City Lights

Last night I was all set to watch Grand Hotel, the next Best Picture Oscar-winner in my ongoing survey, but my copy, sent from Netflix, had a nice crack in it from center to rim. Now I love having Netflix, but every once in a while their quality control is wanting.

I then realized I had just received, as an extremely early birthday present, a copy of a two-disc DVD of City Lights, which is one of my favorite films, and was also released in 1931. The Oscars are not particularly known for precognition, and while City Lights has gone on to be a beloved film, Cimarron, which won the award, is largely forgotten. City Lights wasn't even nominated, which is also an indication of the profound lack of respect that comedies have received from the Academy over the years.

City Lights was Charles Chaplin's first in the talkie era. He didn't know whether to make a sound film or stick to silents, since for one thing no one had heard his character, The Tramp, speak on film before, and also by speaking dialogue he would lose some of his international popularity. Since he had complete control over his work, he decided to make a "Comedy Romance in Pantomime," which did have synchronous sound, just no dialogue. The music, composed by Chaplin, was on the soundtrack, as well as some sound effects (most notably when the Tramp swallows a whistle and gets the hiccups). He even plays a somewhat cruel joke in the beginning of the film, when dignitaries dedicating a statue step to a microphone and what comes out of their mouths is a buzzing distortion. How many theatergoers complained to the management that there was something wrong with the sound?

The story of this film is deceptively simple, even though Chaplin took two years to film it. The Tramp takes notice of a beautiful blind flower girl, who mistakes him for a millionaire. Chaplin doesn't correct her, especially when he gains the friendship of an actual millionaire, who Chaplin saves from committing suicide. The problem is the millionaire only recognizes Chaplin when he's drunk--when he's sober he throws him out of the house.

Chaplin wants to help the girl and tries to make money, most notably as a boxer, in an exquisitely comedic ballet. The millionaire gives him some money, but Chaplin is mistaken as a thief. He is able to give the cash to the girl, but realizes he will have to go to jail. He comes out months later, completely destitute. He finds the girl, who can now see and owns a flower shop. At first she finds the tramp amusing, "I've made a conquest!" she says, seeing him light up upon seeing her. But then, in perhaps the most moving ending of any film made anywhere, she touches his hand and recognizes who he is. The smile on his face, full of equal parts hope and shame, is one of the most indelible images on celluloid.

The mixture of slapstick comedy and pathos has been tried by many, but few have succeeded as well as Chaplin. I think the film doesn't slide into hopeless sentimentality because Chaplin acts with restraint, and so does Virginia Cherrill as the girl. Chaplin at one point fired her, and did a screen test with Gloria Hale, who was his co-star in The Gold Rush, but the production was too far along. But Cherrill is a key to the film's success. She does not overact, as was the style of the time. There's a scene in which a neighbor goes off with a boyfriend and Cherrill sits in her window, a wistful look of sadness on her face that is heartbreaking.

And the film is uproariously funny. The scenes with the millionaire, Harry Myers, are great, particularly one in a restaurant. The boxing match is just brilliant, and accentuated by Chaplin's music. Another very funny scene, in which Chaplin is frustrated by a piece of wood stuck in a sewer grate, was cut from the film but is part of the DVD extras. I think he should have kept that in instead of one that had him almost falling into an elevator shaft in the sidewalk, which is good but more casually funny.

Overlooking City Lights was perhaps the first major boo-boo by the Academy (the first of many). It took them another forty years before they gave Chaplin his just due, an honorary Oscar in 1972. At least he lived long enough to receive it.