Silent movies - A Dog's Life

Today I got two Chaplins for you. I don't mean two Chaplin movies, but two Chaplins in one movie - Charlie and his brother Sydney.
Let's have a look at "A Dog's Life" from 1918.

Here's the plot with spoilers.

The Little Tramp is trying to make the best of his life in the streets although he's sleeping rough, is sometimes forced to steal food, and has his run-ins with the law.

It's not that he doesn't want to work, but at the agency the others keep pushing him out of the way and in the end there's no job left for him.
Then he meets Scraps. The little stray has found a bone which attracts a lot of other dogs, and Charlie saves Scraps from the fight.

I'll happily admit that this made me feel
all mushy right away. The rest of the
pack raided a grocer's shop in the meantime.

At a coffee stall, Scraps takes the chance to steal some sausages and the Tramp stuffs himself with food every time the proprietor isn't looking.

A hilarious scene. The stall owner is Sydney Chaplin, by the way.

Now that they had something to eat, the Tramp heads for a dance hall. Unfortunately, the "Green Lantern" offers free dancing, but doesn't allow dogs, and they get thrown out.
He won't leave Scraps outside, though, and cleverly hides him. If only the tail wouldn't peek out through a hole in the pants, wagging like crazy.

There's a new singer and hostess in the bar who moves the audience to tears with her sad song.
The bar owner, however, wants his guests happy ... and thirsty! "If you smile and wink, they'll buy a drink."
So she tries her luck with the Tramp. After a bit of confusion, he asks her for a dance which turns out interesting, to say the least.
As the bartender finds out he has no money to buy drinks, however, he throws him out.

Flirting 101.

Outside, two villains mug a drunk gentleman and take his wallet. Being followed by police, one of them buries it in a hole next to the Tramp's favored sleeping spot.
Luckily, Scraps finds the wallet and they head back to the "Green Lantern".
Meanwhile, the singer has got herself sacked for refusing to dance with another customer. She's desperate because the owner doesn't want to pay her, but the Tramp shows her the money he has found and says they will settle in the country.
Too bad that the villains overhear them and take the wallet back. The Tramp doesn't give up that quickly, though, and manages to get the money back. 

"Giving" the villain his arms - a splendid performance.

The villains chase him to the coffee stall, during the struggle the wallet falls on the ground - from where Scraps successfully recovers it while the villains get arrested by the police and the Tramp escapes, leaving the poor stall owner behind confused and the worse for wear.

In the end, you see the happy couple on their farm and a bassinet stands on the floor - not with one baby, but a whole litter!

There are two things clearly standing out in this movie.

1. Scraps (called Mutt in real life) absolutely stole the show. Sorry, Charlie and Edna and the others, you were funny, but we all know who was the real heroine here.
2. The singer's dress. I just couldn't get over this masterpiece of fashion design. We should all wear dresses like that, women, men, children.
It looked like a long whitish skirt with a black diaphanous top over which there was kind of a black apron whose two parts were connected at the hips with black strips. But wait, there's more! Uhm, a flapping piece of curtain fastened to the back?
"We still need a dress for Edna. Oh hey, there's still some leftover fabrics here. I can do something with that!" Absolutely brilliant 😂

Not only Scraps leads a dog's life in the movie, but also the Tramp and the singer, even if not literally.
The association between the scenes of the Tramp losing the fight for a job at the agency and Scraps the one for the bone is obvious.
All three of them are forced into that life which actually makes it extra heartwarming to see them get their happy ending (even if founded on ill-gotten money). I was fully prepared to see them go down a lonely road into an uncertain future, but I liked this much better.

I also enjoyed the gags very much and the "choreography" that Chaplin was so good at.
32 minutes well spent indeed.

P.S. Did you notice something about the pictures? The familiar cane is missing. I guess a cane and a leash would have been too much.