A Busy Day

{{Infobox film

| name = A Busy Day

| image = A Busy Day.jpg

| caption = film scene

| director = Charlie Chaplin

| producer = Mack Sennett

| writer =

| starring = Charlie Chaplin

| music =

| cinematography = Frank D. Williams

| editing =

| studio = Keystone Studios

| distributor = Mutual Film

| released = {{Film date|1914|5|7}}

| runtime = 6 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget =

}}

File:A Busy Day (1914).webm

A Busy Day is a 1914 short film starring Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain.{{cite book |last1=Walker |first1=Brent E. |title=Mack Sennett's Fun Factory: A History and Filmography of His Studio and His Keystone and Mack Sennett Comedies, with Biographies of Players and Personnel |date=2010 |publisher=McFarland Inc. |isbn=9780786457076 |page=294 |url=https://archive.org/details/macksennettsfunf0000unse/page/294/mode/2up |access-date=20 February 2024}}

Plot

In A Busy Day, a wife (played by an energetic Charlie Chaplin) becomes jealous of her husband's interest in another woman during a military parade. On her way to attack the couple, the wife interrupts the set of a film, knocking over a film director and a police officer. Finally, the husband pushes the wife off a pier and she falls into the harbor.

Notes

According to the 1965 book The Films of Charlie Chaplin, A Busy Day is the first of three films in which Chaplin plays a woman. The other two were The Masquerader (1914) and A Woman (1915). Chaplin used the wardrobe of fellow Keystone player Alice Davenport.

It was typical for Mack Sennett to shoot Keystone comedies using real events—such as a parade—as the background for comic mayhem. This short film (about half a reel) was shot near San Pedro Harbor in less than two hours. In it, one can see interesting glimpses of First World War-era American naval ships in the background. The other part of the reel is an educational short titled The Morning Papers.