OldAle1 Like all of the very early Chaplin works on this VHS, the quality is rather poor and there are dropouts -- not from the tape, but from the film elements -- sometimes enough so that the action is hard to follow. Not that it matters a whole lot, as these are for the most part very simple films with lots of knockabout action, broad humor, and very little else. This short with the previous "Masquerader" is a little bit more imaginative and interesting than the first three."The Rounders" again features Fatty Arbuckle; this time Charlie and Fatty are neighbors in a cheap apartment building, each with wife trouble: Fatty beats up his wife, while Charlie gets beaten by his. They make enough racket that their wives get angry and send them next door to shut up the other neighbor, but after a little bit of knockabout Charlie and Fatty decide instead to split some booze and go off to a fancy restaurant, where after more mischief they are kicked out, only to go off in a leaky rowboat together, apparently drowning at the finish! Just about as good as the previous short, "The Masquerader", quite solid and re-watchable.

CitizenCaine Chaplin again teams up with Fatty Arbuckle as drunks who argue with their wives in separate hotel rooms. The two comedians play drunks as well as anyone before or since. Minta Durfee, Fatty's real life wife at the time, plays his wife here. The spouses go at it quite a bit before Charlie checks out the commotion next door to find Fatty in the same situation he's in. Charlie and Fatty become fast friends and steal away to the hotel's restaurant while the wives argue with each other. Once in the restaurant, sight gags follow and then the wives. In minutes the whole restaurant is up in arms and Charlie and Fatty run off to get away stealing a boat in the process. The ending is grand. Look closely for Charley Chase in the restaurant. ** of 4 stars.

MartinHafer This is a film from Chaplin's first year in films. During this VERY hectic year, he churned out film after film after film for Keystone Studios and the quality of the films are, in general, quite poor. That's because the character of "the Little Tramp" was far from perfected and the films really had no script--just the barest of story ideas. While some Chaplin lovers might think this is sacrilege, all these movies I have seen are pretty lousy. Yes, there are some cute slapstick moments but barely any plot--absolutely NOTHING like the Chaplin we all came to love in his full-length films of the 20s and 30s.This movie pairs Chaplin with Fatty Arbuckle. They drink and punch and fall down a lot. That's really all there is to this film. Content-wise, it's a big fat zero.

SnorrSm1989 By the late summer of 1914, Chaplin's confidence as a film director and performer seemed to be well established. Though still a newcomer in the medium, he had developed a sharp understanding of the essential mechanics of motion pictures remarkably fast. His films were never below the average Keystone-standard as far as I'm concerned, and some are easily among the funniest things produced at the company during this period, THE ROUNDERS being a good example. It's strict "drunken act comedy," with obvious borrowings from Chaplin's years in the music halls, but does not feel like a filmed stage routine; certain bits could only have worked well on film.Neighbors and pals Charlie and Roscoe (of "Fatty Arbuckle"-fame) arrive home in drunken condition, leading to heavy arguments with their respective wives. They soon hurry out again, and decide to stay over at the local bar for the night. They are hastily thrown out of the bar as well, however, and as their wives have begun a search for their husbands, our heroes seek peace in a row-boat at a nearby lake. There, they fall asleep while the boat sinks; whether they ever wake up again remains unconfirmed. Through this very simple and much-used premise, Chaplin and Arbuckle manage to come up with many funny bits; Roscoe using a cloth as his feather-bed while trying to get asleep at the bar is one highlight. The two work perfectly as a comedy team, and only the absence of well-defined personalities (they are both quite vulgar and drunk) makes a comparison with Laurel & Hardy a bit far-fetched.Years later, Roscoe Arbuckle is reported to have said that he regretted to not have appeared in more films with Chaplin than these loud and fast Keystone-films. Even so, the two did turn out together at least one of the funnier films Chaplin appeared in during that single year of 1914. Not a masterpiece, quite loud and somewhat vulgar, but pretty amusing. (This review has later been somewhat revised and updated, Dec. 2012)