Complete credited cast: | |||
Edna Purviance | ... | The Girl | |
Charles Chaplin | ... | Doughboy (as Charlie Chapman) | |
Syd Chaplin | ... | Charlie's Comrade / The Kaiser (as Sydney Chaplin) | |
Loyal Underwood | ... | Short German Officer | |
Henry Bergman | ... | Fat Whiskered German Soldier / The Kaiser's General / Bartender | |
Tom Wilson | ... | Dumb German Wood-Cutter | |
Albert Austin | ... | American Officer / Clean Shaven German Soldier / Bearded German Soldier | |
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Jack Wilson | ... | Crown Prince |
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>
It's really amazing, how timeless this movie is. This is the first Chaplin movie that I saw (and I intend to watch more), I was blown away to how funny it still is, with already 100 years-old! I think that this is probably the main characteristic of a classic (or a masterpiece), it's a movie that doesn't matter when you see it, it stills good. And Shoulder Arms is definitely one of those cases.
The humor here is silly, but at the same time is also really clever, and this is my favorite aspect of it. At the end, is hard to judge something that old, I really don't have a clear path in mind of how to rate something like that, so I don't know, I might be being unfair or overvaluing it, so, anyway, you really must see it, in order to see what is your opinion about it.
Probably the only thing that bother me sometimes was the score, it repeats a lot, but, again, I get all the scenario behind the production (age, technology).
In short, I think that Shoulder Arms is a classic, timeless, and Chaplin is definitely one of the most influential people in film story, if you see guys like Johnny Depp out there today and likes it, you had to thanks Charlie for that.