Making a Living

The director is a man of means one degree above Chaplin as a toff without a sou.

The toff begs a coin, makes time with his benefactor’s girl, competes with him for a reporter’s job, and tussles with him on the streetcar tracks.

The job rivalry has Lehrman snap a closeup of a man who’s gone over a cliff in his car. The toff takes the camera from him, there is a pursuit upstairs to a handy flat, they wrestle and part. Lehrman’s in bed with a woman still wrestling as her enraged husband enters.

The two rivals are picked up on the cowcatcher of a passing streetcar and carried off fighting.

Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal.

Chaplin as the Tramp stands in front of the camera as it records the sport, attended by thousands.

The director, who plays himself, ushers the Tramp away, but every shot finds him returning.

Knocked down, pushed aside, reasoned with, he persists. The kids whoosh by, he inspects the ramp they descend from. Now it’s a war of wills with the director, who tweaks his nose away from a grimacing closeup.