Shoulder Arms
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Shoulder Arms is Charlie Chaplin's second film for First National Pictures. Released in 1918, it is a silent comedy set in France during World War I. It co-starred Edna Purviance and Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's elder brother.
Plot
Charlie is in boot camp in the "awkward squad." Once in France he gets no letters from home. He finally gets a package containing limburger cheese which requires a gas mask and which he throws over into the German trench. He goes "over the top" and captures thirteen Germans ("I surrounded them"), then volunteers to wander through the German lines disguised as a tree trunk. With the help of a French girl he captures the Kaiser and the Crown Prince and is given a statue and victory parade in New York and then ... fellow soldiers wake him from his dream.
Credited cast
- Charles Chaplin ... Charlie, the Doughboy
- Edna Purviance ... French girl
- Sydney Chaplin ... The sergeant, Charlie's Comrade/The Kaiser
- Jack Wilson ... German Crown Prince
- Henry Bergman ... Fat German sergeant/Field Marshal von Hindenburg/Bartender
- Albert Austin ... American Officer/Clean Shaven German Soldier/Bearded German Soldier
- Tom Wilson ... Dumb German Wood-Cutter
- John Rand ... U.S. soldier
- J. Parks Jones ... U.S. soldier (as Park Jones)
- Loyal Underwood ... Small German officer
- W.J. Allen ... Motorcyclist
- L.A. Blaisdell ... Motorcyclist
- Wellington Cross ... Motorcyclist
- C.L. Dice ... Motorcyclist
- G.A. Godfrey ... Motorcyclist
- W. Herron ... Motorcyclist
