Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

HomeyTao For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Janis One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Twenty Minutes of Love" is an American black-and-white silent short film from 1914, so this one is already over a century old, actually 105 years next year, and this one was made by the still pretty young Charlie Chaplin, who not only plays the main character, but also co-directed this one. The cast includes several names that film fans of this era and fans of Chaplin's other works may recognize to some extent. The action is taking place at a park this time where Chaplin causes quite a great deal of havoc to the other visitors, most of it unintentionally or from the heat of the moment though and not really intentionally. Malice is absent you could say, but chaos sure is present as a consequence of Chaplin's actions. Still all in all, he may not be at his best yet at that point as story and acting all in all are far from memorable. Still if you like Chaplin more than I do, then perhaps you will enjoy the watch nonetheless I guess. But I still cannot give it a positive recommendation as the only moment I found hilarious in a positive way was when he accidentally hits that lady near the end and that just isn't enough for this runtime, which by the way was way under 20 minutes in every version I found. I think it has rather to do with more fps than lost scenes. A thumbs-down for this one here as I did not feel the love and felt that premise and location offered the possibility of a far better outcome. Watch something else instead.

Lee Eisenberg Charlie Chaplin's directorial debut casts him as a man who interrupts people's makeout sessions in a park. There were no feature films by this point, so it makes sense that the movie has a simple plot. It was still going to be a few years before Chaplin started incorporating political issues into his movies. Chaplin's early movies were all about physical comedy, and he makes good use of that here. Co-star Edgar Kennedy (the lover) later played the lemonade vendor in "Duck Soup", while Chester Conklin (the pickpocket) played a mechanic in "Modern Times".It must've been weird for Charlie Chaplin, how he went from being a boy growing up in an orphanage to being an international superstar.

Michael_Elliott Twenty Minutes of Love (1914) *** (out of 4) A man (Charles Chaplin) walks through the park and notices all sorts of couples making out so he decides to spoof them with a tree. This is a faster paced short with Chaplin doing all sorts of goodies but the highlights are the tree scene and the ending where everyone starts falling in a lake.The Landlady's Pet (1914) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Charles Chaplin plays the favorite of the landlady, which doesn't sit well with the other occupants. This short really doesn't feature anything special and is quite bland with the exception of one scene where Chaplin learns to play tennis.Cruel, Cruel Love (1914) *** (out of 4) A man (Charles Chaplin) is dumped by his fiancé so he decides to kill himself. After drinking the poison he receives a letter from the fiancé saying she wants him back. It's interesting to see Chaplin playing a role outside The Tramp and this short allows him to go all out. The best scenes include one where he destroys a room and another one where he fantasizes about hell before taking the poison.

MartinHafer In 1914, Charlie Chaplin began making pictures. These were made for Mack Sennett (also known as "Keystone Studios") and were literally churned out in very rapid succession. The short comedies had very little structure and were completely ad libbed. As a result, the films, though popular in their day, were just awful by today's standards. Many of them bear a strong similarity to home movies featuring obnoxious relatives mugging for the camera. Many others show the characters wander in front of the camera and do pretty much nothing. And, regardless of the outcome, Keystone sent them straight to theaters. My assumption is that all movies at this time must have been pretty bad, as the Keystone films with Chaplin were very successful.The Charlie Chaplin we know and love today only began to evolve later in Chaplin's career with Keystone. By 1915, he signed a new lucrative contract with Essenay Studios and the films improved dramatically with Chaplin as director. However, at times these films were still very rough and not especially memorable. No, Chaplin as the cute Little Tramp was still evolving. In 1916, when he switched to Mutual Studios, his films once again improved and he became the more recognizable nice guy--in many of the previous films he was just a jerk (either getting drunk a lot, beating up women, provoking fights with innocent people, etc.). The final evolution of his Little Tramp to classic status occurred in the 1920s as a result of his full-length films.It's interesting that this film is called TWENTY MINUTES OF LOVE since the film only lasts about 10 minutes! Oh well. The plot, what little there is, involves the Little Tramp in the park. A couple wants to neck but inexplicably, Charlie insists on practically sitting on the couple's lap and really annoying them. I can't understand why and the short consists of Charlie wandering about the park annoying these people and some others later in the film. Perhaps he was looking for a threesome, I don't know. But the film lacks coherence and just isn't particularly funny--even when people start slapping each other and pushing each other in the lake. A typical poor effort before Chaplin began to give his character a plot and personality.