The Immigrant (Chaplin 1917)

Edna Purviance was so much more appealing here, back in 1917, than she was in 'The Kid'. Even if I hadn't heard the stories of alcoholism there's a freshness to her here that's a treat to see- fundamentally she's still in there for drama rather than comedy, but there's a twinkle in her eye here and she makes the performance memorable.
This is a much lauded Chaplin Mutual, and it's very well done, and I didn't care for it as much as I wanted to, which is why I'm wasting words on Edna Purviance while I try and figure out why it didn't hit home for me.
One or two of the ideas seemed a little milked. A little stretched. Breaking point beckons. Maybe even three of the ideas. The lurching of the boat from side to side. The card game. Charlie's problems with the bill in the restaurant in the promised land. These were all great ideas, and maybe it's just me- really, maybe it's just me- but I was watching them thinking: enough already. Move on. Perhaps this is the great drawback of watching these things on DVD- they were crafted for large audiences, of course they were, and what can be expertly paced for a huge room of hysterical punters isn't going to work so well in a more intimate one-on-one encounter.
I watched this and 'Mabel's Strange Predicament' over the course of the same day, and 'The Immigrant' isn't the film I'd be watching on DVD again out of choice. Not given those two options it isn't. This is a far more 'brilliant' film in every way, but I found myself struggling to care about it.
The little touches though- ah, they make it worthwhile. Charlie catching a fish in the opening scene, his shuffling in the card game, some of the pantomime stuff in the restaurant (especially with his hat)- these are beautiful, beautiful moments. I'd just rather snip them out of the film and watch them in isolation if that's okay with you. That okay? We'll do that and say no more about it. And if some great auditorium somewhere decides to showcase the Chaplin Mutuals, maybe I'll give it another chance then.