Originally posted to Facebook on 10/27/2016
Shoulder Arms was our second film from 1918, and also the second time we’ve seen Chaplin. Chaplin’s brother Sydney has a significant role in the movie as well, and this is the first film in which we’ve seen Chaplin’s frequent female co-star Edna Purviance. The plot concerns an American GI during WWI, training and eventually fighting overseas. This is the the first movie we’ve seen in which WWI is explicitly referenced, though we have previously seen it generically alluded to. This film is still not what I would think of as laugh-out-loud funny, but it made me smile intermittently, and was more creative in its set-ups and much more methodical about presenting actual jokes than the first Chaplin film we saw, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, which was basically just a long parade of characters kicking, hitting, and throwing things at each other. The trenches in this film, for instance, turn out to be the basis for a lot of creative set pieces, including one brief tracking shot that reminded me of the similar but more elaborate scene from Paths of Glory. The ending was a bit of a let down, and I imagine a cliché even in 1918.
Our next film from 1918 is The Outlaw and His Wife, the third feature we’ve seen directed by Victor Sjöström, and the second one in which he is also the lead. The link, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT
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