The Immigrant: Charlie Chaplin
Channel: Entertainment Box
Date: 2020-03-29

THE IMMIGRANT was Charles Chaplin's eleventh film for the Lone Star/Mutual Film Corporation, released on June 17, 1917.  It is considered by many to be the best (although not necessarily the funniest) of the twelve, two reel masterpieces Chaplin made for Mutual between 1916 and 1917.  It has an extremely well integrated form and a logically progressing plotline, surprising considering what we now know about how the film was shot, due to the excellent three part series UNKNOWN CHAPLIN, by Brownlow and Gill.  We learned from that scholarly work that Chaplin came up with the idea for a Bohemian restaurant scene first, later developing the shipboard segment that perfectly sets up Charlie's later meeting with Edna.  THE IMMIGRANT is also obliquely autobiographical, portraying America as at once welcoming and daunting, probably influenced by Chaplin's own feelings when he was the immigrant only four years earlier. 
           In his autobiography Chaplin says, "Even in those early comedies I strove for a mood; usually music created it.  An old song called "Mrs. Grundy" created the mood for THE IMMIGRANT.  The tune had a wistful tenderness that suggested two lonely derelicts getting married on a doleful day."  Mood does indeed play a large role, especially in the second half of the film, and the moods of adventure, irony, pathos and hopefulness combine here into a poignant union.

The movie was written and directed by Chaplin.

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