{ "id": "epytwt0rcz", "slug": "the-immigrant-1917-film", "title": "The Immigrant (1917 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Immigrant (1917) is Charlie Chaplin's eleventh Mutual two-reel silent comedy, in which the Tramp crosses to America, meets Edna Purviance, and kicks an Ellis Island official; his favorite short, noted for social criticism.", "snippet": "The Immigrant (1917) is Charlie Chaplin's eleventh Mutual two-reel silent comedy, in which the Tramp crosses to America, meets Edna Purviance, and kicks an Ellis Island official; his favorite short, noted for social criticism.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "markdown": "# The Immigrant (1917 film)\n\n**The Immigrant** is a 1917 American silent two-reel comedy written, directed by, and starring Charles Chaplin, in which his Little Tramp character crosses the Atlantic as an immigrant to the United States and is reunited with a fellow passenger ([Edna Purviance](https://www.edgepedia.org/edna-purviance)) in a New York restaurant. It was the eleventh of the twelve Mutual-Chaplin Specials produced for the Mutual Film Corporation, and Chaplin called it his favorite among all his short comedies.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release and series | 1917; eleventh of twelve two-reel comedies Chaplin made for Mutual Film Corporation[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) |\n| Length | Finished film runs approximately 2,000 feet, about twenty minutes on screen[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) |\n| Principal cast | Charles Chaplin (the Immigrant), Edna Purviance (the Immigrant), Eric Campbell (the Waiter), Albert Austin (a Diner), Henry Bergman (the Artist)[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) |\n| Production cost in effort | More than 90,000 feet of negative exposed for a 2,000-foot film; Chaplin edited for four days and nights without rest[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) |\n| Milestones in Chaplin's career | First film in which his character enters a full-fledged romance, and the first of many Chaplin films to carry themes of social criticism[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) |\n| Standing | Generally regarded, with Easy Street (1917), as the best of the Mutual comedies[3](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/chaplins-first-masterpiece-vagabond) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and structure\n\nThe first half takes place aboard a crowded immigrant ship crossing the Atlantic. Charlie uses his card-playing skills to win back money that another passenger has stolen from Edna and her ailing mother. The ship sequence ends with the passengers lined up at the rail, watching as they pass the [Statue of Liberty](https://www.edgepedia.org/statue-of-liberty), an image and sentiment later referenced in many films, notably *The Godfather Part II* (1974).[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant)\n\nOn arrival, the immigrants are herded onto the dock, and during triage at Ellis Island Chaplin's character furtively kicks an immigration officer's behind, in response to the officer's similar act upon an immigrant's arrival.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) • [5](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/making-americans-spectacular-nationalism-americanization-and-silent-film/A8188E40DDA25381A8C84638E566879B) The second half finds a down-and-out Charlie picking up a coin in the street and trying to buy a much-needed dinner; in the cafe sequence he runs into Edna again, and the coin is lost and retrieved numerous times. Eric Campbell, as the burly waiter, plays Chaplin's foil through this final half of the film.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) • [6](https://www.fernbyfilms.com/2018/03/22/movie-review-immigrant-the/)\n\n## Production context\n\nBy 1916, two years after his first screen appearance, Chaplin was the most famous entertainer in the world. Mutual Film Corporation offered him the largest contract ever extended to a motion picture star to that point, $670,000 for a single year's work to make twelve two-reel comedies, and gave him his own studio, renamed Lone Star. Chaplin later referred to his time at Mutual as \"the happiest days of my life.\"[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant)\n\nThe film began as a planned variation on *[Trilby](https://www.edgepedia.org/trilby-novel)*, with a Paris Latin Quarter setting, before developing into a comic story of two immigrants who meet aboard a ship, separate, and then cross paths again thanks to a chance meeting, a threatening waiter, and an artist's enthusiasm.[4](https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/films/30-the-immigrant) Like all his Mutual shorts, Chaplin built the story through on-set improvisation rather than from a finished script.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) The film was photographed by Roland \"Rollie\" Totheroh, Chaplin's favorite cameraman, who worked for no one else from 1915 onward and stayed on for every Chaplin film through *Monsieur Verdoux*.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant)\n\n## Making the film\n\nChaplin drew on his own experience of immigrating to the United States, attempting to find humor in otherwise traumatic aspects of coming to a new land, and in his experience as an outsider careful with his money on arrival, when he was intimidated by waiters; that fear was the spark for the cafe sequence.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\n**The rocking ship.** The seasickness gags were built on a physical trick: Totheroh fitted a heavy pendulum to the camera head so the camera rocked from side to side in time with the ship, and the rocking interior of the dining hall was a studio set built on rockers. With the effect perfected, Chaplin, in the words of the Library of Congress essay, was free to fashion every seasick gag imaginable.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\n**The opening gag.