Topic: City Lights (1931) - Charlie Chaplin

[metaldams]

      Just what the world has been waiting for for the past ninety one years.  The 3,787th review of CITY LIGHTS by yours truly.  Finally got it right, though I have to admit review 2,453 comes close to this.  OK, all kidding aside, I’m not sure if more needs to be said about this film, but I’ll say it anyway.  So what is my opinion of CITY LIGHTS?  The best dramatic film Charlie Chaplin ever made and a simply good but transitional comedy in this brave new world of sound cinema. 

      I’ll touch on the comedy stuff first.  In a very slowly dipping his toes in the water kind of way, this is Chaplin’s first sound film.  “But Doug, there’s no dialogue,” I hear you say.  True, but there is a score composed by Chaplin included on an actual soundtrack.  Included in this soundtrack are sound gags.  No words, mind you, but sound gags, it’s Chaplin’s way of acknowledging the modern world he’s living in.  Acknowledge it he does at the very beginning with Henry Bergman’s speech.  It’s “blah-blah-blah” kind of talking, Chaplin’s way of saying words are irrelevant to this movie.  Leave that to Groucho, The Little Tramp doesn’t speak. 

      Another sound gag later on involves Chaplin swallowing a whistle at a party.  He then gets the hiccups - every hiccup causing the whistle inside him to blow.  He eventually goes outside where the whistling noise calls a taxi and a dog.  An OK gag that is really only special because it shows Chaplin experimenting with a new medium.  I kind of wish he didn’t because I have no doubt a well thought out silent routine could have been done in its place.

      The big comedy scene is of course the boxing match with opponent Hank Mann and referee Eddie Baker.  I have mixed feelings on it, but more positive than negative.  The positive is it’s brilliantly choreographed in parts.  I love Chaplin dancing behind the referee in such a ballet like manner (W.C. Fields can be heard swearing at this point), and the dizzy falls Chaplin and Hank Mann take throughout the scene.  The noose around the neck to ring the bell is also a nice touch.  What I dislike is the unnecessary part where it’s so obvious Chaplin is wearing a harness to fly to punch Hank Mann.  They do all this wonderful choreography around this part and have to throw in an Ed Wood moment.  It stands out like a sore thumb.  Also, while CITY LIGHTS has more finesse, I will commit blasphemy and state I prefer the youthful anarchy and energy of the boxing match with Bud Jamison in the 1915 Essanay short, THE CHAMPION.  Just personal taste.  CITY LIGHTS is the better film and the purpose of the boxing match, getting rent money for The Blind Girl, is more potent here, but in actual execution?  This better suites young Chaplin.

      My favorite comic bits here are actually the small bits.  I love the drunken night club scene with Chaplin and Harry Myers.  Reminds me of a combination of Chaplin and Arbuckle in THE ROUNDERS and something contemporary at Hal Roach.  I love the cigar interplay gags at the table and there is almost a Laurel and Hardy like quality from the two the way they drunkenly defend each other.  Chaplin gets out the sprayed water bottle at the guests, the only thing missing is Anita Garvin!  I also love the pooper scooper bit when Chaplin, holding the unenviable job, sees a parade of horses go by followed by an elephant!  Earn that paycheck, Charlie.  My favorite comic bit is almost a throwaway gag.  Chaplin gets out of a car, pushes a homeless guy out of the way, takes a cigar from the ground, gets back in the car and drives away.  The homeless guy looks confused and so is Chaplin.  Shows the falsehood of his predicament, a poor guy playing rich.

      A nice segue into the drama, this is where CITY LIGHTS really shines.  Chaplin has two relationships that are doomed from the start based on lies.  His friendship with the drunken rich man, played by Harry Myers, and his love for The Blind Girl, played by Virginia Cherrill. 

      With the drunken eccentric friend, Chaplin, a homeless tramp, gets to play rich when his friend allows him to be.  A complete mess of a man, they meet when Chaplin saves him from drowning - or does he save Chaplin?  Either way, when drunk, the man loves Chaplin and gives him money and his car - a nice cover so Chaplin can play rich for The Blind Girl.  When sober, he completely forgets about the existence of Chaplin, making Chaplin’s predicament much harder.  A false relationship from the start.

      Speaking of which, yet with more confusion, is the relationship with The Blind Girl.  It’s been said before, but yes, very clever with the sound of the closing of the car door as a way for The Blind Girl to think Chaplin went away in a nice car without getting his change.  It was of course another person going into the car, but the facade of her thinking she had a rich man starts from here.  Yes, Chaplin is deceptive, but not a total scoundrel as he also works hard for her later on and tries to help her pay the rent and get surgery to see.  This bad side and good side of The Little Tramp, adding multiple dimensions, is what makes the ending so powerful.

