Name: The Face on the Bar Room Floor
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Released: 1914

The Face on the Bar Room Floor

1914 · Keystone Studios · Dir. Charlie Chaplin

A painter turned tramp (Chaplin), devastated by losing the woman he was courting as a wealthy man, finds himself drunk and getting drunker by the minute with some sailors at a bar until he's literally falling down. He keeps futilely trying to draw the woman's picture on the floor with a piece of chalk until he finally passes out cold (or perhaps dies, as in the poem) at the end of the film.

Confidence

100

Why this status applies

The film, also known as 'The Face on the Barroom Floor' or 'The Ham Artist,' was released by Keystone Studios on August 10, 1914. Directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, it is a parody of Hugh Antoine d'Arcy's 1887 poem of the same name. Under US copyright law, all works published or registered before January 1, 1928, have entered the public domain regardless of renewal status or authorship. Because this film was released in 1914, its maximum copyright term of 95 years (as extended by the Copyright Term Extension Act) expired no later than the end of 2009. However, most Keystone-era Chaplin shorts effectively entered the public domain much earlier due to the expiration of the original 28-year term and subsequent 28-year renewal terms under the 1909 Act. The film is widely available on public domain archives, including the Internet Archive, and is included in various public domain collections of Chaplin's early work. There is no active copyright claim on the original 1914 footage in the United States.

Why this status applies

Supporting facts