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CITY LIGHTS
Directed by Charlie Chaplin
There is a scene near the middle of CITY LIGHTS where The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin), having
fallen in love with a blind woman, is helping her to wind a ball of yarn. As he holds the yarn out
for her, she grabs onto a loose thread from his shirt and begins to wind it around her hand. Not
wanting to correct her, The Tramp just smiles and lets her keep unwinding his shirt. I had almost
lost faith in the film until this moment occurred. To me, it represents this kind of simple, selfless
love that the film is about, and it put a big grin on my face.
When The Tramp meets that blind woman (Virginia Cherrill), she is sitting on a street corner
selling flowers and he buys one. Later, The Tramp befriends a millionaire (Harry Myers) after
saving him from committing suicide. While driving the millionaire’s car, The Tramp sees the blind
woman walking home, offers to give her a ride, and in the fashion of many old romantic comedies,
he immediately falls in love with her. She and her grandmother are poor, so The Tramp works as
hard as he can to earn money to take care of them and eventually, after he finds out about a new
surgery that can cure blindness, he asks for money from his millionaire friend. When the
millionaire gives him one thousand dollars, and after he delivers it to the blind woman (in another
of the film’s simple, sweet, and beautiful moments) due to a mistake, The Tramp lands in jail.
When he is finally released and the blind woman has had the corrective surgery, they meet in a
scene that I dare not even try to describe. It is a movie moment that must be experienced to be
appreciated.
While I may sound like I love this film, I have to praise it with some reservations. With the
exception of his brilliantly hysterical THE CIRCUS, I have never been a fan of Chaplin’s physical
humor. It may be funny for a few minutes, but to me it quickly grows redundant and tiresome.
There is even a joke in this film that he has used in at least one of his other films. It involves him
standing in a place where, if he takes another step or two backwards, he will run out of ground to
walk on. For about five minutes, we watch as he almost falls into it. (The other film where he uses
this joke is MODERN TIMES, which he made a few years after he made CITY LIGHTS.)
To Chaplin’s credit, though, some of his physical comedy works. During the sequence early on in
the film where we are introduced to The Tramp, and he is sleeping on a statue that is being
unveiled. Hilarity ensues. Then there is the film’s funniest scene, which has The Tramp in a boxing
match in which he is trying to make money to support the blind woman. Even this scene,
however, is flawed. Chaplin’s character needs an extra lift when he has to jump, and it is almost as
if Chaplin didn’t even attempt to hide the wire attached to his back.
But despite the film’s flaws and any problems that I had with it, Chaplin always had the power to
bring me right back into the film emotionally with simple moments and charming touches. By the
time “The End” went across the screen I was smiling because of its honesty and its heart. Among
the insincere trash flooding the movie theaters week after week, they are two of the rarest
attributes for a film to have. God bless Charlie Chaplin for giving us a film like this.
My Rating: ***1/2
Review by Jared Mills
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