Movie Monday: City Lights

Today we're going back to the roots. The real roots. Alllllll the way back. The movie: Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights," from 1931.

Charlie Chaplin could be considered the man who invented screen comedy. He was born in 1889 and began in film when it was still burgeoning, in the mid-1910s.

Before the one-to-two hour film became the agreeable standard, he did dozens and dozens of short films in the 1910s, and directed, wrote, edited and produced many of them as well.

His major successes began in the early 1920s with movies such as "The Kid," which was one of the first where he defined his continuing role as the "Tramp." He appeared as the Tramp or a Tramp-like character in several of his most famous films, perhaps the most famous being "City Lights."

"City Lights" is the story of a poor tramp, and is undeniably one of the first romantic comedies. The Tramp falls in love with a blind girl who sells flowers on the street, while she mistakes him for a millionaire. When he finds out that the girl's rent is past due and cannot pay, he tries to win money for her in a variety of ways that ultimately make up the comedic plot.

As with nearly all of Chaplin's films, "City Lights" is silent, even though the technology in 1931 allowed for "talkies." Chaplin's comedic style was ingrained in silence and when silent pictures died out, so then did his career.

Laughasaurus worthiness:

Chaplin's roles were funny in how he was able to do so much without ever muttering a word. He, indeed, could have written "City Lights" with sound, but chose not to. If you watch it, you'll understand why it's better as it is.

His ability to create physical comedy, just using his body and a few props, was unmatched at the time and probably still today. Even more incredible was the comedic suspense he was able to create in a scene. Here's a familiar scene from "City Lights" where he uses comedic suspense:



His brand of physical comedy was, in fact, so hard to replicate, that when a stand-in in a chicken suit had to imitate his movements in another of his classics, "The Gold Rush" from 1925, the stand-in could not do it accurately enough, so Chaplin got in the suit himself.

Another famous scene, the Tramp here enters into a boxing match in order to win money for his love:



The ability to perform these feats of physical comedy and Chaplin's understanding of his appearance in a situation (with the bowler hat, no less), makes for unmistakable humor, and made Charlie Chaplin an unmistakable innovator of cinematic comedy.