As I continue to watch Frank Capra's films, I watched this film this morning. I've watched a number of early Charlie Chaplin films and this is similar but also different from those films although there is still a lot of slapstick comedy. Like most silent movies, the music really sets the mood. While the first part of the movie is just about a soldier trying to find a woman whom sent him a letter, while he was fighting in Belgium during WWI, coming to New York City in 1918 or 1919. He goes through a series of adventures like a wealthy woman who gives him a wad of money and goes to extensive lengths (letting him carry her up the stairs) so she can get the money back while he is working a vaudeville production, seemingly for little money. The movie goes on to make hilarious jokes time and time again like the protagonist putting on a form of stinky cheese rather than something else, to get himself ready for his performance.
But there ends up, as is the case in most of Capra's films, a social commentary, specifically of a pastor, leading the moral, peaceful townsfolk, standing up against gamblers and other swindlers. The protagonist is in the middle of this, eventually siding against the crowd whom are patrons at the big establishment, a bit like a saloon/game house, as on threatens to put Mary Brown, the woman who sent him a letter in Belgium, on display. The forces against the "money changers," as the pastor calls them, are ultimately successful.
This movie also reminds me of a later Chaplin film, The Blind Girl, as Mary Brown in this movie is also blind, which becomes a part of the plot as well.
While the protagonist becomes a police officer at the end, enforcing the law, the town goes back to normal. I'm not sure what to take away from that but I can say this movie deserves a 10-star rating due to its slapstick comedy and social commentary.
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