Easy Street

Easy Street is a 1917 short action-comedy film starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin. Plot In a slum area called Easy Street, the police are failing to maintain law and order. The Little Tramp, a down-and-out derelict, is sleeping rough outside the Hope Mission near the streets of a lawless slum. The sounds of a service in progress draws him wearily inside. After the sermon from the preacher, he is entranced by a beautiful mission worker and organist and he stays after the service. Holding his hand, she pleads him to join the mission, inspiring his religious "awakening". He vows to reform, returning the collection box that he slipped into capacious pants. Spotting a help-wanted ad for a job at the police station, the Tramp accepts and is assigned the rough-and-tumble Easy Street as his beat. Upon entering the street he finds a bully roughing up the locals and pilfering their money. The Tramp gets on the wrong side of the bully and after a brief chase, the Tramp finds him impervious to his blows. In a display of his great strength, the bully bends a gas streetlamp in two, whereupon Charlie leaps on his back, covers his head with the lamp, and turns on the gas, rendering him unconscious.