MOVIEmeter
SEE RANK
Down 4,741 this week

Shoulder Arms (1918)

 -  Comedy | War  -  20 October 1918 (USA)
7.0
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 7.0/10 from 2,813 users  
Reviews: 25 user | 12 critic

Charlie is a boot camp private who has a dream of being a hero who goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines.

Director:

Writer:

0Check in
0Share...

Related News

The genres Hollywood left behind
| Den of Geek
Keaton and Chaplin
| MUBI

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 3111 titles created 16 May 2011
 
a list of 16 titles created 22 May 2011
 
a list of 111 titles created 12 Dec 2011
 
a list of 813 titles created 29 Jan 2012
 
a list of 167 titles created 8 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Shoulder Arms (1918)

Shoulder Arms (1918) on IMDb 7/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Shoulder Arms.

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Block-Heads (1938)
Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.5/10 X  

It's 1938, but Stan doesn't know the war is over; he's still patrolling the trenches in France, and shoots down a French aviator. Oliver sees his old chum's picture in the paper and goes to... See full summary »

Director: John G. Blystone
Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Patricia Ellis
Certificate: Passed Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

The boys' Army buddy, Eddie Smith, is killed in the trenches in France, leaving his baby girl an orphan. Back home after Armistice, they try to find Eddie's father and turn the child over ... See full summary »

Directors: George Marshall, Ray McCarey
Stars: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Don Dillaway
Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken) delays the return to his hometown, feeling ... See full summary »

Director: Preston Sturges
Stars: Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, Raymond Walburn
Comedy | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

The career of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff as roistering companion to young Prince Hal, circa 1400-1413.

Director: Orson Welles
Stars: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford
Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

An impoverished backward nation declares a war on the United States of America, hoping to lose, but things don't go according to plan.

Director: Jack Arnold
Stars: Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell
Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.1/10 X  

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.

Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Stars: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack
Underground (1995)
Comedy | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

The story follows an underground weapons manufacturer in Belgrade during WWII and evolves into fairly surreal situations. A black marketeer who smuggles the weapons to partisans doesn't ... See full summary »

Director: Emir Kusturica
Stars: Predrag Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic
Comedy | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.5/10 X  

Dictator Adenoid Hynkel has a doppelganger, a poor but kind Jewish barber living in the slums, who one day is mistaken for Hynkel.

Director: Charles Chaplin
Stars: Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Comedy | Romance | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.8/10 X  

After an all-night send-off party for the troops, a small-town girl wakes up to find herself married and pregnant, but with no memory of her husband's identity.

Director: Preston Sturges
Stars: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn
Comedy
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

A French farce set in Victorian London where a botanist and his wife get into trouble when they pretend to go missing in order to hide from their sanctimonious cousin -- an Anglican bishop who is leading a campaign against such writing.

Director: Marcel Carné
Stars: Louis Jouvet, Françoise Rosay, Michel Simon
Hands Up! (1926)
Comedy | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.4/10 X  

A southern spy during the Civil War, he must try to capture a shipment of gold. His task is complicated by the two sisters, the Indians and a firing squad.

Director: Clarence G. Badger
Stars: George A. Billings, Virginia Lee Corbin, Charles K. French
I Accuse (1919)
Horror | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

Director: Abel Gance
Stars: Romuald Joubé, Séverin-Mars, Maryse Dauvray
Edit

Cast

Complete credited cast:
...
The Girl
...
Doughboy
...
Charlie's Comrade / The Kaiser (as Sydney Chaplin)
Loyal Underwood ...
Short German Officer
Henry Bergman ...
Fat Whiskered Soldier / The Kaiser's General / Bartender
Tom Wilson ...
Dumb German Wood-Cutter
Albert Austin ...
American Soldier / Clean Shaven German Soldier / Bearded German Soldier
Jack Wilson ...
Crown Prince
Edit

Storyline

Charlie is in boot camp in the "awkward squad." Once in France he gets no letters from home. He finally gets a package containing limburger cheese which requires a gas mask and which he throws over into the German trench. He goes "over the top" and captures thirteen Germans ("I surrounded them"), then volunteers to wander through the German lines disguised as a tree trunk. With the help of a French girl he captures the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and is given a statue and victory parade in New York and then ... fellow soldiers wake him from his dream. Written by Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>

Plot Summary | Add Synopsis

Genres:

Comedy | War

Certificate:

Not Rated | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Country:

Language:

Release Date:

20 October 1918 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Chaplin, a katona  »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

| | (TCM print)

Sound Mix:

(Westrex Recording System) (1959 re-issue)|

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Originally planned at five reels; outtakes were preserved in Chaplin's private collection. True Boardman, Marion Feducha and Frankie Lee played Chaplin's sons in cut domestic scenes intended for the beginning of the film. Peggy Prevost and Nina Trask portrayed draft board clerks, Alf Reeves a draft board sergeant and Albert Austin a doctor in a cut scene at the draft board office. See more »

Goofs

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. See more »

Quotes

Officer: How did you capture thirteen?
Recruit: I surrounded them.
See more »

Crazy Credits

The short opens with a title card showing a caricature of Chaplin dressed as a World War I soldier, and text reading "Shoulder Arms Written and Produced by" followed by a blank space. A live action hand appears and points to the title, then the drawing, then uses a piece of white chalk to sign "Charles Chaplin" in the blank space, then points to the caricature one more time. See more »

Connections

Referenced in The Secret Life of Sergei Eisenstein (1987) See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.

User Reviews

 
World War slapstick.
16 January 2012 | by (United States) – See all my reviews

Shoulder Arms may well be the first war comedy ever released while the conflict was still going on. Opening before the Armistice Charlie Chaplin pokes fun at trench warfare and German officers from the Kaiser to field officers with Napoleonic complexes. In that it had never been done before Chaplin may well have put his career on the line with its release since the public's positive response was not a given.

Recruit Charlie drives his drill instructor crazy with his inability to drill properly. Driven to exhaustion Charlie collapses in his tent but is soon on the front lines dealing with the deprivations of fox hole life. On the battlefield he encounters an arrogant German officer, meets a pretty French farm girl and captures the Kaiser.

Shoulder Arms serious subject does not get in the way of Charlie's mirth making. A flooded trench with men sleeping in a foot of water, shooting the enemy and keeping score and the over the top charge to the wire are played for laughs and get them. After a hilarious segment with Charlie camouflaged as a tree the films pace slows a little when he impersonates a German officer and captures the Kaiser. Pace killer that it is, it more than likely must have brought cheers from a war weary audience in 1918.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
Charlie's Pantomime to Edna missya
Discuss Shoulder Arms (1918) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?