Charlie Chaplin | The Cure 1917 (In Colour)
Channel: Cafe Cinema
Date: 2020-08-08

#TheCure1917 #CharlieChaplin #SilentFilm
The Cure is a 1917 short comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The plot revolves around alcohol, being made just prior to prohibition but during a period where the politicians were debating the evils of alcohol.

Chaplin plays a drunkard who is attending a hydropathic hotel, presumably to dry out, but brings along a big suitcase full of alcohol. He gets trapped in a spinning revolving door then traps the foot of a large man with a bandaged foot, suffering from gout. He encounters a beautiful young woman and sits between her and a man who keeps offering him the spa water (which he keeps pouring away). The girl encourages him to stop drinking. He meets the big man again who tries to get the hotel manager to throw him out. Instead he gets taken for a Turkish massage.

When the hotel owner learns employees are getting drunk from Charlie's liquor, he orders one man to throw the liquor out the window. The drunk employee hurls the bottles through the window, straight into the spa's health waters. Meanwhile Charlie is not happy to be massaged by the large man in the bath house and tries to dodge this.

Outside, the well is contaminated with alcohol, sending the spa's inhabitants into a dancing stupor. Chaplin, encouraged by his new love to get sober, drinks from the spurious spa, gets drunk and offends her. She leaves him in anger and walks away. Charlie walks back to the door unsteadily, when he bumps into the large man, tripping him off his wheel chair and landing him into the alcoholic well.

The next morning there are plenty of hangovers, but Chaplin turns sober, walks out and finds the lady. Realizing what had happened, she forgives him. They walk ahead, just then he accidentally steps into the liquor-laden well.