Rating: 
Summary: The Little Tramp's apotheosis.
Review: A few years after the advent of "talkies", Charlie Chaplin, with his 1931 film *City Lights*, provided the much-needed reminder that cinema remained (remains) a VISUAL medium. Two people yapping at each other while sitting on a divan was simply not going to cut the mustard, a fact that a visionary like Chaplin saw from the beginning. Right at the outset he makes fun of the incessant jabber that had sprung up in the movies after the discovery of sound synchronization. In a public square, a politico squawks incoherently while dedicating a new statue. He sounds, in fact, rather like the teacher on the Peanuts Gang cartoons: "bwah bwah bwah". Later in the scene, Chaplin's Little Tramp squawks too . . . and that's the only concession to "talking" in *City Lights*. After that, it's back to basics, meaning: gags, drunken gags, slapstick gags in a boxing ring, and of course the vaunted Chaplinesque sentimentality, laid on thick here via a poor blind girl who sells flowers for a living. It can be argued that the gags and their set-ups might not be quite as inspired (or funny) as the ones in his earlier films. Chaplin was in his early forties here, and it shows: he's less physically agile; he looks a bit tired, occasionally (though not during that famous boxing scene). Even so, there's an almost defiant tinge to the stunts and the humor, an "I'm still here!" attitude that seems to say that even if the repertoire is getting tired, no one can do it better than the film's director and star. For me, what pushes the movie from 4 Stars to 5 Stars is the devastating and ambiguous last sequence, which will hit you in the solar plexus so hard that tears will be forced from your eyes. Somehow the astonishing climax rises above the typically sentimental set-up and attains the pinnacle of artistic sublimity. James Agee opined that the finale constituted the "highest moment in the history of the movies". He may be right.
Rating:
Summary: Rarified
Review: Orson Welles once cited as his favorite movie Charlie Chaplin's tribute to the art of body language and pantomime, "City Lights."
"I was determined to continue making silent films," Chaplin recalls in "My Life in Pictures" of his decision to make a silent four years into the talkie era, "for I believed there was room for all types of entertainment." "City Lights" contains Chaplin's musical composition and various sound effects, but no dialogue. Chaplin opens the film with a lampoon of talkies: at the unveiling of a Greco-Roman stone statue, the dignitaries' speeches are heard only as unintelligible squawks. Smitten by a flower-selling Blind Girl (Virginia Sherrill) who has mistaken him for a dapper gentleman, the Little Tramp takes on odd jobs (including a prizefight, shown in a masterfully choreographed sequence) to raise money for an operation to restore her vision. After the Tramp intervenes to prevent the suicide of an alcoholic tycoon, the tycoon befriends him; but it is an on and off friendship, as when sober the tycoon doesn't even recognize the Tramp. Despite a series of mishaps, the Tramp pays for the operation. But in the process he lands in prison. On the Tramp's release, the Blind Girl learns the true identity of her benefactor in one of the most rarified scenes in cinema.
Rating:
Summary: A heart-warming silent comedy classic
Review: The Little Tramp meets a beautiful young woman selling flowers and falls for her. As he buys a flower, he discovers that she's blind and that she thinks he's a millionaire. When he learns of an operation that could restore her sight, he'll do anything -- from shoveling manure in the streets to boxing -- in order to get her the money, even though it means she'll find out who he really is. This is a heart-warming movie filled with all the wonderful comedy stunts that have become a trademark of Charlie Chaplin. His timing and choreography are perfect and make the humor more believable. Also, with the advent of the talkies, Chaplin still crafted a masterpiece of silent film making, with a touching story, great performances, and he even wrote the music. A great film that can still make an audience both laugh and cry.
Rating:
Summary: A little bit of everything.
Review: As the Amazon review stated, this film has quite a bit of variety, showing Chaplin at all of the things that he does best. The movie isn't just plain comedy like some of his other movies (not that there's anything bad about that!), but also has a moving story. Both of these elements are intertwined very well, even though sometimes a joke goes on a little too long (this only happens once or twice, far less than in The Great Dictator).
