Halfway between a short and a feature, Shoulder Arms is a comedy about army life and war on the Western Front. It is certainly unusual for such a film to be made during a war, even if it were done towards the war's end (released in October 1918). Apparently the film was edited down from nearly feature length, as there are not always smooth changes from one scene to another. Despite these shortcomings, Chaplin again demonstrates his creative comic genius that began in 1914 (ironically, at the beginning of the war). A few years later, Chaplin will begin writing, directing, and acting in a string of notable silent features, like The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), and City Lights (1931).
Shoulder Arms is divided into three segments of unequal length: (1) Military induction/physical examination, (2) Military training/ boot camp, and (3) Combat. Inadvertently signed on to the US army, recruit Charlie Chaplin – a four-F if there ever was one – drives his military instructor mad as he is unable to drill the army way in boot camp. He even walks like the little tramp! One thinks about the great future comedians who later followed the comedic army act, like Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Abbot and Costello. Somehow our recruit passes military drill and moves on to the front lines in France, but his situation is not much better. For now he is dealing with the travails and deprivations of foxhole life, including unsanitary conditions and a flooded trench. The latter finds him sleeping (with ingenuity) below the surface! There are other great gags as well, and there is no need to go into them here. The activities inside the German trench across the battlefield are equally uproarious.
The film shows the Germans to be even more incompetent than Charlie. On the battlefield Charlie will capture a 13-man German squad, while encountering the shortest German officer of the war (his explanation: "I surrounded them."). Later Charlie volunteers to undertake a dangerous mission behind enemy lines, disguises himself as a tree, and spies on the Germans. He impersonates a German officer, and hilariously fakes beating up a captured American soldier. Charlie meets a French farm girl and hides in her house; she will help him with his encounters with the enemy. Soon they wind up capturing both the German Crown Prince and the Kaiser! Wow! Then he awakens. Poof!
Shoulder Arms is divided into three segments of unequal length: (1) Military induction/physical examination, (2) Military training/ boot camp, and (3) Combat. Inadvertently signed on to the US army, recruit Charlie Chaplin – a four-F if there ever was one – drives his military instructor mad as he is unable to drill the army way in boot camp. He even walks like the little tramp! One thinks about the great future comedians who later followed the comedic army act, like Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, and Abbot and Costello. Somehow our recruit passes military drill and moves on to the front lines in France, but his situation is not much better. For now he is dealing with the travails and deprivations of foxhole life, including unsanitary conditions and a flooded trench. The latter finds him sleeping (with ingenuity) below the surface! There are other great gags as well, and there is no need to go into them here. The activities inside the German trench across the battlefield are equally uproarious.
The film shows the Germans to be even more incompetent than Charlie. On the battlefield Charlie will capture a 13-man German squad, while encountering the shortest German officer of the war (his explanation: "I surrounded them."). Later Charlie volunteers to undertake a dangerous mission behind enemy lines, disguises himself as a tree, and spies on the Germans. He impersonates a German officer, and hilariously fakes beating up a captured American soldier. Charlie meets a French farm girl and hides in her house; she will help him with his encounters with the enemy. Soon they wind up capturing both the German Crown Prince and the Kaiser! Wow! Then he awakens. Poof!