I've seen quite a few Chaplin shorts from early in his career and I've noticed that his early stuff (done for Keystone Studios) is pretty dreadful stuff. Unlike his wonderful full-length films from the 20s and 30s, the films from 1914-1915 are incredibly poorly made--having no script but only vague instructions from the director. In most cases, the films had almost no plot and degenerated to people punching and kicking each other.<br /><br />This film consists of a lot of barroom scenes as well as scenes where Charlie is an artist. Apparently, he'd been an artist but it all went to pieces when his love left him for another. Oddly, the captions say "two months later" between scenes. After only two months, he sees her and her new beau and they've got a bunch of kids--some looking at least 6 or 8. This and the paint on him that appeared and then disappeared due to bad editing make this an odd and confusing picture. Unfortunately, none of the stuff is particularly interesting.