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14 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Chaplin in his biggest hit, and one of the biggest of all time…, 24 July 2005

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In reaction to the dullness of the films of actual combat in that time, the wartime public increasingly turned to humor as escape from monotony and anxiety…

Charlie Chaplin feared that his great "Shoulder Arms" would offend people, but it became his greatest hit… In it, Charlie, by luck, courage, and devilish ingenuity wins the war singlehanded and brings a captive Kaiser in triumph to London…

The chief difference between this hilarious burlesque and some of the serious war dramas was that in Charlie's case it all turned out to be a dream…

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
A Lot Of Creativity And Talent, 11 January 2007

Author: FerdinandVonGalitzien (FerdinandVonGalitzien@gmail.com) from Galiza

In these modern times (as subject known quite well to the director of the short film that this German count is going to talk about…), politically correct films are the "leitmotiv" of the modern young filmmakers' projects. "Shoulder Arms" directed by Herr Charlie Chaplin during WWI (the film was released only a few weeks before the armistice) is an obvious example of why the early cinema pioneers were a very bold people, certainly! To direct a humorous film inspired in the terrible, bloody First World War was a complicated matter that only few directors with those dangerous and daring ideas could be allowed to do… to venture upon such delicate enterprise and with success was reserved only to geniuses.

As this German count said, "Shoulder Arms" was made during WWI, that time in where definitely the whole world lost its innocence (fortunately not the German fat heiresses of this aristocrat…) and it is a hilarious, inventive social satire about that and any war. The film it is full of great gags and entertaining film continuity for a story in where that tramp will live though risky and courageous adventures in the front …whether a hero for the allies… or not.

To mock the war trenches, the unhealthiness, the frontal attacks and the Germans (how you dare!!... by the way, there are a lot of inaccuracies in the film … the German soldiers by that time had moustaches and longer beards not to mention that the Kaiser lacks many medals in his uniform…) in an elegant, funny and delicate way it is even today a film miracle impossible of being surpassed. Keeping in mind those terrible wartime circumstances, the difficult task is only possible thanks to a lot of creativity and talent. Obviously Herr Charlie Chaplin had very much of it.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must go back to the Schloss trenches.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Little Man, What Now?, 16 September 2006

Author: krorie from Van Buren, Arkansas

Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp or Little Man character wins World War I, called The Great War at the time, single handedly, even capturing the Kaiser, something the entire Allied armed forces were unable to do. Too bad it all turns out to be a dream, which is somewhat of a cop out and the weakest part of this mesmerizing silent short (almost a feature film at 46 minutes).

There are inventive gags galore including Charlie having to put on a gas mask to eat Limburger cheese sent from home, then using the cheese as a weapon against the Germans; Charlie sleeping underwater in a flooded trench next to a soldier he continues to annoy; Charlie disguising himself as a tree--one of his best sketches ever--and Charlie pretending to beat up his friend who has become a POW, then hugging him when the enemy is out of sight.

One amazing feature is how much Charlie, when he is behind enemy lines dressed as a German, resembles Hitler over ten years before Hitler and his Nazi thugs rose to dominate German politics. Obviously Hitler patterned his appearance after Charlie's from this film.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The Tramp Goes To War, 29 August 2005

Author: Cineanalyst

The big names in film tried to do their part for the war effort, and Charlie Chaplin was no exception. This patriotic and propagandist picture is part of his contribution, although the war was nearly over by the time of its release. The tramp goes to war, humorously accomplishes acts of heroism and kicks the Kaiser in the bum. It's a very funny film, although I don't think it nearly one of his best. It's with 'A Dog's Life' as his better output for First National before he made his early masterpiece 'The Kid.' They are his first three-reelers, which contain sustained, more elaborate gags than he could usually orchestrate in his two-reel shorts at Mutual.

