G, 1 hr. 30 min. Directed By:
Charles Chaplin. Release Date:
Jan 1, 1931. DVD Release
Date: Feb 8, 2000.
I’d never seen a Charlie Chaplin
movie before, or at least, I don’t remember ever having seen one. I was familiar with the Tramp, mostly because
the character’s so iconic that I’d have to be totally blind to have missed it
in my wandering through the world of movies.
I was expecting something quirky, with themes so classic that people
could still rave about this movie more than 80 years after its initial release.
Think about that for a minute. 80 years later and people still fall in love
with this movie. I’m going to admit I
wasn’t (exactly) one of them. Some of
what we see in this tale is straight out of Shakespeare, the themes are so
classic. The actors are top notch, and I
absolutely love Virginia Cherrill’s face when she’s supposed to be giving us
her “blue steel” of disbelief expression.
It’s what I started to call her “whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” face
and it was awesome. I was surprised that
I thought this movie was as funny as it was, but for me, at the end of the day,
the comedy was slapstick, which is one of the lower forms of comedy as far as I’m
concerned. Don’t get me wrong, it was
still head and shoulders above the slapstick that appears these days, but I
wish some of the comedy had come from the dialogue cards.
So, I did like this movie, but I
didn’t love it, and I wonder if the early scenes had something to do with
it. That scene where there’s a speech
going on and rather than remain a silent film, Mr. Chaplin elected to do
something not unlike Charlie Brown’s teacher every time someone spoke into a
microphone, which was often and at length.
I was moderately annoyed by the time the scene was over, even though I
laughed at the antics that followed.
City
Lights isn’t just funny, however. It’s also a very sweet story of mistaken
identity that reminds me of Shakespeare’s plays, but I’m not sure exactly why
or which ones. Thematically, it just
seemed similar. I can tell you that the sacrifices
that the Tramp goes through in order to make life better for the blind girl
reminded me (a little) of both Romeo and
Juliet and O. Henry’s Gift of the
Magi, especially considering what happens at the end.
I’m glad I had this added to my list. City
Lights is an outstanding film, but for whatever reason, it didn’t speak to
me like I thought it would. I think it’s
well above the average (particularly if you’re looking at modern movie
releases), and has a story with themes that humans have loved for
centuries. It’s entry on any list of
classic movies worth watching is a definite given.
