by Allan Fish
(USA 1931 87m) DVD1/2
Kissing the lucky rabbit’s foot
p/d/w/ed/m Charles Chaplin ph Rollie Totheroh md Alfred Newman art Charles D.Hall
Charles Chaplin (the tramp), Virginia Cherrill (the blind girl), Harry Myers (the drunken millionaire), Florence Lee (grandmother), Allan Garcia (butler), Jean Harlow, Henry Bergman, Albert Austin,
Richard Attenborough’s 1992 film Chaplin was not one of the best biopics ever made, by any stretch of the imagination. Its best moment was a brilliant sequence showing the putting together of a movie in a hotel room to keep it from a wife’s lawyers to which some of the music for City Lights was played as backing. Later on, we see the trouble Chaplin had with the sequence where the girl first comes to believe that the tramp is a millionaire. That it took him so long just shows his patience, the amount of control he had on his productions at that time (only Lean and Kubrick in recent memory could match it) and his gift for using the simple to make things happen.
The story of City Lights is simple; a tramp falls in love with a blind girl and tries to obtain the money to buy her the operation that will cure her sight. In doing so, he befriends a millionaire who is prone to getting drunk, but always forgets who he is when he’s sober, becomes a road sweeper, undertakes a prize fight, gets put in the Big House and finally comes out looking like the o.t.t sort of tramp later described by Eric Blore in Sullivan’s Travels as “suitably seedy, sir” (then referring to Joel McCrea). As a comedy, it doesn’t have the great set-pieces of his other masterworks Modern Times and The Gold Rush (apart from the legendary boxing match, which itself was lifted partly from an earlier Chaplin short The Champion from 1915). That may be why when most people think of Chaplin’s best feature comedies, City Lights gets overlooked. However, of the three it is probably the best, or at least the smoothest in narrative terms. It may also help that City Lights was the first film for which his own music was truly successfully deployed in tandem with the pictures on screen. Indeed it is probably his finest feature film score, the Oscar for Limelight not withstanding.
Of course Chaplin started filming, or at least planning, City Lights immediately after completing The Circus in 1928. But by the time the film was completed, talkies were well and truly established and silent films were only really still being made in Japan and China. That the film was still such a runaway success is a testament to not only his popularity, but to his genius at combining the pathos for which he is famous (and often today criticised) with a sense of balletic timing that is unquestionable, perfectly exemplified in the scene where the blind girl unravels his vest thinking it her ball of wool.
It can be argued that Chaplin was perhaps too fond of his little tramp, the icon who he had basically played uninterrupted since his first appearance in The Tramp in 1915. But City Lights is important for another reason, in that it was really the last of his films to be made without a serious comment being made underneath. Modern Times was his cry out against the onslaught of the machine age; The Great Dictator his public denunciation of a European dictator who shall remain nameless; Monsieur Verdoux about the mass-slaughter of modern war (though perhaps he was seeing how far he could go and still remain popular, though it got some acclaim, he got his answer); whereas Limelight was his love letter to his youth and the old London music hall. If Limelight was his love letter to his heritage, City Lights was his love letter to film and to his fans of the previous generation who still revered him as a God. In view of this, it’s perhaps ironic that, in this reviewer’s eyes, it is the one scene of sheer comic genius, the boxing match, for which I revere it most. It’s a balletic master-class in physical screen comedy, with each movement rehearsed to the nth degree and every fall worth a cheer. He may ultimately lose the fight, after falling down more times than I care to mention, but the tramp himself is a loser to no man.
Allan has written an excellent review of one of the all-time classics. He points out some of the film’s more memorable scenes and moments. I once read a book on this and other Chaplin films called “The Silent Clowns” by Dave Kehr. And I agree with you on the boxing scene, which may have been the film’s finest comic interlude.
I know you didn’t write this Sam, but Mr. Fish has done it full justice. While I love the film to death, I can’t say I feel the same about the Attenborough.
Neither did I, Joe, neither did I, but it had that one great sequence described in my review.
thanks for that clarification, I can concur with you there.
IS THIS THE MOVIE WHERE THE TRAMP IS FOUND SLEEPING ON THE STATUE, BEFORE IT IS UNVEILED?
Aye, check the picture, Russell
Happy to see Russell is visiting now! And his comments, as always, are classics. Allan’s review on my favorite film of all-time is a classic too!
Few films are in this company, and count me as a big fan.
Hi! Sam Juliano and WitD readers,
Here goes some very sad news from Los Angeles…. of course, this story is relate to the late comedian Charlie Chaplin. It is about the death of his son Sydney Chaplin.
He also starred in one of my favorite film the 1952 film Limelight along with his famous father, Charlie Chaplin and actress Claire Bloom.
(I know for a fact, that T.S., is a “big”
fan of comedian/actor Charlie Chaplin.)
LOS ANGELES – Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s son and himself a Tony-winning actor who starred on Broadway opposite Judy Holliday in “Bells Are Ringing” and Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl,” has died at 82.
Chaplin died Tuesday at his home in Rancho Mirage, longtime family friend Jerry Bodie told The Associated Press on Thursday. He said Chaplin had recently suffered a stroke.
