Everything That Dies, Some Day Comes Back

This 1925 comedy by ‘Charles Chaplin’ (as he appears in the credits) is  set in the Klondike Gold Rush which was in Alaska (I didn’t know this) and the first laugh is seeing The Tramp in his usual street clothes strolling around against a backdrop of snowy mountains. The first act takes place mainly in an isolated cabin where Charlie and his companion Big Jim are trapped by a snowstorm and running out of food.  This gives us the famous sequence of Charlie cooking and serving up as food one of his boots, as well as the surreal touch of Big Jim visualising Charlie as a giant chicken. We then move to a makeshift town and in particular the dance hall, where Charlie meets and falls in love with Georgia.  To my surprise this feeling is not reciprocated.  Indeed Georgia and her friends think that the lovelorn Charlie is there to be strung along for their amusement,  This climaxes in a sad little scene on New Year’s Eve when Charlie has gone to a huge amount of trouble ...

We’re in Vermont in 1906 where three young women have recently been murdered, all of whom having some sort of physical disability or affliction.  We’re a long time before the term ‘serial killer’ was coined but fair dues to the local Constable who realises that young Helen, who is mute, is in serious danger.   She is a live-in companion to an elderly and bedridden lady, Mrs Warren, who lives in a large creepy mansion. That night there’s a thunderstorm raging outside so the stage is well set for a scary thriller. The Constable warns Helen’s employer Professor Warren (the stepson of old Mrs Warren) that she should be especially vigilant. The Professor duly passes on the warning, but he makes little effort to ensure that she is not left on her own. Hmmm, does this mean that the Professor, who is a bit of a cold fish, is the killer? He’s certainly a suspect, as his his younger stepbrother Steven, although maybe Steven is too busy making advances to the secretary Blanche to be doin...