      Ah yes, the ending.  My favorite ending of a movie ever.  Just about the only one where I sometimes cry a little.  The look on both of their faces when she realizes who she is with, the man that both helped her but is not who he said he was, is beyond any words I can convey.  The title card when she says, “I can see now” is loaded with so much potential meaning.  Yes, cured of her blindness, she sees in the literal sense, but what else does she see in Chaplin?  Does she reject him?  Accept him?  If it were my world, I think these two need to have a long talk because things are very complicated.  Bravo for not writing a shallow love story, this thing is as complicated as real life and I think that’s why it resonates with me.  Whatever uninspired sound gag or Ed Wood prop there is in this movie can easily be forgiven, the good far outweighs it.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Excellent review of a much-discussed film. "City Lights" remains a cinema classic, but does not quite rank with Chaplin triumphs such as "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times" (a minority opinion, I realize). Strangely enough, the narrative flow is a bit sluggish while the supporting performances lack the usual collaborative spark. (I wonder how the film would have fared if Chaplin had replaced Virginia Cherrill with Georgia Hale as he originally planned.) The highlights are the hilarious boxing match and, of course, the justifiably famous ending where the Little Tramp encounters the flower girl after she has regained her sight. It's hard not to be moved by this closing scene. However, "Modern Times" endures as Chaplin's feature-length masterpiece.

I'm glad I held on to my Image DVD, since it's the window-boxed version and includes two music tracks: the original 1931 score and Carl Davis' 1989 stereo recording. Thank you, David Shepard.

Another Ed Wood moment: Watch the string being pulled when a boxing glove falls on the Tramp's head (at the 1:09:00 mark).

[Umbrella Sam]

Alright, CITY LIGHTS. A movie that’s difficult for me to talk about, for the simple fact that so many other people talk about it in much greater detail, including both of yours. What I will say is, for all that’s great about this film, it is not flawless. The sound based gags, though at least not frequent, do get tiresome pretty quick; that whole opening sound gag with all the yelling goes pretty out of control and the whistle gag is uninspired. Truth be told, CITY LIGHTS is never a Chaplin film I think of when citing his comic abilities, but watching it again, I forgot there actually are quite a few moments that are actually really funny. I really like the moments at the nightclub; Chaplin slips on the floors in the way only Chaplin can do, and he and Harry Myers play very well off of each other, especially the routine with them swapping cigars. I also really like the boxing match, although I do think the whole build up to it takes way too long and is pretty boring. The actual match itself, though, is pure comic genius, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Hank Mann is the opponent. Usually when you see these types of boxing routines, it’s the smaller comic paired against a much larger, serious opponent, but Hank Mann was an original Keystone Cop, and he plays the part as half serious, half comedic, which is a refreshing change of pace. I really like seeing him get mad at the referee being in his way, that part always makes me laugh.

And yes, the drama is great too. I’m honestly having trouble thinking of what to say because, really, I feel like you just have to see it to understand why it works so well. I think Virginia Cherrill gives a great performance; you really believe that she can sense things that other people might not sense very easily. Her character immediately picks up on the fact that Chaplin has to go away for a long time, even though there was really nothing obvious about it in the first place. The ending is, of course, fantastic. I will disagree with the idea of there being a ton of ambiguity in the ending; while, yes, she did think he was rich from the start, she pretty much admits from the beginning that there is something more to him beyond just being rich, and you also have to keep in mind it is implied they spent a lot of time together, so they clearly had to have bonded over multiple things. If anything, I feel like the ambiguity may come from whether or not she realizes right away that he wasn’t always rich. For all we know, she may think he lost all of his money, which would actually make sense considering this takes place right after the stock market crash. But, yes, it’s a fantastic ending any way you look at it, especially after seeing everything Chaplin goes through in the course of this film, not for his own survival, but for the survival of someone else.

Is it Chaplin’s feature-length masterpiece? For me, no, and it’s actually not MODERN TIMES either. To me, THE GREAT DICTATOR is Chaplin’s top work. But I also can totally see the arguments for CITY LIGHTS and MODERN TIMES, especially considering that both films were huge risks in the sense that they were trying to keep alive an era that Hollywood seemed ready to forget forever at that point. And CITY LIGHTS was the beginning of that, another artistic triumph in a filmography full of artistic triumphs.

[metaldams]

Very interesting take about the comic not having a significantly larger opponent in a boxing match.  I never really thought of that before and it does invite some interesting ways of looking at things.

