While "Peanuts and Bullets" is no great comedy, compared to the typical slapstick film of the time being produced by Keystone, this one is a bit better than average. It still has a lot of the usual mindless slapstick and violence of such a film but it also features Charley Chase in one of his earliest leading roles--well before he became famous.
Charley is broke and hungry. Much of the film consists of him devising various ways to steal fruit from a vendor operating his cart outside his apartment. In addition, he's smitten with a girl (Mae Busch) but so is everyone. So how can he get food and the girl? I must admit this is not the most sophisticated comedy--but frankly, for 1915, that's pretty typical. Bonking, exploding bullets and the like are pretty much what you'd find in any comedy then--and this is no different than the norm. Not bad, not great but still funny today.
By the way, you might be shocked to see it, but it was NOT unusual to see black characters played by white folks in makeup like you see in this film. Pretty weird but at least the black character was not played in an overtly offensive manner.
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