City Lights




Tomorrow the birds will sing.

Widely hailed as Charlie Chaplin's greatest, at the very least, City Lights is one of the best reasons why Chaplin was the finest silent comedian to ever live.

The immortal Little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) happens upon a poor, but beautiful, blind girl (Virginia Cherrill). He takes a liking to her, going to great lengths to please her. In the meantime, the Tramp also befriends an eccentric millionaire (Harry Myers) that he has saved from numerous suicide attempts. They're the best of friends when the millionaire is intoxicated, but he doesn't remember the Tramp when he's sober. Using their friendship, the Tramp pretends to be a rich suitor to the blind girl.

This is by no means Chaplin's funniest picture. The quantity and arguably the quality aren't up to par with his other features like The Gold Rush, but it is quite funny in its own right. There are quite a few genius scenes, including the enduring boxing sequence. Other highlights include the troubles that arise from looking after a suicidal millionaire and the parties that follow. But perhaps some of the loss of comedic appeal with the Little Tramp in this instance is because he's not as pathetic as he was elsewhere (that probably has to do with his on and off relationship with the millionaire). In a way, the humor comes second to the drama (different from The Gold Rush, which was more an experiment to see if anything else could fit into a silent comedy).

While the Tramp was always a benevolent character, here his pitiful condition and childlike innocence all but elevate him to sainthood. His relationship with the millionaire is not only funny, but it's also an exercise in anti-suicide measures. But it's his love for the blind girl that makes this a timeless piece. The Tramp may not be much better off than the blind girl, financially speaking, but that hardly slows his noble efforts. However, it's a bitter sweet kind of love, as the Tramp perpetuates the illusion that he really is rich enough to take care of her. And though the girl claims that being rich is not everything to her, it leads to one of cinema's most memorable endings. Chaplin plays his trademark character with aplomb as always, but it's also his work behind the camera that helps to make the Tramp such a lovable character and brings him out in ways never seen before. Also of note is Virginia Cherrill, who plays the blind girl. Her beauty is captured in a rare way as well as her kindness, making her more than worthy of rescue by our intrepid little hero.

At this point, Chaplin's influence was so great in Hollywood that he was able to goad everyone through his demanding direction and protracted filming time (he shot one of the scene scenes in City Lights 342 times). But most importantly, he was able to make this an almost entirely silent movie at a time when talkies were taking over. It's hard to imagine what it would've been like with spoken words, but it surely wouldn't have been the masterpiece it remains today.



-The Gnome