"It touched me more than any other film I made", Chaplin later said of The Immigrant, filmed in 1917, the same year the US government passed a draconian immigration act that was to radically reduce immigration into America.
The Immigrant is a short (24 minutes) first set on board an immigrant ship making for New York’s Ellis Island and later in a restaurant in the city itself. Its protagonist is the familiar figure of the Tramp, that brilliant provocation aimed at all oppressive authorities and their bully enforcers, who appear in The Immigrant as card sharps, immigration officials and a gigantic waiter twice the size of the Tramp.
The ordeal of the journey is briefly and memorably recorded in shots of people trying to sleep on the overcrowded deck, and in the motif of a young woman comforting and protecting her widowed mother. The Tramp falls instantly in love in a wonderful affirmation of human feeling; even in these desperate circumstances love can be found. They part on the docks but when later they find each other again by chance in a restaurant it’s heart-lifting confirmation of the fact that fate, history perhaps, is in league with the Tramp.
