Index: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Home > City Lights

This article refers to the Charlie Chaplin film. For the San Fransisco bookstore see City Lights Bookstore. For the Glasgwegian sitcom see City Lights (sitcom)

City Lights is a 1931 film written by, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin composed the musical score which comprised the majority of the sound on the film since there is no dialogue in the picture. His Little Tramp character tries to help a poor blind girl that he has fallen in love with. It also stars Virginia Cherrill , Florence Lee and Harry Myers .

The Circus, released in 1928, was Chaplin's last film to debut before motion pictures with sound (known as "talkies" at the time) took over. Since The Circus, sound pictures quickly took over as the industry standard. It was not uncommon for silent actors to oppose the arrival of talking pictures. Had Chaplin been anybody else, he probably would have never been able to shoot City Lights as a silent film, but because of his power in Hollywood, and because he had almost complete control over his work, he was able to make this film silent (except for a few sparse sound effects, music, and some unintelligble sounds that mock speech).

Several well-known directors have praised City Lights. Orson Welles has been quoted as saying that this is his favorite movie of all time. In 1963, the American magazine Cinema asked Stanley Kubrick what he felt were the top-ten films; he listed City Lights at number 5. In the 2003 documentary Chaplin: The Life and Art of Charles Chaplin, Woody Allen said it was Chaplin's best picture.

Charlie Chaplin was a known perfectionist; he was famous for doing many more takes than other directors at the time. At one point he actually fired Virginia Cherrill with the intention of re-filming using another actress. This proved too expensive, even for his budget, and so he later re-hired her and was able to finish City Lights.
The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
1931 films AFI 100 Movies AFI 100 Laughs AFI 100 Passions US National Film Registry Chaplin films

Read more »

<Hide>

Topics: City Lights, City Of London, City College Of New York...

CityA city is an urban area, differentiated from a town, village, or hamlet by size, population density, importance, or legal status. City can also be a synonym for " downtown. Introduction A city usually consists of residential, industrial and business areas	City of LondonThe City of London often referred to as just the City or as the Square Mile (from its area) (but never referred to simply as London forms the historic and financial centre of Greater London. Although the City was for centuries synonymous with London, the	City College of New YorkCity College of New York was originally founded as the Free Academy of the City of New York in 1847. It was subsequently named the College of the City of New York but that name was later transferred to the complex of the municipally-owned colleges in New
City University of New YorkThe City University of New York (CUNY; acronym usually pronounced "kyoo-nee" or "coo-nee"), located in New York, New York, is the largest urban university in the United States, with more than 208,000 enrolled in degree programs and another 208,000 enrolle	City of SchleswigSchleswig is a town at the Schlei firth in the northeastern part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the Kreis (district) Schleswig-Flensburg. Today, it has a population of about 25,000. Schleswig is a very old town. The Viking settlement	City of WestminsterThe City of Westminster is a London borough and a city in its own right, situated to the west of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It was extended in 1965 to include the former Metropolitan Boroughs of St. Marylebone and Paddington in the
City News Bureau of Chicago	City status in the United Kingdom	City Lights
City of Death	City of The Dalles, Oregon	City View, South Carolina
City Point, Wisconsin	City-state	City of Aberdeen

Non User