I go back and forth on Chaplin’s best feature - I think at some point I may have considered the majority of the normal ones his best and right now - I would say THE GOLD RUSH, probably even more so than when I wrote my review.  Just the best balance of story and comedy, not to mention setting.  But I could change my mind tomorrow.  THE KID I really love too and MONSIEUR VERDOUX is Chaplin’s most underrated - the best horror film of 1947, and I say that only partially joking.  I’ll get to all of Chaplin’s (and Lloyd’s) features at some point.

[Dr. Mabuse]

I go back and forth on Chaplin’s best feature - I think at some point I may have considered the majority of the normal ones his best and right now - I would say THE GOLD RUSH, probably even more so than when I wrote my review.  Just the best balance of story and comedy, not to mention setting.  But I could change my mind tomorrow.  THE KID I really love too and MONSIEUR VERDOUX is Chaplin’s most underrated - the best horror film of 1947, and I say that only partially joking. 

"The Gold Rush" remains the best structured of Chaplin's feature-length films. Everything works beautifully, with the pathos and humor perfectly integrated. Chaplin learned a great deal from directing "A Woman of Paris" and applied this cinematic depth to his Klondike epic. Though not without its faults, the sardonic "Monsieur Verdoux" remains Chaplin’s finest talkie. A provocative black comedy, "Verdoux" works better than "The Great Dictator" in terms of story structure and pacing.

"Modern Times," my favorite Chaplin feature, is a remarkable anomaly — a sound film with occasional lines of dialogue and that beautiful score (I have the original music on CD). My only problem with "The Kid" is the elaborate dream sequence, which arrives too late in the film and doesn’t fit with the overall serio-comic tone.  A four-reel featurette, "The Pilgrim" is a self-assured masterpiece (hit the mute button on the unnecessary Matt Monro song . . . or find a non-Chaplin score) — the high-water mark of his First National period.

[metaldams]

"The Gold Rush" remains the best structured of Chaplin's feature-length films. Everything works beautifully, with the pathos and humor perfectly integrated. Chaplin learned a great deal from directing "A Woman of Paris" and applied this cinematic depth to his Klondike epic. Though not without its faults, the sardonic "Monsieur Verdoux" remains Chaplin’s finest talkie. A provocative black comedy, "Verdoux" works better than "The Great Dictator" in terms of story structure and pacing.

"Modern Times," my favorite Chaplin feature, is a remarkable anomaly — a sound film with occasional lines of dialogue and that beautiful score (I have the original music on CD). My only problem with "The Kid" is the elaborate dream sequence, which arrives too late in the film and doesn’t fit with the overall serio-comic tone.  A four-reel featurette, "The Pilgrim" is a self-assured masterpiece (hit the mute button on the unnecessary Matt Monro song . . . or find a non-Chaplin score) — the high-water mark of his First National period.

I agree 100% with your KID and PILGRIM remarks.  Will get into more detail once I get around to reviewing them, especially about the dream sequence.

[Umbrella Sam]

Also agreed on the dream sequence for THE KID; if it wasn’t there, that would be my favorite Chaplin film, but with it there, it just kind of pads it out and shifts the direction a bit too much. I saw MONSIEUR VERDOUX twice several years ago and didn’t like it either time; I suppose time may change that opinion, but in addition to just not liking the concept, I felt it got a bit too unfocused at times. I will say I definitely preferred it to A KING IN NEW YORK, which was absolutely awful, one of the few Chaplin films I’d recommend skipping altogether.

I’m curious, Dr. Mabuse, is THE PILGRIM the only one where you have an issue with Chaplin’s score, or does that apply to Chaplin’s other later scores as well?

[Dr. Mabuse]

I’m curious, Dr. Mabuse, is THE PILGRIM the only one where you have an issue with Chaplin’s score, or does that apply to Chaplin’s other later scores as well?

I like "The Pilgrim" score, but not the dreadful "Bound for Texas" song — another mutilation that the Chaplin family accepts as gospel. The same goes for Chaplin's tacked-on "Swing Little Girl" in his reissue of "The Circus." The out-of-print Image DVD omits the 1969 song and goes straight to the opening credits, but the "First National Collection" is stuck with "Bound for Texas" from "The Chaplin Revue" (1959).

No lost masterpiece, it's difficult to forgive "A King in New York" for its sloppy filmmaking and stale gags. Furthermore, the King Shahdov character is little more than a bitter, aging Charlie sans makeup. Though fascinating to watch from an academic standpoint, one wishes Chaplin had ended his film career with "Limelight."