Pay Day (1922)

Pay Day poster

Charles Chaplin Productions
Starring:
 Charlie Chaplin, Phyllis Allen, Mack Swain
Directed by: Charlie Chaplin

Cat Out of the Bag Alert!  This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: A laborer (Charlie Chaplin) earns a day’s wages by working on a construction site, parties all night and comes home to his angry wife the next morning.

Kitty Cameo: This entire short is very funny but especially so when the little laborer returns home after a long drunken night.  We see him enter his apartment but the camera stays outside the door.  A moment later he steps back outside holding a small black cat by the scruff.  He sets the cat down and it runs off.

Pay Day - Chaplin sets black cat outside apartment

Cat Cattle Call:  Next the camera cuts inside the dark apartment.  When the laborer turns on the light we see his kitchen table is completely covered with cats!

Pay Day - kitchen table covered with cats

The laborer is quite surprised to see so many cats!

Pay Day - Chaplin reacts to table full of cats

He shooes the cats away and they run out through the window.

Pay Day - cats runs out through window animated gif

The laborer checks the plate on the table and sees it is empty.  He remembers he has a sausage from earlier and sets it on the plate before cutting a piece of bread from a loaf.  While he is distracted a small black cat suddenly appears on the chair by the plate and takes one end of the sausage in his mouth and pulls it off the table!

Pay Day - black cat steals sausage

The laborer swipes desperately at the cat but it also runs out the window, pulling the sausage with it!

Pay Day - black cat runs out window with sausage

Final Mewsings: He could have started the world’s first cat café!


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