The Circus is supposed to be one of Charlie's less "accomplished" features, probably because it hasn't got a big hook to it like so many of the others - City Lights is more perfect as a tearjerker, Modern Times is full of political comment, etc. What The Circus does have is a lot of almost perfect comedy with the Tramp in straight old-fashioned form. He escapes the law and gets a tryout with a troubled big top. The ringleader mistreats his clowns and his daughter for not filling the stands with laughing people, and Charlie "accidentally" causes a laugh riot.

The Circus actually does have something fairly unique in that Charlie frequently interacts with animals, which is not an easy thing to do. We think of those home movies of him feeding the monkeys in Bali as we watch him suffer an onslaught by a veritable barrel-ful while trying to do a high wire act. They're climbing in his face, biting his nose and it's a nightmare.

Charlie shows the fine subtleties of his gags by making fine distinctions between being funny but not trying to be funny, and trying to be funny and not being funny. We know it immediately. When the Tramp auditions his "amusing" ideas, everyone, including us, just sits there waiting for laughs that don't come. This must have required some thought from Chaplin, as his main genius was the ability to be fall-down funny on a moment's notice, effortlessly. The Tramp reaches a high form of expression here - he's the generic funny guy, without the additional baggage of social comment or high dramatics. It's hugely enjoyable. Like so many of these pictures, you come home tired and in a sour mood, turn on the show, and a minute later you're laughing and feeling better.

The extras on the second disc with this movie have the expected Chaplin Today and David Robinson entries, plus some fairly unique material. There's an entire circus-themed Jackie Coogan movie, and some interesting 3D camera tests by Rollie Totheroh. There is also a set of outttakes from a week's shooting that don't back up the idea that Chaplin was supposedly depressed and suffering during production. Clearly his troubles hit him after he closed down for the day.

City Lights
1931 / 1:37 flat full frame / 87 ? min. / 29.95
Starring Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Harry Myers, Hank Mann, Florence Lee
Cinematography Gordon Pollock, Roland Totheroh
Original Music Charles Chaplin and José Padilla
Edited, Written, Produced and Directed by Charles Chaplin

City Lights is my favorite Chaplin film, the one where he falls in love with a blind girl who thinks he's a rich benefactor because he keeps doing risky things to earn enough money for her eye operation. The story is just a pretext but the emotions seem more honest than ever. The Tramp here is still the unpredictable, not-always-sociable scamp from the silent days, capable of minor malice as well as sentimentality. And there's not a message in sight.

This is the film where his efforts resulted in superior work, creating sequences that were practically perfect. When we're told he performed scenes hundreds of times looking for the right combination of action and emphasis, it's a marvel that the final takes look so fresh. When Chaplin goes for the sentimental, it's entirely personal - the conclusion is one of the best pieces of film ever shot, and the perfect expression of his personality.

Chaplin considered other actors to be almost puppets, and they'd have to have amazing patience to redo scenes dozens of times. Leading lady Virginia Cherrill apparently had independent ideas (oh no!) and didn't see eye to eye with her director, which helps the show. Paulette Goddard in the next two films seems far too eager to please, just an extension of Chaplin's ego, and there's no conflict. Here The Tramp's vulnerability is heightened by the disconnect ... we don't get the idea that Cherrill is there because she's sleeping with the boss.

There are two apocryphal stories about City Lights, and this disc clears up one of them. Some sources (or perhaps a confused UCLA professor) used to say that two separate actresses played the blind girl, which I believed for some time. Perhaps that was confusion over Charlie's testing of an earlier actress for the same part - her screen tests are in the extras on the second disc. Second, everyone assigns the credit to Charlie for the picture's musical score. The main theme is La Violetera ("The Flower Girl"), a Latin American standard from years before. Chaplin's scoring is fine, but he didn't write that classic melody.

City Lights has plenty of interesting extra material. The introduction by David Robinson explains the basic situation with the film and its place in the Chaplin filmography, and the Chaplin Today piece by Serge Bromberg goes off on pleasant tangents. One of the founders of Aardman animation is interviewed on the subject of Chaplin as a key source for animated comedy. There's an entire 1915 short about a prize fight that's reminiscent of the one in the feature, and a lengthy assemblage of Chaplin clowning with various prizefighters. Also some footage of Winston Churchill visiting the studio (nothing happens so Chaplin improvises a dance; Winston just stares and smiles).

In a sound fragment shot in Vienna we see Chaplin being mobbed, and then saying "Guten tag." There are also extensive home movies of a trip to Bali. The best extras are uncut footage of rehearsals and alternate takes on many scenes, and a deleted scene where The Tramp encounters a piece of wood stuck in a sidewalk grating. A really odd fragment is a costume test for Chaplin as a dream prince, the way the flower girl of City Lights imagines him to be.

(continued on Part Two of The Chaplin Collection Part 2)