Ziggy's Movie Matinee: City Lights

'Tomorrow the birds will sing.'

City Lights, with its endearing story of the Little Tramp’s affection for a blind flower girl premiered on March 7, 1931. A film without spoken words but a synchronized soundtrack and special effects. Composing the film’s score was a first for Chaplin and he dared go against the mainstream in not following the trend of making a talkie. Quoting Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance,

"City Lights is not only Charles Chaplin's masterpiece; it is an act of defiance"

This sweet little gem of a movie has Charlie at his best, falling in love with a blind flower girl. The Little Tramp as “the lone prospector” faces challenges and accepts life as it comes, caring for others with kindness and saving a life. All the while he holds his sweet affections for the blind girl in one precious flower. He will do whatever it takes to make her life better.

City Lights has all the fun and ballet-like physical humor that Chaplin brings to his films with an extra dose of love and kindness thrown in to make this flick an absolute joy.

Charlie Chaplin was a talented actor, writer and director. He did it all, including writing the musical score for this film. Even in death he held the public’s attention as his body was stolen from a Swiss cemetery two months after his passing on December 25, 1977. His corpse was held for a ransom of $600,000 but his widow, Oona refused to pay it, saying that Charlie would have found it “ridiculous.” Five weeks later, two men were arrested and Charlie’s body was recovered. He was again interred in the family plot but this time his coffin was encased in concrete. Info from the History Channel.

City Lights stars Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Al Ernest Garcia and Hank Mann.

Jean Harlow was cast as an extra in the restaurant scene but that scene was cut from the film.

City Lights is available with subscription on Max, for free with ads on Tubi, $2.99-3.99 in the usual places. Free on YouTube.

My next planned matinee is Sunday, July 28. It will require a $5.99 rental if you don’t have Netflix. We will be watching what I considered one of the best Godzilla movies, Godzilla Minus One (2023). It will follow Saturday’s Wonkette Movie Night’s showing of the original Godzilla/Gojira from 1954. Same time as today, 3pm ET for the movie post to go up and 4pm ET to start the movie.