[1] Chaplin's original version was a tightly paced two-reeler, but in 1916 after he had moved to Mutual, Essanay reworked the film into a four-reel version called A Burlesque on Carmen, or Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen, adding discarded footage and new scenes involving a subplot about a gypsy character played by Ben Turpin.

The presence of Essanay's badly redone version is likely the reason that A Burlesque on Carmen is among the least known of Chaplin's early works.

This version, with rewritten title cards, poor sequencing, and "fuzzy" in appearance from generation loss, can be found today on some budget home video releases.

Carmen, a gypsy seductress is sent to convince Darn Hosiery, the goofy officer in charge of guarding one of the entrances to the city of Sevilla, to allow a smuggling run.

In reviewing the four-reel version of this film that Essanay released in April 1916, four months after Chaplin's contract had expired with the studio, Julian Johnson of Photoplay panned the lengthy re-release of this comedy.

In his sequencing, Chaplin followed closely the structure of the DeMille production, using very similar sets and costumes, and he used Riesenfeld's music.

At the end, Chaplin indulges in an early example of breaking the fourth wall, turning to the camera to show laughingly that his character had not really killed Carmen.