Easy Street

The story

Charles Chaplin is a down-and-out drifter sleeping beneath a mission church when a preacher’s sermon and the sight of the church pianist (Edna Purviance) nudge him toward reform. Hoping to leave poverty behind, he joins the police force and is promptly assigned to Easy Street, a disorderly block ruled by a vicious bully and his gang. Eric Campbell’s enforcer towers over the neighborhood, turning Chaplin’s first beat into a running battle of street scuffles, improvised policing, and silent-era slapstick built around one cop who’s badly outmatched on paper.