MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
City Lights (1931, 86 minutes)
He kept popping up throughout the 20th century, the wiry little guy with the distinctive mustache, unruly hair and a wild look in his eye. Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, the artist still known as Prince and Tav Falco certainly filled the bill. But nobody did it better than the original: silent-film genius Charlie Chaplin.
One of Chaplin’s most uplifting silents, City Lights resisted the inevitable movement to talking pictures begun in 1927. It opens with a large crowd gathered to hear the city’s windbag of a mayor drone on and on, dedicating a hulking sculpture to “peace and prosperity.” With much fanfare, he introduces the socially prominent lady who is to pull the drawstring that will lift the canvas covering this great monument.
It consists of three figures: a seated woman flanked by a pair of warriors dressed in Roman togas. The crowd gasps, but not for anything noteworthy achieved by the sculptor. Fast asleep on the lap of the carved woman is Chaplin’s little tramp. The mayor shakes his fist in anger. The police in attendance are deciding how to remove this vagrant from the premises.
Groggy from his nap, the tramp tries to slide down from his perch backward, and the sword of one of the warriors goes right up his pants leg, rendering further progress impossible. After briefly pausing for a band to play the national anthem, he shinnies up beyond the sword’s point. As the crowd shouts out in dismay for his scalp, the tramp hops over the fence behind the statue and escapes prosecution by disappearing into the urban landscape.
While crossing a busy street, he bypasses heavy pedestrian traffic by climbing into an expensive touring car and out onto the sidewalk. Seated in front of him is a lovely girl (Virginia Cherrill) selling flowers from a basket, who believes him to be a gentleman of means. After losing a rosebud on the sidewalk, it’s evident the girl is blind. The tramp is instantly smitten and spends his last dime on a flower for his threadbare lapel.
He dusts off a bench to serve as his bed for the night, alongside the concrete banks of a river, as a drunken man in evening dress (Harry Myers) ties a rope around his own neck. He loops the other end around a large rock and staggers to the river bank, ready to do himself in. The tramp intervenes, pleading, “Tomorrow the birds will sing. Face life!” The suicidal man tries to put the rope back around his neck, but loops it over the tramp’s instead, then tosses the rock into the drink. Once he’s pulled the tramp from the river, he sobers up quickly. “I’m cured,” he says. “You’re my friend for life. Let’s go home and dry off.”
