The working title of this picture was Educational San Pedro. According to John Bengtson, who matched stills from A Busy Day with contemporary and modern photographs in his 2006 book, Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin, A Busy Day was shot during a real Army and Navy parade on Canal Street (now Avalon Street) in what was then called New San Pedro [now Wilmington], CA, just south of Los Angeles, on 11 April 1914. The four-hour parade celebrated the expansion of Los Angeles Harbor. Charles Chaplin reprised his disruptive bystander role from Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914, see entry), except this time, instead of a tramp at a road race, he impersonated an angry, jealous woman, armed with an umbrella, who interfered with a street parade. This was one of many films the Keystone cast and crew made using public events in and around Los Angeles (for example, see The Sleuths at the Floral Parade and A Muddy Romance, both 1913).
     This was Chaplin's first film in which he portrayed a woman. He later played an actor impersonating a woman in order to land a role in Keystone's The Masquerader (1914), and dressed as a woman to elude pursuers in Essanay's A Woman (1915). 
     A Busy Day shared a split reel with the documentary The Morning Paper (see entry). A New York Motion Picture Corp. advertisement in the 9 May 1914 Motion Picture News prematurely gave a release date of 4 May 1914, but film lists in the 9 May 1914 Moving Picture World and 16 May 1914 Motography cited a 7 May 1914 release.
     Bioscope reported that Western Import Co., Ltd., released A Busy Day in the United Kingdom on 12 November 1914, at a length of 441 feet. An advertisement in the British publication noted, “Chas. Chaplin as the lady who had a day off, got into trouble with the police, and finished in the harbour. Includes interesting views of Los Angeles harbour, the American navy, etc."
     A Busy Day was considered lost until 1970, when a home movie print was found.
     Production dates and the working title were taken from Brent E. Walker's authoritative Mack Sennett's Fun Factory (McFarland & Co., 2010), based on microfilmed Keystone/New York Motion Picture Co. records in the Harry Aitken Papers at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, WI.
     For more information about the Keystone Film Co., see The Water Nymph  (1912).
     A Busy Day is extant.