Shoulder Arms (1918)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writer:

Charles Chaplin (writer)

Release Date:

20 October 1918 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | War

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Capture | Gas Mask | Behind Enemy Lines | Limburger | Espionage

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

Runtime:

46 min | 36 min (TCM print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

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

Certification:

Canada:G (Ontario) | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

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

Company:

Charles Chaplin Productions

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.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: In the woods, where Chaplin runs to hide from the pursuing Germans, automobiles are visible traveling on a highway on the horizon.

Quotes:

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

Movie Connections:

Featured in Cineastes en acció (2005)

The Tramp Does His Bit

Considering all of the comedies with a military situation that have been done in history, someone had to be the first. One could make a case that in Shoulder Arms, Charlie Chaplin invented the genre.

Hard to believe that back then this was a daring move. When you consider that some of the best films involving such people as Bob Hope, Abbott&Costello, Laurel&Hardy involved military service and made during war time, it's just something you accept and laugh at.

In the First World War Chaplin along with fellow stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford went out on bond tours. He was a great supporter of the Allied cause, unusual for someone of his left wing views. It would seem only natural that the Tramp would be drafted and unfortunately would flummox around and wreak havoc on all.

A lot of things you'd see in the service comedies of World War II got their start in Shoulder Arms. Chaplin had no more imitators because within a few weeks of the film's release, the war was over.

But a comedy art form had been established by one of comedy's greatest geniuses.