ONE A.M., released August 7th, 1916

Chaplin said in 1916 that "if any man could appear absolutely alone and hold attention for two full reels, he believed he could do it."¹ And he did do it in his fourth release for the Mutual Film Corporation. Except for a brief appearance at the beginning by Albert Austin, the film is a complete solo performance. Chaplin plays a wealthy drunk who arrives home in the wee hours and tries to go to bed. "One A.M. was unusual for me," he later wrote, "it was a solo act which took place in a very restricted space: an exercise in mime and technical virtuosity, with no plot or secondary characters. I arrive home drunk early one morning to find everything in the house against me."² It was an experiment he never repeated. Not only was the film the least popular of the Mutuals but Chaplin himself never thought too highly of it. According to biographer Theodore Huff, he was said to have summed up One A.M. with the remark: “One more film like that and it will be goodbye Charlie.” 


¹Photoplayers Weekly, July 15, 1916
²Chaplin, My Life In Pictures, 1974