Cinema
The Immigrant
Charlie Chaplin · 1917
Synopsis
On an emigrant steamer tossed about by the Atlantic, the tramp suffers from seasickness. He notices a young woman travelling with her sick mother, whom a thief has just robbed; the thief loses the money to him at cards, and he slips his winnings into the young woman's pocket, which makes him taken for a pickpocket. In sight of the Statue of Liberty, employees pen the passengers in behind a rope. In New York, penniless, he picks up a coin and goes into a restaurant, where he meets the young woman again, in mourning.
Context
The author had crossed the Atlantic with the Karno troupe in 1910, then again in 1912. The restaurant scenes, which form the second half, were written and shot first, and the rest was built afterwards to explain how the two characters had come to that point. According to several accounts, of which no contemporary source keeps any trace, the scene in which the tramp kicks an immigration officer was held against him in 1952 as proof of anti-Americanism.
Who it is for
A silent short film, twenty to twenty-five minutes long depending on the copies, in which Chaplin plays opposite Eric Campbell, who takes the part of a dreaded waiter.
Prizes and reception
Entered in 1998 in the United States National Film Registry; the site devoted to Chaplin calls it the best constructed of his two-reelers.
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