Chaplin plays a drunk who goes to a health retreat to dry out but brings a large bag full of alcohol with him. Along the way, he irritates a huge man with gout, avoids him, and meets a lovely young woman who advises him to stop drinking. When the hotel owner discovers that his staff are getting drunk on Charlie’s liquor, he calls an employee and asks that the liquor be thrown out the window.
The inebriated employee throws the bottles through the window and right into the therapeutic pools of the spa. Alcohol makes the well false, putting everyone in the spa into a dancing trance. Chaplin is urged to quit drinking by his new love, so he drinks from the fake spa, becomes wasted, and hurts her. She walks away from him after yelling at him. Charlie stumbles as he makes his way back to the door after bumping into the big man, knocking him out of his wheelchair and into the booze well.
There are a lot of hangovers the next morning, but Chaplin gets sober, walks out, and finds the lady. She forgives him after realising what had happened. They proceed, and he inadvertently steps into the liquor-filled well.
One introduction that has since been added to the picture argues that alcoholism was a big problem in the working class in 1917, so Chaplin turned his “Little Tramp” persona to an upper-class fop to keep it entertaining. Gout was often thought to be a wealthy man’s sickness, which is why Eric Campbell (actorcharacter )’s got it.
Sound version The Cure
Amedee Van Beuren of Van Beuren Studios paid $10,000 for each of Chaplin’s Mutual comedies in 1932. She then rereleased them through RKO Radio Pictures with new sound effects and music by Winston Sharples and Gene Rodemich. Chaplin lacked the legal means to halt the RKO filming.
Preservation status
On September 4, 2013, a lost section of the film’s conclusion was discovered and will be included on a future DVD. On January 11, 2014, The Cure was shown in a restored form at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival.
Cast
Charlie Chaplin as The Inebriate
Edna Purviance as The Girl
Eric Campbell (actor) as The Man with the Gout
Henry Bergman as Masseur
John Rand (actor) as Sanitarium Attendant
James T. Kelley as Sanitarium Attendant
Albert Austin as Sanitarium Attendant
Frank J. Coleman as Head of Sanitarium
[caption id="attachment_361100" align="alignnone" width="500"] The Cure Charlie Chaplin movie therapy[/caption]
art b zen]]>
The Cure Charlie Chaplin movie therapy[/caption]
art b zen]]>
