Underplayed Gems

Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914)

Tillie's Punctured Romance poster
Directed by
Mack Sennett
Genre
silent film, romantic comedy
Country
United States
Runtime
1h 22m
Rated
NR
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 84 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

A naive country woman inherits a fortune and is pursued by a city slicker who wants her money. She goes through a series of comic mishaps with him and his girlfriend, ending in a courtroom.

slapstickfast-pacedlightheartedchaoticvaudevillianplayfulrompinnocent

What happens

Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops. The picture is the first feature-length comedy and was the only feature-length comedy made by the Keystone Film Company. At the time of production Marie Dressler was a major stage star, and in this film Chaplin and Normand support her as leads within Keystone's stock company of actors. The film, based on Dressler's stage play Tillie's Nightmare by A. Baldwin Sloane and Edgar Smith, is the first feature-length slapstick comedy in all of cinema. This was the last time Charlie Chaplin acted in a film that he neither wrote nor directed. He plays a slightly different role from his Tramp character, which was relatively new at the time. However, he retains a moustache (here a pencil-thin "dude" type rather than his usual "toothbrush"), thin cane and distinctive walk. Tillie provides an early example of film within a film, when the couple go to the cinema to watch A Thief's Fate, large sections of which are seen. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.