would be worth many times its weight in gold. We held this negative in our vaults for the most opportune time of release, which we believe is NOW." Such hyperbole is somewhat disingenuous; in 1915, Chaplin had begun work on Life, his first feature-length comedy, but Essanay had stepped in and stopped the production as Chaplin was taking too long—what they really needed was one-reel subjects to fill then voracious public demand for Chaplin's work. Essanay created Triple Trouble, their last "new" Chaplin comedy, by taking at least one—and perhaps two—sequences that had been intended for the unfinished Life, bridging them with outtakes from Police, and through borrowing the ending from Work (1915). In addition, Essanay contrived new material to pad it out to the length of a two-reeler, the standard for comedies by this time; this material was shot in 1918 and directed by character actor Leo White. Though White appeared, most often uncredited, in close to 2000 films, Triple Trouble is the only credit he ever received for direction, and it has been suggested that White was strong-armed into the task. Certainly Chaplin never held it against him, as he continued to hire White as a supporting actor in his own films into the 1940s. Nevertheless, Chaplin's own response was swift; a telegram from Chaplin published in the August 10, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World reads, "THIS IS NOT A NEW CHAPLIN BUT FROM THE ADVERTISING LAYOUT IN TRADE REVIEW MUST BE NOTHING BUT THE DISCARDED PORTIONS OF POLICE THE LAST PICTURE MADE BY CHARLIE CHAPLIN FOR ESSANAY FIRST NATIONAL SHOULD STOP THESE MISLEADING STATEMENTS AND ADVERTISING WHICH MUST BE STAMPED OUT." Legacy and preservation Evaluations of the finished film vary; even in 1918, The Moving Picture World called it an "atrocious patch quilt of ancient slapstick reels." A review on the imdb refers to it as "Chaplin's worst film. The story doesn't make any sense" and indeed, the continuity in Triple Trouble is very difficult to follow; the pickpocket knows where the house is as the Count has already directed him towards it, yet he is still looking for a place to rob later in the film, and Charlie directs him towards the house again, presumably double-crossing his employer in the process. In Police, the scene is taken from the opposite angle. Nevertheless, some have found value in Triple Trouble; in their 1965 book The Films