His New Profession

Ugh. Charlie abuses people in wheelchairs

Mildly amusing but nothing more.

Hilarious (well, it's Chaplin, so duh). Charlie shows off his ''loveable asshole'' role. He's like that one friend you have who's a shitty human being, but you don't care because they're so much fun. And this is so visually stunning. This short is a product of his time, though. The wheelchair jokes and treatment of ''cripples'' are horrible.

Elicits a couple laughs, but no empathy at all.

The egg scene is amusing and the reveal on the "cripple" would be pretty good in another context. However, context is exactly the problem here. Several of Chaplain's early shorts suffer from the problem we find here: not a single person has any likability or even sympathy. Even the man with the broken leg acts so pompous as to bleed any sympathy away. This leaves the antics on screen feeling dissonant in relation to the self-absorbed people on the screen.

The plot summary on here tells the entire movie, dammit. Really unfunny and just flat out cruel most of the time.