As a whole, however, the film is VERY balanced and well-directed. Chaplin was right to release this as a silent film; this film is so good that I think audiences would flock to see it even if it had been released today! If you haven't seen City Lights yet, you really owe it to yourself to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable. My favorite Chaplin film
Review: Though some here and in other circles have remarked that they believe "City Lights" is overrated and over-sentimental, I still believe that one cannot deny how moving and beautiful the film becomes as it draws toward its conclusion. "City Lights" remains my favorite Chaplin movie with "Modern Times" coming in at a close second. Chaplin plays his classic Tramp character who falls for a blind flower girl and wants to help her earn money for an operation to cure blindness. The boxing scene in which the scrawny Chaplin takes on a seasoned prize fighter is the major comic highlight of the film featuring gags that have been imitated and recycled by countless other comedies. The finale is nothing short of touching, beautiful, and brilliant and shows perfectly the full emotion that can be conveyed in a silent picture. This is one of the few films that still, time and time again, can bring tears to my eyes. "City Lights" is a masterpiece.
Rating: 
Summary: THE GENIUS OF CHAPLIN IN A GOOD LOOKING TRANSFER
Review: Charlie Chaplin is a genius: there's just no getting around the fact. That the U.S. government - in his later years, branded him a communist, forcing the most incredible film artist of the 20th century into exile is a travesty and an embarrassment; one of many during the McCarthy era. In "City Lights" the little tramp becomes smitten with a blind flower girl. His devotion to restoring her sight is both touching and comedic, instilling a sense of not acting, but living the part. Truly, this is one of the greatest movies of all time - not just of Chaplin's career, but of American cinema in general.
TRANSFER: Warner/MK2 gives us a pretty smart looking transfer. While age related artifacts are present throughout, the image has been considerably cleaned up for this DVD and the restoration efforts are welcomed. The black and white picture exhibits a nicely balanced image with rich blacks, a nicely balanced gray scale and minimal film grain. There is some minor aliasing and edge enhancement throughout but neither distract. The audio has been remastered in 5.1 and is nicely spread across all five channels.
EXTRAS: a documentary by Serge Bromberg, the Georgia Hale screen test, outtakes, on-set footage, photo galleries, films posters and trailers.
BOTTOM LINE: Add this one to your collection today!
Rating:
Summary: Knockout Funny
Review: The boxing scene in City Lights must be one of the funniest scenes of all time. When I watched a tape of this movie, I had to keep rewinding that part because I was crying so much with laughter that I found it impossible to see it all the way through. The movie is also of interest as being a late silent production. Sound was already established and Chaplin was considered to be taking a great risk by producing another silent. Much of City Lights will seem maudlin and melodramatic to a modern audience but its important place in movie history and yes, that boxing scene, make it a must for any movie fan.
Rating:
Summary: The Little Tramp's apotheosis.
Review: A few years after the advent of "talkies", Charlie Chaplin, with his 1931 film *City Lights*, provided the much-needed reminder that cinema remained (remains) a VISUAL medium. Two people yapping at each other while sitting on a divan was simply not going to cut the mustard, a fact that a visionary like Chaplin saw from the beginning. Right at the outset he makes fun of the incessant jabber that had sprung up in the movies after the discovery of sound synchronization. In a public square, a politico squawks incoherently while dedicating a new statue. He sounds, in fact, rather like the teacher on the Peanuts Gang cartoons: "bwah bwah bwah". Later in the scene, Chaplin's Little Tramp squawks too . . . and that's the only concession to "talking" in *City Lights*. After that, it's back to basics, meaning: gags, drunken gags, slapstick gags in a boxing ring, and of course the vaunted Chaplinesque sentimentality, laid on thick here via a poor blind girl who sells flowers for a living. It can be argued that the gags and their set-ups might not be quite as inspired (or funny) as the ones in his earlier films. Chaplin was in his early forties here, and it shows: he's less physically agile; he looks a bit tired, occasionally (though not during that famous boxing scene). Even so, there's an almost defiant tinge to the stunts and the humor, an "I'm still here!" attitude that seems to say that even if the repertoire is getting tired, no one can do it better than the film's director and star. For me, what pushes the movie from 4 Stars to 5 Stars is the devastating and ambiguous last sequence, which will hit you in the solar plexus so hard that tears will be forced from your eyes. Somehow the astonishing climax rises above the typically sentimental set-up and attains the pinnacle of artistic sublimity. James Agee opined that the finale constituted the "highest moment in the history of the movies". He may be right.
Rating:
Summary: Best Chaplin, and maybe best film ever Made.