“He was one of those guys who just sort of trooped through history,” Bodie said of Chaplin, recalling his friend as a gregarious man who struck up friendships with everyone from Albert Einstein to Frank Sinatra.
Chaplin appeared in two of his father’s later films, “Limelight” (1952) and “The Countess from Hong Kong” (1967). But he never achieved the success in Hollywood that he enjoyed in New York’s musical theater.
He won his Tony for “Bells Are Ringing,” the 1956 Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical about a telephone answering service operator (Holliday) who falls in love with a customer (Chaplin). New York Herald Tribune critic Walter Kerr wrote that the actor “doubles the evening’s warmth by the simple expedient of believing in its love story.”
His best-remembered show, though, was the 1964 smash “Funny Girl” as Nicky Arnstein, the gambler who woos Streisand in her star-making role as Fanny Brice. The New York Times called him “a tall, elegant figure as Nick, gallant in courting and doing his best when he must be noble.”
The show brought him another Tony nomination, but he departed in June 1965, citing unspecified differences with producer Ray Stark. When it came time to make the movie, Omar Sharif, a major heartthrob following his roles in “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago,” was cast opposite Streisand.
Chaplin — also bypassed in the film version of “Bells Are Ringing” (for Dean Martin) — said he wasn’t disappointed.
“I never had the burning desire for recognition and respect that had driven my father,” he explained.
He starred in another Comden-Green musical, 1961′s “Subways Are for Sleeping.”
Although his career never measured up to that of his father, he had little use for those who thought a famous name was a handicap.
“I think anyone who feels his life has been scarred because of the fame of his father is a bore,” he told the AP in 1967.
He was the second son born to Charlie Chaplin’s second wife, Lita Grey. The other son, Charles Chaplin Jr., died in 1968.
Sydney was named for his father’s older half-brother, who helped young Charlie launch his theater career in England. After Charlie became a superstar in the movies, he returned the favor by bringing Syd Chaplin into the business.
Lita Grey was 16 when she married the 35-year-old Chaplin in 1924. Sydney was born two years later and his parents divorced a year after that in a court battle that brought sensational headlines.
He spent much of his boyhood in boarding schools — “I had been thrown out of three schools by the time I was 16,” he recalled — with occasional weekends at his father’s house. He recalled playing tennis with Greta Garbo and turning the music pages for the violin-playing Einstein.
“I thought everyone’s father was like mine,” he commented in 2003. “I may have been a little sheltered.”
He was stationed with the Army in Europe for a time during World War II and later toured with a group entertaining GIs.
Back in Hollywood, with a newfound work ethic because of his war service, he joined a theatrical troupe at the Circle Theater that specialized in classical and avant-garde plays. His father became interested and directed several of them.
Charlie Chaplin was patient with the other actors but not with his son, Sydney recalled in 2003.
“It’s your own kid, you expect him to get it immediately. With me it was, `Come on, Syd!’”
His first film role was in his father’s “Limelight,” Charlie Chaplin’s last great film. He had written the role especially for his son, who played a composer who falls in love with a ballet dancer (Claire Bloom) who is befriended by a fading music hall star portrayed by the elder Chaplin.
As for the poorly received “A Countess From Hong Kong,” his father’s last film, Chaplin told the Los Angeles Times in 1971 that he adored it.
“It’s a hell of a good picture,” he said.
The younger Chaplin also had a role in 1955′s “Land of the Pharaohs” opposite Joan Collins, with whom he also had a much publicized romance. (He was also romantically linked with Holliday during their onstage collaboration.)
During the years his son was scoring big on Broadway, Charlie Chaplin was unable to see him perform. He was living overseas with his fourth wife, Oona, because American authorities had refused the English-born Chaplin’s re-entry into the United States in 1952 over charges he associated with Communists. The great comedian was finally allowed to return to the U.S. in 1972 to accept a special Oscar.
Chaplin married Margaret Beebe in 1998 after a 14-year engagement. He was previously married to actress Noelle Adam and to Susan Magnes.
Chaplin’s father died in 1977 at age 88; his mother died in 1995 at 87.
Several other of Charlie Chaplin’s children also had acting careers, most prominently Geraldine Chaplin, one of his eight children with Oona. She has appeared in such films as “Nashville,” “Doctor Zhivago” and the 1992 film biography “Chaplin,” in which she played her paternal grandmother.
Sydney Chaplin’s survivors include his wife, Margaret, and a son, Stephan Chaplin.
I am very saddened to hear of the passing of Sydney Chaplin, as he was one of the few links left to the iconic comedian. I appreciate this notice.
Hi! Joe,
You’re very welcome!
DeeDee
At least this Chaplin sibling reached a ripe old age. Charlie had some tragedies in his life, and Sydney seemed to always be there. It was interesting to read in this account the marriage difficulties and of young Sydney’s frank recollections of his early years. R.I.P.
Dee Dee:
Thanks very much for the alert on this sad news. I agree with what Bill and Joe say here, and I appreciate the long obit that brings to the fore a number of facts about the Chaplin family.
Needless to say I agree with T.S. and others that Chaplin may the greatest of them all. His 1930 CITY LIGHTS was my own personal #1 film of that decade, and it’s one of my favorites films of all-time. Anything about the Chaplin family is major news, as much so as the royals are in the U.K.
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