It can be difficult to balance a pro-war message with slapstick antics and scenes of burlesque on the front, but one wouldn't think so watching 'Shoulder Arms.' It's also preferable in many respects to a "more serious," dramatic work with a similar message, such as Griffith's 'Hearts of the World.' Chaplin had become a true virtuoso of screen comedy by this time; he makes it look effortless. He knew very well by now that a film with fewer gags--with more elaboration, refinement and careful timing--could be better than any knockabout, Keystone-type farce with a dozen pratfalls a minute. The sequence where Chaplin is disguised as a tree is a pertinent example. Even with wars raging, Chaplin can lift the spirits of millions.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Charlie Chaplin's great war film long before The Great Dictator...., 30 December 2003
Author: Daniel Dopierala from Australia

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.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
The Tramp Does His Bit, 9 March 2008

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

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.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Chaplin's brilliant take on World War I., 11 March 2007

Author: Michael DeZubiria (miked32@hotmail.com) from Luoyang, China

In one of the best of Charlie Chaplin's lengthier short films, he places the Little Fellow in the trenches of WWI, where he brings his intolerable politeness and endless patience to the drudgery of trench life, where troops lived for months at a time before finally going over the top to overtake the enemy, and usually to their deaths. It takes someone of Chaplin's skill as a comedian to make something as dreary as trench warfare into such a brilliant comedy, but the irony that he uses in the film makes even the most uncomfortable conditions highly amusing.

Like all of the best of Chaplin's films, short films and otherwise, this one is packed with brilliant and memorable scenes, such as the scene where he marks off kills with a piece of chalk on a board in the trench, erasing one when he gets his helmet shot off, the scene where he and his fellow soldiers are sleeping underwater, the opening of the beer bottle and lighting of the cigarette, and of course, the overtaking of the enemy. All of these scenes are show-stoppers, reminiscent of the most wonderful Chaplin scenes. This one should not be missed!

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
a big step forward for chaplin, 3 January 2003

Author: mmmuconn from movie heaven

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

SPOILERS BELOW

`A Dog's Life' was most noteworthy for its excellent comic timing. In Charlie Chaplin's other movie from 1918, `Shoulder Arms', the silent film genius focuses on an entirely different brand of humor. His war comedy specializes in surreal, exaggerated set pieces in which Chaplin demonstrates unprecedented creativity and mastery of composition. When the soldier's bunker gets flooded, the water level reaches just the right height so that Chaplin can execute his gags most successfully. In a later scene, the soldier dresses up as a tree, a disguise that belies Chaplin's much increased ingenuity and goofiness. Naturally, when the enemy discovers his ruse, the soldier darts straight for the forest. The ensuing chase is a visual marvel: Chaplin not only hides the soldier from the Germans, but he uses the forest to mask the soldier from the audience, as well, such that the camouflaged soldier stands unblocked in the middle of the frame yet somehow remains invisible. All the while we thought our little hero was pulling a fast one on the German army; to our delight, the joke is on us, too.

Rating: 8

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A Wonderful Combination Of Comedy, Commentary, And Adventure, 18 September 2001
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

One of Charlie Chaplin's very best shorter features, "Shoulder Arms" is a wonderful combination of comedy, commentary, and adventure. Charlie plays a soldier who heads off to World War I, and in the course of 40 minutes or so, it provides a light-hearted but in many respects believable portrayal of what life was like in the trenches. The story also combines some fine slapstick with some exciting adventures.

In this movie, Chaplin hits the perfect balance between humor and substance, helping us to sympathize with those who bore the burdens of the war, without ever becoming sentimental. The other characters are nicely conceived and acted, with the engaging Edna Purviance, the versatile Syd Chaplin, and other talented supporting players pitching in.

The story has many creative turns, plus a couple of good surprises. It's great entertainment, and thoughtful as well. Make sure to take a look if you enjoy Chaplin or silent comedies in general.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Magnificent, 4 February 2005

Author: Michael Open from Belfast, NI

This is one of Chaplin's First National films from the period between his glorious Mutual shorts and the more mature United Artists features. More opulent than the Mutual films, it continues Chaplin's quest for perfecting his comic expression. Most people forget that the film is actually a dream that Charlie has while awaiting being sent off to the front.

There is plenty of slapstick via the Limburger cheese being used to gas the enemy, and Chaplin's foray into enemy territory dressed as a tree.

By this stage in this career, the great man had become so immersed in filmic expression that his films give the impression of making themselves. Doubtless this was not the case, but still, it gives as convincingly realistic view of life at the front as I can remember, albeit from an ironically humorous perspective.

As far as I am concerned, familiarity with the entirety of Chaplin's work should be a prerequisite for all cinephiles - do not delay!

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