempts to help a lady across the rain-filled street and then is usurped by Chaplin in vying for both the umbrella and the lady. Chaplin eventually settles for the umbrella and battling with the man in typical exaggerated silent fashion. The film is notable for Chaplin turning from a heel into more of a lovable troublemaker, without the empathy and sentimentality we would find in later years. The swinging of the umbrella mirrors how Chaplin swings his cane in so many other films to come. Oddly enough, his cane is not present in this slight but more typical comedy from Chaplin. ** of 4 stars.