The Immigrant

One of Charlie Chaplin's many entertaining short features, "The Immigrant" is interesting for the great variety of slapstick skills that Chaplin shows off, plus a few touches of the kind of sensitive observations that would later be such a large part in his best films.

Charlie is one of a group of immigrants on a ship coming to America. The first part of the film takes place at sea, and is mostly simple slapstick centering on the rocky motion of the ship. After a brief scene where the immigrants are admitted to the USA, there is a scene in a restaurant that is one of the funniest in any of Chaplin's short comedies, combining some nicely-timed slapstick with a sympathetic awareness of the kinds of problems faced by someone just trying to get by in a strange and sometimes unfriendly land.

Chaplin fans will certainly want to see this one.

A group of immigrants travel on a boat to their new lives in America. On the boat the little tramp meets and befriends and helps a young lady whose mother has lost all her money. Months later he is in a restaurant when he meets her again. He wants to look after her but the prospects look bleak, as he cannot even pay for the food they are currently eating.

This is one of the later shorts that Chaplin made for Mutual Films and it is starting to show an element of the poignancy that he brought to his later features. The plot sees him take pity on a young lady even when they are both down on their luck and to stick together even when things are looking rough until things suddenly begin to look up for them both. The film has no extreme physical routines but it does have ongoing gags – the guts of this film is in the restaurant rather than the boat. It is still amusing and the story is better developed than some of his other shorts.

Chaplin is excellent, doing trademark hat flicks etc while Purviance is much better here than other mutual shorts simply because she has a good role. Fans will love it and it's steady foundation and gentle humour may win others over.

The Immigrant is one of Chaplin's early short films, with a very simple story but Chaplin makes it work. The thing that makes this early short film work so well is Chaplin's skill at slapstick comedy, it's so much fun to watch him try to deal with these endless predicaments that he gets into that you don't even pay attention to the simplicity of the story.

The majority of Chaplin's early films, particularly the short films like The Immigrant, are little more than brief comedy skits. But the value here does not lie in the story of the film, it lies in seeing how well Chaplin fits the role and how entertaining it is, even by todays standards, to watch his face as he realizes that he has dropped his money, after watching a man get beaten up for being ten cents short. The Immigrant is a classic because it is a Charlie Chaplin film, and really for no other reason. Chaplin makes it work, and he does it extremely well.

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!

The Immigrant (1917) : Brief Review -

Can cinematography create Comedy? Don't say No because this film proves it. A Fun-Tastic Romantic Comedy! The Immigrant stars Charlie Chaplin as an immigrant coming to the United States who is accused of theft on the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and falls in love with a beautiful young woman along the way. Just try to think about it, what ideas this title gives you and how much longer can you hold onto it. Sounds peculiar to have an Immigrant's story make too much sense, aint it? Well, not anymore. Comedy has regular sources which brings laughter such as physical, slapstick, tricks, stunts, adventure and whatever else you think fits here can be considered. But have you ever considered camera work as a source of Comedy? I did not, really. But that's before watching this film. Now i believe it. So, the first half of the film takes place on a steamship which of course keeps shaking as it is floating, but the use of camera here is immensely skillful. You see, this is not the only film to have scenes on ship but i guarantee you that the use of natural resources like sea waves was never done so practically innovative before. That dinner table scene and almost every scene on Ship is with the screen swinging like a pendulum. What a great experience it was. And what's more that it creates a comedy from it, i mean how? And all this in 1917, exactly 104 years back??? I don't see even today's filmmakers going creative like that and then i have to believe that Chaplin and his team did this all a century ago. Don't ask anything, because i don't have anything to say on this. I'd rather just clap for The Immigrant team for making me believe that the cinema was much more creative 100 years ago than today, even with short films. The Immigrant has everything you wish for- romance, comedy, drama, human emotions and last but not the least, that feel of life.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.