The Immigrant (1917)

Charlie is an immigrant who endures a challenging voyage and gets into trouble as soon as he arrives in America.

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writer:

Charles Chaplin

Stars:

Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Charles Chaplin	...	Immigrant
Edna Purviance	...	Immigrant
Eric Campbell	...	Head Waiter
Albert Austin	...	Russian / Restaurant diner
Henry Bergman	...	Artist
Kitty Bradbury	...	Edna's mother
Frank J. Coleman	...	Bearded cheating gambler / Restaurant owner
William Gillespie	...	Café violinist
Tom Harrington	...	Marriage registrar
James T. Kelley	...	Shabby man in restaurant
John Rand	...	Tipsy diner
Janet Sully	...	Passenger (as Janet Milly Sully)
Loyal Underwood	...	Pint-sized passenger
Tom Wilson	...	Gambler on ship

Storyline

Charlie is on his way to the USA. He wins in a card game, puts the money in Edna's bag (she and her sick mother have been robbed of everything). When he retrieves a little for himself he is accused of being a thief. Edna clears his name. Later, broke, Charlie finds a coin and goes into a restaurant. There he finds Edna, whose mother has died, and asks her to join him. When he reaches for the coin to pay for their meals it is missing (it has fallen through a hole in his pocket).

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Plot Keywords:

coin | national film registry | slapstick comedy | mother | card game | 

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Genres:

Short | Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 June 1917 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Modern Columbus

Filming Locations:

Chaplin Studios - 1416 N. La Brea Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lone Star Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

25 min 24 min (restored)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Re-released in France December 1971 in a program including "Charlot à la banque (The Bank), "Charlot boxeur" (The Champion), "Charlot fait une cure" (The Cure) and Charlot policeman" (Easy Street).

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Goofs

At 3:57 Charlie lets the girl take his seat at the table. The cook gives her a dish of soup. Right after Charlie opens the door, the dish is gone.

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Quotes

Title Card: The arrival in the Land of Liberty.

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Connections

Featured in The Statue of Liberty (1985)

User Reviews

The Tramp Cometh

Chaplin plays an immigrant on a ship bound for America. While on the ship, he helps a fellow immigrant, Edna Purviance, whose mother had been robbed. Chaplin meets Purviance later at a restaurant where they are spotted by an artist who hires them to be models. Chaplin uses the advance to buy a wedding license.

"The Immigrant" is generally considered to be one of Chaplin's finest shorts. That is true. It is one of his funniest. However, I do not consider it as finely-crafted on the whole as many of the other Mutual films. "The Immigrant" feels like two separate one-reelers, featuring the some of the same characters, strung together. We have a shipboard reel and a restaurant reel. The only common characters from both segments are Chaplin and Purviance. (I don't count members of the stock company who appear in both segments as different characters.) There is no overarching plot combining the segments, and the film also suffers from the lack of a consistent heavy throughout. This weak story structure hampers the overall effectiveness of the short, but doesn't detract too much from comedy. The first segment has some of the more elaborate gags, like eating dinner on the wave-tossed ship, but I prefer the more subtle humor of the second half as Chaplin tries to figure out how to avoid the wrath of his tough waiter when he discovers he doesn't have any money to pay for his meal.

Much political hay is made of Chaplin kicking the immigration officials after the ship passes the Statue of Liberty. Leftist supporters look at it as an early example of his "heroic" anti-totalitarian political sentiments, while critics take it as a nasty, early anti-American statement. I believe both groups are guilty of wrongly transposing the political sensibilities of the late-forties and early- fifties back into the teens. Robinson's excellent book "Chaplin: His Life and Art" thoroughly examines the issue and shows that Chaplin intended no political message. (Write something like that on the Chaplin newsgroup and watch people argue for months!)

Charlie, however, would have plenty of time for politics later!