** Chaplin was especially pleased with the film's opening, which misleads the audience: seen from behind, leaning far over the ship's rail and shuddering, Charlie appears seasick, but when he straightens up he pulls a fish on the end of a line into view. Chaplin wrote in 1918 that \"figuring out what the audience expects, and then doing something different, is great fun to me.\"[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\nThe scale of the effort was unusual for a short: Chaplin shot as much footage as most directors would use for a feature, exposing more than 90,000 feet of negative against a finished length of roughly 2,000 feet, then spent four days and nights without rest editing the film to final length.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) To set a romantic mood on set, he employed off-camera musicians, as many silent-era filmmakers did; he recalled in his 1964 autobiography that the old song \"Mrs. Grundy,\" with its wistful tenderness, created the mood for the film.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\n## Themes and later significance\n\nThe film carries undertones of social criticism, the first of many Chaplin films to do so, in an era when such themes were seldom found in comedy. When the immigrants first see the Statue of Liberty, the officials rope the foreigners together like cattle, prompting Charlie to cast a quizzical second look at the land of the free.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) A scholarly study of [Americanization](https://www.edgepedia.org/americanization) in silent film describes the picture as an acerbic parody of the \"immigrant problem\" with a sympathetic treatment of the immigrant subject, and notes that its arrival tableau offers a biting critique of putative American hospitality while assuming, rather than dramatizing, the immigrant's assimilation.[5](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/making-americans-spectacular-nationalism-americanization-and-silent-film/A8188E40DDA25381A8C84638E566879B)\n\nThe kick at [Ellis Island](https://www.edgepedia.org/ellis-island) had a long afterlife. TCM records that the depiction of the gruff officials, one of whom receives the kick, was later cited as evidence of Chaplin's \"anti-Americanism\" when he was forced to leave the United States in the 1950s during the [Red Scare](https://www.edgepedia.org/red-scare); the Cambridge study likewise notes the scene caused considerable uproar when Chaplin was accused of anti-American activities in the 1950s.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) • [5](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/making-americans-spectacular-nationalism-americanization-and-silent-film/A8188E40DDA25381A8C84638E566879B)\n\nThe film also marked a turning point in Chaplin's art: it is the first in which his character embarks on a full-fledged romantic relationship, and it is often cited as the first of the truly romantic Chaplin comedies.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf) • [7](https://letterboxd.com/desdemoor/film/the-immigrant/) Chaplin retained a special place in his memory for it, writing in his 1974 pictorial volume *My Life in Pictures* that \"The Immigrant\" touched him more than any other film he made and that he thought the end had quite a poetic feeling.[1](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n\nIt was Chaplin's penultimate film for Mutual; after *The Adventurer* (1917), the twelfth and final Mutual short, he moved to First National.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant) • [8](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/113319-THE-ADVENTURER?cxt=filmography) The film was made at a moment of rising anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States: 1917 was the year literacy tests for immigrants were passed into law, alongside an $8 head tax on each adult immigrant and a bar on immigrants from the \"Asiatic zone.\"[9](https://reimaginingmigration.org/resource-items/charlie-chaplins-the-immigrant/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Jeffrey Vance, \"The Immigrant,\" Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board essay, adapted from *Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema* (2003)](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/immigrant.pdf)\n2. [Rob Nixon, \"The Immigrant,\" Turner Classic Movies article (August 11, 2010)](https://www.tcm.com/articles/345143/the-immigrant)\n3. [Graham Fuller, \"Chaplin's first masterpiece: The Vagabond,\" British Film Institute (June 2, 2015)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/chaplins-first-masterpiece-vagabond)\n4. [\"The Immigrant,\" Charlie Chaplin official website film page](https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/films/30-the-immigrant)\n5. [\"Making Americans: Spectacular Nationalism, Americanization, and Silent Film,\" Journal of American Studies, Cambridge Core](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-american-studies/article/making-americans-spectacular-nationalism-americanization-and-silent-film/A8188E40DDA25381A8C84638E566879B)\n6. [Rodney Twelftree, \"Movie Review – Immigrant, The,\" Fernby Films (March 22, 2018)](https://www.fernbyfilms.com/2018/03/22/movie-review-immigrant-the/)\n7. [Des de Moor, review of The Immigrant, Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/desdemoor/film/the-immigrant/)\n8. [AFI Catalog entry for The Adventurer (1917)](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/113319-THE-ADVENTURER?cxt=filmography)\n9. [\"Classroom Resource: Charlie Chaplin's The Immigrant,\" Re-imagining Migration](https://reimaginingmigration.org/resource-items/charlie-chaplins-the-immigrant/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent genre and exploitation features*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-immigrant-1917-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-immigrant-1917-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. 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Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Immigrant is Charlie Chaplin's eleventh Mutual two-reel silent comedy, in which the Tramp crosses to America, meets Edna Purviance, and kicks an Ellis Island official; his favorite short, noted for social criticism." }