Even if more care was taken over this production than many of its contemporaries, Making a Living remains a rather flat short comedy compared to Chaplin’s later films at Keystone. Nevertheless, what does make the film interesting is its excessive behaviour and grotesque situations where caricature is pushed into the realms of wonder. Here, the world of the nouveau riche, like that of the bourgeoisie, becomes so ridiculous it is almost satirical, without this ever being established to begin with. Caricature in this period was nothing more than a pretext to shock the audience and make them laugh more easily. This film is in fact in the full burlesque tradition of Keystone, sometimes jovial, imaginative, and entertainingly mad, but also sometimes so ferocious that today’s audience may well find it difficult to appreciate.

Thierry Georges Mathieu, La naissance de Charlot. Keystone – 1914, n.1, Ars Regula, 2001