The Fireman (1916 film) instance of short film
The Fireman is the second film Charlie Chaplin distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation in 1916. Released on June 12, it starred Chaplin as the fireman and Edna Purviance as the daughter to Lloyd Bacon.Plot
A group of firemen, led by their foreman (Eric Campbell), practice in the fire station, but one is missing ... Charlie. He is still sleeping. The bell eventually wakes him and he slides down the pole to join the others. He reverses the pair of horses onto the fire engine and drives off, but without the others. He reverses the horses back again. Their first task is to polish the engine, but a lot of butt-kicking ensues.
During their meal break Charlie uses the engine as a giant water urn and serves an unappetising soup to the others.
A young woman comes to the station with her aristocratic father, and the foreman sends Charlie away so he can talk with the father. Charlie and the girl flirt on one side of the station while the girl's father (Bacon) arranges with the local fire chief to have his house burn down so he can collect the insurance money. In exchange for the chief's complicity in the arson, the father will permit the fire chief to marry his daughter.
However, a real fire breaks out elsewhere in the town. The owner uses a public alarm to signal to the station but Charlie and another fireman continue to play draughts and ignore the alarm, putting a cloth in the bell to stop it ringing. The worried man then phones the fire station but they still ignore him. Finally he goes to the fire station in person. Eventually Charlie understands the predicament, and finds the fire chief at the girl's house and the company rush to extinguish the fire. Charlie mans the hose but his aim is poor and the chief has to take over.
Meanwhile, the father deliberately sets a fire in the basement of his own house without realizing that his daughter is still inside the house on the upper floor. Upon knowing his daughter is in mortal danger from the fire, he rushes to find the fire chief to cancel the arrangement not to extinguish his house fire. The fireman (Chaplin), who is also in love with the daughter, abandons the first house fire (taking the fire engine and water) to rush to the second one. The water tank falls off during the rush. He heroically scales the outside of the building to save her, carrying her back down the face of the building, but then fainting. When he revives he and the girl go off arm in arm.
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