The Pawnshop (1916)

Chaplin film in which he works for a tyrant pawnshop owner. James T Kelly plays a male drunk and, later, a female customer.

There is no great attempt at femininity by Kelly, at least until the "lady" leaves the shop, with a marked wiggle of the hips.

There is no reason for the cross-dressing in the plot; probably they just thought that a very stout lady would be better played this way; they did the same in other Chaplin films, for example The Rink. However there is potential confusion because on the dvd I viewed, by Stonevision, the opening titles to the film credit Charlotte Minneau as a customer; there is no other female customer in the film. I am sure this is a mistake: Minneau did appear as a supporting actress in Chaplin films, but she was 30 when this film was made, and was slimly built, and lacked the Roman nose of this character. The credit sequence on my dvd is also not original ... its film quality is much superior to the very old print of the actual action.

Kelly has another role in the film, briefly as a man in the street, on the left in the picture.

HF September 2002

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