In 1919, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, and Mary Pickford joined together to create United Artists.  Now they would not be under the thumb of any studio.  They were free to make the kinds of pictures that they wanted.  Each would bankroll their own films and the company would distribute their productions with the artists retaining the profits.

The autonomy was good for Chaplin, he didn't like to have to produce his pictures on a time table, and he didn't want to make two reel comedies anymore.  He looked at UA as his chance to make longer features without having to fight the studio executives to do it.

Unfortunately, he still had to fulfill his contract with First National, which would take Chaplin, never one to be rushed, until the middle of 1922.  After turning in The Pilgrim, a four-reel comedy, First National agreed to count it as the final two films they were owed.  It had taken Chaplin four years to complete his 18-month contract with National, but he was now free to make whatever he wanted for UA.

For his first United Artists production, Chaplin decided to do something different.  He had wanted to branch out from comedies for several years, but had never had the opportunity.  Now he had his chance.  His next film would be a drama, staring his leading lady from many of his earlier films (as well as his one time lover,) Edna Purviance.  Edna was twenty-eight by this time, and no longer the young ingénue of such movies as The Tramp and The Rink.  Her abuse of alcohol had not caused her to age gracefully, and Chaplin no longer thought that she would be a good comic foil.  Chaplin was hoping to launch Edna's career as a dramatic actress with this film.

Charlie had often talked about doing a movie on the life of Napoleon's wife, Josephine, but when it came time to actually do it, he decided that the subject was too dull.  After examining and discarding several possibilities, he came up with a vague outline that would materialize as A Woman of Paris.

As for the leading man, Chaplin was unsure how the public would take to him playing a dramatic role.  Though he often talked about wanting to play dramatic parts himself, in the end he decided to cast Adolphe Menjou in the staring role.  Chaplin himself only has a brief cameo in the film.

The movie concerns Marie St. Clair (Edna Purviance) a girl from a small French town who is about to run off to with her lover, Jean Millet (Carl Miller).  Unfortunately, Jean's father has a heart attack.  When he doesn't turn up at the train station, Marie thinks she has been jilted, and she goes to Paris alone.

When we next see Marie, she is the mistress of Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou,) a rich jaded socialite.  When Marie happens to bump into Jean in Paris, he is overjoyed and declares his love for her.  But Jean is still a poor struggling painter, and Marie must choose between a life of comfort and luxury as a kept woman, or her true love.  Her actions will have dire consequences.

Seen today, this film is very dated.  The scenario of the kept woman is not nearly as shocking as it must have been in 1923.  This is a melodrama, a genre that while very popular in the silent era, has since died out for all practical purposes.  The story is just a little too sappy, and the characters are not developed very well.  Marie in particular is very two dimensional, and it is hard to relate to her.

At the time though, the movie was original.  It doesn't have a standard hero and villain, but rather people who act in their own best interests.  None of the characters are wholly good or all evil.  Just like real people, they are a mixture.  But this wasn't enough to save the film in my view.   I just didn't think the characters or situation being played out was that interesting.

The ending didn't work t all in my opinion.  It was very forced and had a different tone from the rest of the film.  Up until that point, the movie had tried to be realistic, but the ending ignored this and seemed hackneyed and contrived.

As far as the acting goes, Menjou does a wonderful job as the cad Pierre, but Edna Purviance is less convincing as Marie.  Her acting is fairly restrained, especially when compared to other dramas of the time, but she wasn't sympathetic enough.  I never really cared about what happened to her.

While the critics enjoyed the film, it was a failure at the box office.  People were not as interested in Chaplin the director as they were in the Tramp himself.  United Artists was hoping that this film would give them a quick infusion of money that the company needed, but it wouldn't.  Though the film eventually did take in more than it cost to produce, it was did the worst business of any Chaplin film at that time.

This was one of Edna's last staring roles.  Though the reviews were good, the box office was poor and the offers were not forthcoming.¹

Three years later, she would star in one more film, another melodrama, A Woman of the Sea.  Chaplin produced that movie, though he didn't direct it.  (This film was so bad that it was never released, and Chaplin ordered the negatives destroyed so that the whole production could be written off as a loss on the company's taxes.  It is rumored that he did keep a print of the film, but that his wife, Oona, had the print destroyed just before she died in 1991.)

Though Chaplin no longer felt that Edna was a suitable leading lady for him, he never forgot her.  She had stared in over 35 shorts and movies with Chaplin, more than any other actress, and was his lover for a number of years.  Though he wasn't able to jump start her dramatic career, he did keep on his payroll for the rest of her life.  Ironically, after they stopped being lovers, he seemed to have a much better relationship with her than he did with any of his ex-wives.  Edna Purviance died of throat cancer in January of 1958 at the age of 62.

The DVD:

This movie was mastered from a PAL video source and converted to NTSC.  What does that mean?  Without going into the details, it means that the film runs 4% faster than it should.  The pitch seems to have been corrected on the soundtrack, but the playing times are still 4% shorter than they should be.  This is very unfortunate, but not a huge deal.  About the only way to notice the difference is to check the run times, the slight speed up is not noticeable to the casual viewer.  Even someone familiar with the movie would be very hard pressed to see the difference, it is very slight.

Near the end of his life, Chaplin went back and re-released most of his films that he owned the rights to.  A Woman of Paris was no exception.  Not having had a wide distribution even when it was originally released, this movie had been little seen over the year. Chaplin reworked the film, and ended up cutting several scenes and composing an original score.  Charlie died while working on this film, and the reissue was completed after his death.  This later edit is the version that is presented on this DVD.

Audio:  As with the other silent movies in this collection, there is that choice between 5.1 audio and a stereo mix of an orchestral score composed by Chaplin.  Both are very similar, but the stereo sound track is a little fuller.  The audio quality was very clear and clean with no noticeable hiss or distortion.  There are subtitles in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Thai, and Korean.
 

Video:  The restored full frame video for this movie was excellent.  The image was clean with an excellent amount of detail.  The contrast is very good with the blacks being solid and a good range of gray tones.  This does not look like an 80 year old film.  There are some compression artifacts, but they are minor.

Extras:

This DVD contains the following extras:

Introduction by David Robinson (5 min):  The Chaplin biographer gives a short overview of Chaplin's life at the time he made A Woman of Paris, and recaps the movie.  A nice brief overview putting the movie in context of Chaplin's life.

Chaplin Today:  A Woman of Paris (26 minutes):  A nice featurette about the film.  It included quotes from people who worked on the film, and directors who were influenced by the movie.  It examines the film and explores how it was different from other films at the time.  A good extra.

Deleted Scenes (6 minutes):  A series of 10 scenes that Chaplin deleted when he reworked the film near the end of his life.

United Artists (3 minutes):  A short bit where the founders of UA sign the legal contracts.  Interesting even though it has been show frequently over the years.

Paris in the 20's (10 minutes):  Amateur movies taken in and around Paris in the 1920's.  This is mildly interesting, but not much more than that.  There are shots of buildings and streets, but nothing that is captivating.

Camille (1926) (33 minutes):  An amateur adaptation of Camille by Ralph Barton who managed to get many celebrities and New York personalities to appear, including:  Anita Loos, Sinclair Lewis, