The Immigrant
About The Immigrant
On a steamer for New York, Chaplin's tramp fishes over the rail, plays cards, and meets Edna Purviance, who is traveling with her sick mother, Kitty Bradbury. A pickpocket takes their money; the tramp wins it back and is then accused of the theft until Edna clears him. Ashore, her mother dead, the two meet again in a restaurant run by Eric Campbell's head waiter. A lost coin, a counterfeit, and a tip left by an artist, Henry Bergman, get them out of the bill. In the rain outside a marriage-license office, the tramp picks Edna up and carries her inside.
Cast & crew
More about The Immigrant
Mutual released the short on 17 June 1917. Chaplin shot the restaurant half first, then built the ship passage around it. Silent Era records that about 90,000 feet were exposed for a release print near 1,800 feet. A TCM account says he rented a tramp steamer at $1,300 a day and left it in the harbor for ten days before the company was towed out to shoot.
Themes
Background
The short opened on 17 June 1917, two months after the United States entered the First World War. Chaplin was still under his Mutual contract, working at the Lone Star studio Mutual had given him.
Making
Kevin Brownlow and David Gill's research showed that the penniless restaurant scene was written and filmed before Chaplin decided the tramp was broke because he had just landed from Europe. The ship half was added to set up the second meeting with Edna.
Look
Roland Totheroh and William C. Foster photographed it. The shipboard sway was filmed on a steamer taken out of the harbor, not on a studio rocker.
Music
The 1917 release was silent. The 1932 RKO reissue carried music by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples plus sound effects.
Preservation
A circulating print runs about 24 minutes. The Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry in 1998. It is in the public domain in the United States.
Notes
- Edna Purviance ate so many plates of beans in the restaurant takes that she became ill.
- In 1932 Amedee Van Beuren bought the Mutual comedies for $10,000 each, added a score by Gene Rodemich and Winston Sharples, and reissued them through RKO. Chaplin could not stop the release.
- The kick Chaplin gives an immigration officer was later cited against him when he was forced to leave the United States in 1952.
- Henry Bergman plays both an immigrant woman on the ship and the artist in the restaurant. Albert Austin is a seasick passenger and a diner.
- Frank J. Coleman is the card cheat on board and the cashier in the restaurant.
Awards
- National Film Registry (1998)
Scenes
- The tramp hangs over the rail as if seasick, then pulls up a fish.
- Passengers look out at the Statue of Liberty, and the tramp kicks an immigration officer.
- A coin falls through a hole in his pocket and is later exposed as counterfeit.
- He palms the artist's tip and pays Campbell's waiter with it.
- He carries Edna, kicking, into the marriage-license office.
Influenced by
- Chaplin's own passage from Britain to the United States
Also available
- Internet Archive (CC_1917_06_17_TheImmigrant)
