Directed by: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Charley Chase, Jess Dandy, Cecile Arnold, Harry McCoy

STORY
Charlie Chaplin finds himself with an unusual new job: caring for a man who uses a wheelchair while his nephew goes off to enjoy himself with his sweetheart.
It sounds simple.
Charlie merely needs to look after his new companion, behave responsibly, and perhaps earn a little money.
Naturally, none of those things happens quite according to plan.
Soon Charlie is maneuvering the wheelchair through a busy seaside setting, encountering another man with mobility challenges, tangling with passersby, pursuing romance, and discovering that his sudden career as a caregiver requires considerably more patience than he possesses.
Filled with wonderfully irreverent early-Chaplin slapstick, His New Profession turns one temporary job into an escalating parade of misunderstandings, opportunism, romance, and comic chaos.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

AINtoid: Charlie's Extraordinary First Year
His New Profession was released in 1914—the year Charlie Chaplin made his motion-picture debut.
Think about that for a moment.
The man who would become one of the most recognizable figures in the history of cinema was still learning how movies worked.
Chaplin made dozens of films during that extraordinary first year, rapidly progressing from performer to filmmaker while developing the character that would eventually make him famous around the world.

AINtoid: The Tramp Was Still Under Construction
The familiar Chaplin costume is here, but the personality underneath it was still evolving.
This early Charlie can be selfish, mischievous, opportunistic and decidedly less sentimental than the Little Tramp audiences would later adore.
That's what makes these 1914 films so fascinating.
We're not simply watching the Tramp.
We're watching Chaplin invent him.

AINtoid: Location, Location, Location!
His New Profession was filmed around the Venice area of Los Angeles, giving modern audiences fascinating glimpses of Southern California during the earliest years of the movie industry.
Early filmmakers frequently used real streets, parks, beaches and public spaces as their sets.
For today's audience, that means films like this accidentally became something else:
moving time capsules.
Look beyond Charlie and examine the buildings, clothing, streets and people in the background. You're seeing pieces of everyday America preserved more than a century ago.

AINtoid: When Real Life Became the Movie Set
Shooting in public created something studio filmmaking couldn't completely reproduce: genuine activity.
Pedestrians and surroundings became part of the visual texture of the movie.
Early silent films therefore preserve details their creators probably never imagined audiences would someday study—the way people dressed, traveled, socialized and occupied public spaces.
Chaplin was making a comedy.
He was also unintentionally recording history.

AINtoid: A Future Comedy Great Is Here Too
Look for the young actor later known as Charley Chase, who appears in His New Profession years before becoming a major silent-comedy star in his own right.
Chase would eventually become one of the era's accomplished comic performers and directors.
That makes this little Chaplin short an opportunity to see two important figures in silent comedy before either man's full legacy had been written.

AINtoid: The Wheelchair Becomes Part of the Choreography
Chaplin had an extraordinary ability to recognize the comic possibilities of objects.
In His New Profession, the wheelchair becomes central to the physical action.
Watch how Chaplin incorporates its wheels, movement and positioning into the staging. Rather than merely standing beside another performer delivering gags, Chaplin uses the environment and objects around him to construct the comedy.
That instinct would become one of the foundations of his filmmaking.

AINtoid: Charlie Can Find Romance Anywhere
Give Charlie a job, a crisis, an angry policeman or complete financial disaster and somehow he will still find time to notice an attractive woman.
That recurring romantic instinct gradually became an essential part of the Little Tramp.
Eventually Chaplin would transform it from simple flirtation into something much more poignant: the Tramp's eternal optimism that perhaps, somewhere, someone might finally choose him.

AINtoid: From Music Hall to Movie Screen
Chaplin arrived in American movies after years of performing onstage with Fred Karno's famous comedy company.
That background taught him extraordinary control over physical movement, timing and audience attention.
But movies required something new.
Onstage, Chaplin controlled where an audience looked through performance. On film, he discovered that he could also control their attention through camera placement, composition and editing.
The 1914 films allow us to watch that education happening in real time.

AIN CURATOR'S NOTE
There is something wonderfully exciting about watching His New Profession today.
Charlie Chaplin didn't know what his legacy would become.
There was no The Kid.
No The Gold Rush.
No City Lights.
No Modern Times.
There was simply a young performer who had arrived at Keystone Studios and was discovering what this relatively new thing called a motion picture could do.
And he learned incredibly quickly.
Watch how Charlie interacts with the wheelchair, the other performers and the real-world locations surrounding him. He's beginning to understand that movie comedy doesn't have to happen only through the actor.

The environment can become part of the performance.
A sidewalk becomes a stage.
A wheelchair becomes choreography.
A stranger becomes part of a gag.
And an ordinary afternoon becomes a Charlie Chaplin movie.

That's what makes these early shorts such treasures.
We aren't merely watching film history.
We're watching someone help invent it.