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Shoulder Arms (1918)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writer:
Charles Chaplin (writer)
Release Date:
20 October 1918 (USA)
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Plot:
Charlie is a boot camp private who has a dream of being a hero who goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines. full summary | add synopsis
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User Comments:
Charlie Chaplin's great war film long before The Great Dictator....
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Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Charles Chaplin | ... | Recruit |
 | Edna Purviance | ... | French girl |
| Syd Chaplin | ... | Sergeant / The Kaiser (as Sydney Chaplin) |
| Jack Wilson | ... | German Crown Prince |
| Henry Bergman | ... | Fat German sergeant / Field Marshal von Hindenburg |
| Albert Austin | ... | U.S. soldier / German soldier / Kaiser's chauffeur |
| Tom Wilson | ... | Training camp sergeant |
| John Rand | ... | U.S. soldier |
| J. Parks Jones | ... | U.S. soldier (as Park Jones) |
| Loyal Underwood | ... | Short German officer |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
46 min | 36 min (TCM print)
Country:
Language:
Color:
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Certification:
Canada:G (Ontario) |
Argentina:Atp
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Many in Hollywood were nervous that one of their most famous peers was going to tackle the subject of WWI. It was released shortly before the Armistice so it did not help boost national morale. But it did end up as one of Charles Chaplin's most popular films and it was particularly popular with returning doughboys.
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Goofs:
Continuity: Charlie, disguised as a tree, enters a pipe to escape a German. When the German tries to pull Charlie out he seperates the lower part of the tree costume along with Charlie's shoes. When Charlie emerges from the other end of the pipe he is still wearing shoes.
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This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (25 total)
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SHOULDER ARMS (1918)
Written, Directed, Produced and Scored by Charles Chaplin.
Starring Charles Chaplin, Syd Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Albert Austin, Henry Bergman, Tom Wilson and Loyal Underwood.
1918 was a tremendously significant year for Charles Chaplin. He and his brother Sydney had established their very own film company so that they could now relax while making their pictures. The reason being is because when Charles Chaplin was signed to the Mutual Film Company, he was required to make 12 films in a very short period of time. Sydney Chaplin had also made a string of successful silent comedies at the Keystone Film Company just after Charlie left in 1914. Syd basically quit in 1915 to handle Charlie's affairs full time. Syd was the only person at that time that Charlie trusted. Charlie and Syd's first release through the Charles Chaplin Film Corporation was A Dog's Life (1918), which was very successful as all of Chaplin's other pictures were. Chaplin now had his very own stock company of actors that would stay with him for years including his charming leading lady Edna Purviance, and comics Albert Austin, Henry Bergman, Loyal Underwood, Tom Wilson and Syd Chaplin who would appear in several of Charlie's pictures till 1923 when he moved to making his own feature films such as Charley's Aunt (1925) and The Better ‘Ole (1926). In 1918 Chaplin was touring around the U.S. selling liberty bonds for the war effort with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. And in an attempt to try and get more people to buy bonds, Chaplin made a five minute film simply called The Bond where Chaplin tells the story of two different kinds of bonds, a friendship bond with Albert Austin and Edna Purviance and a liberty bond. Syd Chaplin also made an appearance in the film all dressed up as the Kaiser. This character would also appear again in Shoulder Arms. On May 27th, 1918, Chaplin began what was to become the most popular film of the entire war period.
Shoulder Arms begins with Charlie in `the awkward squad' where he shows off some typical tramp character gags by having to put his feet inwards and not outwards as the sergeant orders him to do so. The sergeant then dismisses the men and Charlie runs back to his tent to get as much rest as he possibly can and so the rest of the film is all a dream. The film now consists of Charlie arriving at a trench where Syd offers hospitality by inviting him to stay in his bunker. One particularly unique quality about Chaplin's comic persona was the art of parodies and all his fans know that by watching The Great Dictator. In fact the beginning of The Great Dictator picks up where Shoulder Arms left of. The element of parody in Shoulder Arms is the small German officer (Loyal Underwood) who provides several laughs in the picture. Shoulder Arms also features scenes depicting poverty in France at that time. In the scene, Edna Purviance is the poor French girl who meets up with Charlie who has run away from the enemy and his in her half-destroyed home. Charlie Chaplin was truly cinema's first genius and Shoulder Arms was just one of his earliest masterpieces. The film runs only 4 reels along but it was originally intended to be basically a feature-length production. Several superb Chaplinesque sequences would be discarded by Chaplin due to the fact that Chaplin's distributor First National did not want a feature, they only wanted a short comedy. These scenes do survive in the Chaplin vault and were brilliantly presented in the documentary entitled Unknown Chaplin (1980). Perhaps the funniest of these discarded sequences was when Charlie is required to be physically examined before he can go to war. This scene was a ‘shadow' sequence where Francis Maud, a physician (Albert Austin) examines him in a very unusual kind of way but it's just fun to watch what Charlie gets upto. In Shoulder Arms some of the cast members actually play at least two or three roles. Henry Bergman plays a bartender, and a soldier of the enemy and Von Hindenburg, Syd Chaplin plays Charlie's pal and the Kaiser; Albert Austin plays Francis Maud, a soldier on Charlie's side and a soldier of the enemy and the Kaiser's chauffeur. Tom Wilson plays both the sergeant and an enemy soldier.
The conclusion of Shoulder Arms is excellent. Charlie, Edna and Syd save the day by bringing home the bacon, in other words capturing the Kaiser. Shoulder Arms would not be seen again until 1943 when a person wrote a letter to Chaplin asking him if he could make some copies of this terrific comedy. This delighted Chaplin that someone still wanted to see a twenty-five year old comedy. This also made Chaplin think of preserving his films a lot better and to make safety copies of the film, so he got his cinematographer Roland Totheroh to make copies of the First National Films and it proved to Chaplin several years later that it was worth it. This was because in the late 1950s Chaplin decided to make his own compilation film consisting of three films, A Dog's Life, Shoulder Arms, and The Pilgrim plus outtakes from his uncompleted film How To Make Movies (1918). The compilation film was called The Chaplin Revue and Chaplin also composed his own musical scores for each film in The Chaplin Revue as he did with all his other films from 1931 onwards. The score for Shoulder Arms is one of his best and truly memorable. In his later years, Chaplin would spend time composing music for all his films made from 1918 to 1928. He is a today one of the most respected film composer of all time. The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights, Modern Times and Limelight contain his very best musical soundtracks.
Shoulder Arms is an excellent film and just presented Chaplin's Tramp Character in a different mood.