City
Lights is the first silent film that Charlie Chaplin directed after he
established himself with sound accompanied films. The film is about a penniless
man who falls in love with a flower girl. The film was a great success and
today is deemed a cult classic.
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Cast: Al Ernest Garcia, Albert
Austin, Austen Jewell, Buster Brodie, Charles Hammond, Charlie Chaplin, Cy
Slocum, Eddie Baker, Florence Lee, Florence Wix ...
Movie
Genre:
Drama | Romance | Comedy |
Music composed by: Charlie Chaplin, José
Padilla, Alfred Newman, Arthur Johnston
Release
Date: 1931-01-30
Rating: 8.1/10 Votes:
324
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City Lights
G 1931 ‧
Drama/Melodrama ‧ 1h 27m
A
hapless but resilient tramp (Charlie Chaplin) falls in love with a blind flower
girl (Virginia Cherrill) on the tough city streets. Upon learning that she and
her grandmother are to be evicted from their home, the tramp undertakes a
series of attempts to provide them with the money they need, all of which end in humiliating failure. But after a drunken
millionaire (Harry Myers) lavishly rewards him for saving his life, the tramp
can change the flower girl's life forever.
City Lights (1931) Free Full HD Movies
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Storyline
A tramp
falls in love with a beautiful blind girl. Her family is in financial trouble.
The tramp’s on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the
girl’s benefactor and suitor.
Reviews
CITY LIGHTS (United Artists,
1931), written, directed and starring Charlie Chaplin (1889- l977), is a silent
comedy-drama released at the height of the sound era. Distributing a movie in
the silent film tradition at the time when silent were considered a fad,
Chaplin gambled with this production, and made it pay off. Although Chaplin
hails THE GOLD RUSH (1925) as the one movie he would most want to be
remembered, CITY LIGHTS nearly dims out his GOLD RUSH and at the same time,
practically places his other silent masterpiece, THE CIRCUS (1928) to oblivion.
CITY LIGHTS has stood the test of time, balancing perfectly a mixture of comedy
and drama, but in Chaplin’s case, pathos.
Subtitled,
“A comedy romance in pantomime,” the story opens in the early morning where the
mayor is dedicating a statue to the citizens of the city. After the unveiling,
the crowd finds a little tramp (Charlie Chaplin) sleeping on the lap of one of
the figures. As he tries to climb down, he encounters one problem after
another. This opening scene alone is priceless. With such a great beginning,
Chaplin adds in more comedic insertions blended into the plot. The theme to
CITY LIGHTS is remembered mainly about a tramp’s love for a blind girl.
However, there is a subplot, involving the tramp’s involvement with a
millionaire drunk, which, by far, takes up more time than the sentimental love
story. These two segments actually set the pattern. First segment, set in the
afternoon, finds Charlie walking down the street, examining a nude statue in a
shop, being annoyed by some newsboys making fun of his tattered clothing. He
encounters a beautiful blonde girl (Virginia Cherrill) selling flowers.
After
she drops one of her flowers, Charlie notices her feeling about the sidewalk
for it, thus, realizing she’s blind. Smitten by her beauty, he picks it up and
pays her for it. Minutes later, the slamming of a limousine door is heard, with
the girl believing the kind gentleman, Charlie, to be a millionaire. Second
segment, set at night, finds Charlie encountering a drunk (Harry Myers) trying
to commit suicide by drowning himself. Just as Charlie is about to save him, he
in turn falls into the river. The drunk, in gratitude for saving his life,
takes Charlie under his wing to accompany him to various night clubs until
dawn. By morning, the millionaire, now sober, fails to recognize or remember
Charlie and orders orders his butler to escort this stranger out of his
mansion. This running gag that’s repeated in the story might play itself as
repetitious, but Chaplin manages to breathe new life and funnier routines
through his encounters with the drunk and their all night binges. By day,
Charlie looks after the blind girl and worries when she’s not at her usual
corner selling flowers. Finding that she’s ill and being cared by her
grandmother (Florence Lee), whose behind with her rent and threatened with
eviction, Charlie offers to help by obtaining and losing various jobs, ranging
from street-cleaning to fighting in a boxing match.
Reading
in a newspaper of a European doctor who restores sight for the blind, Charlie
gives the girl $1,000 for an operation, the money offered to him by the drunken
millionaire, who, after sober, accuses Charlie of robbing him, has his arrested
and serving jail time. The climatic finish is truly the best thing Chaplin has
ever done and certainly one not to be missed.
Featured
in the supporting cast are Henry Bergman, Allan Garcia, Albert Austin, and Hank
Mann. While much has been discussed about Chaplin’s performance, his co-star,
Virginia Cherrill, as the blind girl (no name given), should not go without
mention. Even though her future film career consisted of forgettable
programmers, and at one time being one of the future wives of film actor, Cary
Grant, her performance is excellent by all means. Although it’s been said that
future film star Jean Harlow (1911-1937) appears as an unbilled extra in the
night club sequence, she is visible in a surviving still photograph, but no
such scene appears in the finished product.
Unlike
THE GOLD RUSH, CITY LIGHTS had limited showings in revival houses in later
years, and was never allowed to be distributed to television. Being first
introduced to CITY LIGHTS at New York City’s revival movie house, The Regency
Theater, formerly located on Broadway and 67th Street, in 1979, the memorable
thing about this event are the roars of laughter from its theater packed
audience. There was one man, probably a big fan reliving his childhood
memories, whose laughter almost drowned out the underscoring of the film. No
doubt he was having more fun watching this movie than anyone else. Watching
CITY LIGHTS surrounded by an appreciative audience theater is one way to truly
appreciate and experience the feel of silent film comedy, and to think back as
to how the audience reacted in same back in 1931.
After
Chaplin’s death in December of 1977, CITY LIGHTS, along with his other silent
features, were not only resurrected for a new generation to endure, but became
readily available on video cassette at the time of Chaplin’s 100th birthday,
1989. In later years, CITY LIGHTS was frequently revived on various cable
channels, ranging from Turner Network Television (TNT) in the early 1990s,
American Movie Classics up to 2001, and finally Turner Classic Movies. The
complete musical soundtrack that accompanies CITY LIGHTS happens to be the
original score composed to perfection by Chaplin himself.
Much has
been written and said about CITY LIGHTS over the years. To learn more about the
making, difficulties and long term preparations to CITY LIGHTS, either watch
Kevin Blownlow’s 1980 documentary, Hollywood: A Celebration of the American
Silent Film, as narrated by James Mason, or Brownlow’s other documentaries
dedicated entirely to Chaplin’s career, including outtakes to CITY LIGHTS as
well as scenes involving Virginia Cherrill’s temporary replacement, Georgia
Hale, Chaplin’s co-star in THE GOLD RUSH.
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