Director: Charlie Chaplin
Screenplay: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers, Al Ernest Garcia
Country: United States
Running Time: 87 minutes
Year: 1931
BBFC Certificate: U
Criterion continue their excellent series of Chaplin films with possibly his finest work. The wonderful City Lights, his last silent film, is Hollywood at its purest and most unashamedly sentimental.
The story is the definitive Little Tramp fable. Chaplin’s hapless alter-ego falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill). She believes him to be a millionaire and he becomes determined to raise money to help her. A simple plot but that just makes all the more room for segues into finely tuned nonsense; the boxing match is a particular highlight.
Chaplin made City Lights with an air of defiance just as the sound era was coming (the opening scene is a gag mocking people talking). Cinema was at its most sophisticated at the end of the 1920s and sound dragged the medium backwards for a while, so he had a point. In any case, when he started work on City Lights Chaplin had an astonishing level of popularity, his own studio and could take as long as he liked. He spent several years in production. It was time well spent and the result is a perfectly delicate balance of slapstick and pathos.
VIDEO
The digital transfer from a 4k restoration is almost as perfect as the film itself. A few marks and blips remain, perhaps as they should, but otherwise, it’s luminous. Criterion have set a high standard throughout all their Chaplin releases and City Lights is no exception. It’s also a film that withstands the increased scrutiny; Chaplin’s sets were incredible and it’s nigh-on impossible to spot a studio set against a real location.
EXTRA FEATURES
This is an incredible set from Criterion, encompassing some archive material and new pieces, including an illuminating and lively audio commentary from Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance. The stand out for me was the fascinating behind the scenes footage narrated by historian Hooman Mehran, who knows his subject well enough to identify shifts in body language, as a frustrated Chaplin perfects the scene where the tramp buys a flower.
- New audio commentary by Charlie Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance
- Chaplin Today: “City Lights,” a 2003 documentary on the film’s production, featuring Aardman Animations cofounder Peter Lord
- Chaplin Studios: Creative Freedom by Design, a new interview program featuring visual effects expert Craig Barron
- Archival footage from the production of City Lights, including film from the set, with audio commentary by
- Chaplin historian Hooman Mehran; a costume test; a rehearsal; and a complete scene not used in the film
- Excerpt from Chaplin’s short film The Champion (1915), along with footage of the director with boxing stars at
- Chaplin Studios in 1918
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Gary Giddins and a 1966 interview with Chaplin
