Original Title: Getting Acquainted

Directed by: Charlie Chaplin

Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Phyllis Allen, Mack Swain, Edgar Kennedy, Cecile Arnold, Harry McCoy

STORY

A peaceful walk in the park becomes anything but peaceful when Charlie and his wife cross paths with another married couple, Ambrose and Mabel.

Charlie is supposed to be enjoying an afternoon with his wife. Instead, his wandering eye quickly discovers other possibilities. Ambrose isn't exactly behaving like the model husband either. Before long, both men are paying considerably more attention to women who are not their wives — and a pleasant afternoon becomes a wonderfully tangled game of flirtation, pursuit, jealousy and escape.

Charlie spots an attractive young woman and launches into his pursuit with all the confidence of a man who apparently has forgotten one rather important detail: his wife is nearby.

Meanwhile, Ambrose has troubles of his own.

Soon husbands are chasing women, wives are discovering husbands, tempers are rising, and a policeman gets dragged into the confusion. Every attempt to escape one predicament seems to lead Charlie directly into another.

It is classic early Chaplin — mischievous, shameless and wonderfully imperfect.

The Charlie we meet here isn't yet the tender, sympathetic Little Tramp audiences would eventually adore in films such as The Kid and City Lights. This earlier incarnation can be selfish, flirtatious and downright troublesome. But Chaplin is already discovering how much comedy can come from one small character trying desperately to outmaneuver a much larger world.

And in A Fair Exchange, that world includes two marriages, several attractive strangers, one increasingly complicated afternoon — and a policeman who would probably have preferred everyone simply go home.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS
IT STARTED LIFE AS GETTING ACQUAINTED

The film audiences know today under the title A Fair Exchange was originally released as Getting Acquainted.

Over the years Chaplin's Keystone films circulated under numerous alternate titles. The official Chaplin filmography includes A Fair Exchange Is No Robbery as an alternate title for Getting Acquainted.

That complicated title history is one reason the same early Chaplin movie can sometimes appear in collections under different names.

CHAPLIN WAS ALREADY DIRECTING HIMSELF

By the time this film was made, Chaplin was no longer simply the new comedian Keystone had hired earlier in 1914.

He wrote the scenario, directed the film and starred in it.

In less than a year of filmmaking, Chaplin had progressed from appearing under other directors to taking substantial creative control over his own comedies — an important step toward the extraordinary independence he would eventually achieve as a filmmaker.

ONE OF CHAPLIN'S LAST KEYSTONE FILMS

A Fair Exchange arrived near the end of Chaplin's remarkable year at Keystone.

He had made his screen debut in February 1914. By December, he was already preparing to leave Mack Sennett's company.

Getting Acquainted was released on December 5, 1914. Only one more Chaplin Keystone short, His Prehistoric Past, followed it in release.

Chaplin's entire Keystone period lasted less than a year, yet during those months the foundations of one of cinema's greatest careers were established.

MABEL NORMAND AND CHARLIE CHAPLIN

Mabel Normand wasn't simply another actress appearing opposite Chaplin.

She was already one of Keystone's major stars and an important filmmaker in her own right. During Chaplin's Keystone year, the two appeared together repeatedly, sometimes with Normand directing and sometimes with Chaplin directing.

A Fair Exchange became their final released short together at Keystone.

Within a remarkably short period, their screen partnership had become part of the formative year in which Chaplin developed his film persona and learned the mechanics of making motion pictures.

MACK SWAIN ENTERS THE CHAOS

Playing Ambrose is Mack Swain, one of the great character comedians of the silent era.

Swain's imposing physical presence made him an ideal comic contrast to the smaller Chaplin.

Their association would extend well beyond Keystone. More than a decade later, Swain would memorably play Big Jim McKay opposite Chaplin in The Gold Rush.

Watching them together here gives us an early glimpse of a comic partnership that would eventually appear in one of Chaplin's most celebrated feature films.

EDGAR KENNEDY: THE MAN WITH THE BADGE

The policeman caught up in the romantic chaos is played by Edgar Kennedy.

Kennedy became one of Hollywood's most recognizable comic character actors, eventually appearing in hundreds of films. He became particularly famous for his slow-burning expressions of frustration — the kind of exasperation perfectly suited to a policeman trying to impose order on a Chaplin comedy.

THE EARLY TRAMP WASN'T ALWAYS A SWEETHEART

Modern audiences often remember Chaplin's Tramp as the gentle outsider with the enormous heart.

But the character wasn't born fully formed.

In these early Keystone films, Charlie can be aggressive, opportunistic, flirtatious and spectacularly selfish. He causes trouble as often as trouble finds him.

That makes these shorts fascinating documents of an artist still discovering his character.

Over the following years, Chaplin would gradually add vulnerability, compassion and emotional depth to the comic figure until the Tramp became one of the most beloved characters in motion-picture history.

THE PARK WAS A KEYSTONE COMEDY PLAYGROUND

A park was nearly perfect for early silent comedy.

It provided benches, paths, trees, strangers, couples, policemen and plenty of room for characters to chase one another — all without requiring an elaborate studio set.

Chaplin's Keystone films repeatedly turned ordinary public spaces into comic arenas.

Here, a simple afternoon stroll provides everything necessary for romantic mischief to explode into chaos.

AINTOID: THE WORKING TITLE WAS THE FLIRTS

Before becoming Getting Acquainted, the production reportedly carried the working title The Flirts.

Considering what Charlie and Ambrose spend much of the picture doing, it may have been the most straightforward title imaginable.

AINTOID: PRODUCED BY MACK SENNETT

Behind the film was Mack Sennett, the legendary producer whose Keystone Film Company became synonymous with fast, physical screen comedy.

Sennett's company provided Chaplin with his entrance into motion pictures in 1914.

By the end of that same year, Chaplin's growing popularity allowed him to leave Keystone for a far more lucrative contract with Essanay.

AINTOID: ONE REEL OF COMEDY

A Fair Exchange belongs to the one-reel era of motion pictures.

Filmmakers had only a short amount of screen time in which to establish characters, create a predicament, escalate the trouble and deliver the payoff.

There was little room for wasted motion.

That pressure helped produce the rapid storytelling style that defines so many Keystone comedies.

AINTOID: A FAIR EXCHANGE CAME LATER

The title A Fair Exchange was associated with a later reissue of Getting Acquainted, rather than being the title under which Keystone originally released the picture in 1914.

Silent films were frequently retitled, reedited and redistributed by later companies, which is why surviving Chaplin films sometimes appear under several different names.

For modern viewers, those alternate titles are part of the detective work — and part of the fun — of exploring cinema's earliest years.