The Pawnshop (1916)



The lady customer
 A 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.

One dvd edition (by Stonevision) has a mistake in the opening titles; they credit Charlotte Minneau as a customer, but there is no other female customer in the film. 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.

HF September 2002



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