“You can see now?” “Yes, I can see now.”

Life was hard for the Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill). Lacking vision was difficult enough without scraping by on the meager earnings from selling flowers on the sidewalk. It was barely enough to pay the rent on her Spartan tenement. Her Grandmother (Florence Lee) was old and frail and could not be a breadwinner, nor did the Great Depression give most people the wherewithal to keep her canary fed and her Grandmother warm. She was daydreamy and not without her limitations, but it was hard not to hope for something better. Yet when confronted with her sightless gaze and simple flower basket, people saw someone blind and poor and alone—someone on whom…

"Live life! Be brave!"

Charlie Chaplin makes pure cinematic comedy. Silent (or "pantomime") comedies like this deserve an incalculable amount of respect for being able to deliver jokes without the crutch of dialogue. They truly utilize all the tricks available from film.

During the eight decades since City Lights was released, the comedy genre seems to have forgotten how to do this entirely. Modern comedies rely almost exclusively on funny dialogue, and often on improvised dialogue at that, and while I can appreciate the talent behind these types of performances, they utilize only a very small amount film's potential. Jokes have to be told in flat, close-up shots of actors because the unpredictable nature of that sort of comedy demands…

In a time when film industry was making its transition to talkies & silent films were becoming obsolete, Charlie Chaplin's City Lights entered into the theatres as a late example of its era yet in the long run, it didn't just turn out to be the greatest achievement of silent filmmaking but has endured the test of time so well that it still remains the quintessential romantic comedy.

The penultimate silent feature from Charlie Chaplin, City Lights chronicles the adventures of The Little Tramp who falls in love with a beautiful blind girl who sells flowers for a living. His desire to make her life better becomes a possibility when he saves a suicidal, drunken but wealthy man from killing himself…

Chaplin's Tramp character has never really done much for me. This slice of melodrama, with high-precision physical comedy icing, was quite good, though. It did not quite blow me away in the same way that SAFETY LAST did a couple years ago, but the number of tightly-choreographed scenes filmed exclusively in long, unbroken takes is remarkable. Early in the movie, I was impressed by the bit where Chaplin ponders a nude statue as he walks repeatedly across a sidewalk elevator only at the moments it, rather than a fall to his death. But the centerpiece has got to be the boxing match, a five minute sequence with seemingly fewer than half a dozen shots, razor's-edge timing for all three actors…

This is the first silent film I've ever watched. After it was over I did some light research (it's called Wikipedia sweatie, look it up) and discovered it was one of the last silent films ever made and also arguably the best one ever made. I wonder if I just ruined all other silent films for myself? Like eating dessert before your vegetables.

Going in, I was cautiously intrigued by the "exoticness" of a silent film and by Chaplin's sterling reputation, but also expecting it to feel like homework. I was not expecting to laugh out loud consistently, or to be genuinely moved by it towards the end. Let's just say my expectations were wildly off base. The Tramp has…

My first Chaplin, and also the first silent movie I've really enjoyed. Hilarious, poignant and tightly choreographed, City Lights is a film that revels in the language of the body, scorning, as in the first scene, the sound of mere words. Words here seem only to bring trouble and be wielded by those with power and the lack of intellect necessary to use such power for good.

Of course, few in this film are smart. Each comic episode is built on misunderstanding. Yet despite the Tramp's diminishing luck throughout the film, he ultimately emerges victorious. The ending is poignant, bitter-sweet, utterly real. Of course, it was never going to end in the way we and indeed he had hoped. But…