Review: "City Light's" is by far Chaplin's greatest film. Some may say "The Gold Rush", but myself, and I know a lot of others, will say this one. I think its maybe THE greatest movie ever made, just maybe. Chaplin was by far the greatest film maker of all time, and this is his most finest work. You have to see the movie for the end scene alone. Chaplin plays the part of his world famous Tramp character. He meets this flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) who happens to be blind. She mistakes him for a rich "gentleman". The little Tramp immediately falls in love with her, and he throughout the film, tries to help her see again, by getting money to pay for this operation. The little Tramp saves this rich guy from committing suicide, and the man becomes his friend.....when hes drunk. When the man is sober, he does not want to see the tramp. When hes not, he is kind, giving him money, letting him borrow the car, etc. The Tramp goes through a number of jobs, to get the money for the blind girl, including amongst a few, a prizefighting boxer. He gets into a lot of different bits of trouble, but he gets th money to pay for the operation. He ends up late rin prison. When he is free, he sees the girl, and she can now see, and his true identity is revealed. The end part, is the greatest scene in movie history. There is nothing possibly better than it, except it would be teamed with the "Cheek to Cheek" scene in the Fred and Ginger movie "Top Hat", of course. Those are the two most wonderful scenes ever filmed. The film was released in 1931. the "talkies" had been around a few years now, but Chaplin managed to stay silent. He composed the muisic for this film, and added a few sound effects. The film is though, really a silent, or as it says at the beginning of the movie: "A Comedy Romance in Pantomime". This is the perfect movie, and the cinematography is the best. But yes, this film even beats Chaplin's other masterpieces in my opinion, such as "The Kid" and "The Gold Rush", and the much underrated among Chaplin fans, although one of my personal favourites, "A Woman of Paris". "City Light's" is an essential movie to see. Although I enjoy Chaplin's talking pictures, they do not come close to his silents. As for people who prefer Keaton, well, he was brilliant too, but Chaplin was so much more. This DVD Edition, is presented on 2-Discs. This DVD, along with the others in the Chaplin Collection box set, is by far one of the best ever produced. This comes with an endless amount of extras, including featurettes, a brief 10 minute look at a scene from "The Champion". The fight scene, that is. The DVD has a screen test with Georgia Hale, its full of great little things. Extras are what make a DVD great. Other than that, the restored print looks absolutely amazing. This is a must, must have for a DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: Imperfect Print Tarnishes Tramp's Masterpiece
Review: City Lights is one of the shining achievements in the history of the movies, and it's been among my personal favorites for many years. So I was disappointed, after purchasing the new Warner Home Video DVD, to discover that the print they used is slightly dark and fuzzy, markedly inferior to its stunning laserdisc predecessor of some ten years ago. In the early '90's I bought the CBS/Fox laserdisc of CL, which was transferred from a nearly flawless print (from "Chaplin's personal archives", as stated in the notes, and probably from the same negative as the one that was re-released to theaters for Chaplin's centennial in 1989). This LD version is so clean, sharp and vivid it looks as though it could have been filmed last week. In the boxing scene, for example, you can actually pick out a number of mannequins that were used among the live actors in the audience, and you can clearly see the wire that carries Charlie across the ring when he leaps at his opponent. On the DVD, however, not only can you not see the wire, the audience seems little more than a dark, murky mass rather than individual figures. Granted, maybe our disbelief is more happily suspended if we don't see what's suspending Charlie, but we certainly don't deserve murky masses where they aren't supposed to be. Beyond using a superior print, CBS/Fox also went to the trouble of window boxing the transfer for their laserdisc release. That is, in order to preserve the nearly square aspect ratio of the original film, black bars were placed on the left and right sides of the screen to compensate for showing the top and bottom of the picture - the vertical counterpart of letterboxing. The DVD isn't window boxed, and while it may not seem like that big of a deal, it does affect the film - not only aesthetically, but effectually, as in the scene where Charlie is admiring the nude sculpture in the shop window. Key to the scene is the sidewalk elevator, which provides the gag - but it barely clears the bottom of the TV screen in the DVD version (in fact, it may bleed out of frame on some monitors). It's well within the frame on the window boxed version, as it should be. Also, with the top and bottom of the picture chopped off, the compositions as they appear on the DVD look cramped and less atmospheric than in the full image of the laser release. The liner notes on the DVD boast of an "All new digital transfer from Chaplin family vault picture and sound elements" - which sounds great, but why wasn't the best print extant used, as it was on the now long out-of-print laserdisc? This film is a bona fide masterpiece, and it should be shown in its absolute best possible form. Instead we've been given what amounts to a professionally printed copy of a poorly lit Polaroid of the Mona Lisa.
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