Tango Tangles

{{short description|1914 film by Mack Sennett}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}

{{Infobox film

| name = Tango Tangles

| image = The Tango Tangle poster.jpg

| caption = Theatrical release poster

| director = Mack Sennett

| producer = Mack Sennett

| writer = Mack Sennett

| starring = Charles Chaplin
Ford Sterling
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle
Chester Conklin
Minta Durfee

| music =

| cinematography = Frank D. Williams

| editing =

| studio = Keystone Studios

| distributor = Mutual Film

| released = {{Film date|1914|3|9}}

| runtime = 12 minutes

| language = Silent film
English (Original titles)

| country = United States

| budget =

}}

File:Tango Tangles (1914).webm

File:Tango Tangles.jpg

Tango Tangles is a 1914 American film comedy short starring Charles Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle.{{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=291 |url=https://archive.org/details/macksennettsfunf0000unse/page/290/mode/2up |access-date=20 February 2024}} The action takes place in a dance hall, with a drunken Chaplin, Ford Sterling, and the huge, menacing, and acrobatic Arbuckle fighting over a girl. The supporting cast also features Chester Conklin and Minta Durfee. The picture was written, directed and produced by Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios and distributed by Mutual Film Corporation.

In Tango Tangles, Charlie Chaplin appears without makeup and his usual mustache, baggy pants, and oversized shoes. The film was shot at a dance hall without any sort of formal script. Mack Sennett, in his 1954 autobiography King of Comedy, said of the impromptu nature of Tango Tangles, "We took Chaplin, [Ford] Sterling, [Roscoe] Arbuckle and [Chester] Conklin to a dance hall, turned them loose, and pointed a camera at them. They made funny, and that was it." Tango Tangles marked the last time that Ford Sterling and Chaplin appeared in the same film. Sterling had decided to leave Keystone where he had gained most of his fame as the chief of the Keystone Cops.