The Rounders (1914)
Written and directed by Charles Chaplin

A pretty minor, if highly amusing, Chaplin and Arbuckle short in which the two friends hit the town while their nagging wives try to chase them down. It's one joke – they're both just falling-down drunk the whole time – but it's a good joke.

Those more accustomed to Chaplin's masterpieces should be entertained by this rather more anarchic approach, which in some places is almost along the lines of The Hangover. I mean, how can you not like a film where Fatty Arbuckle punches and chokes his wife … for laughs … and the movie ends with the two leads passed out in a sinking rowboat?

Goes to show, the movies have only ever needed a handful of basic plots, and "drunk hijinks" is one of the most enduring.

Review by Lucio Darling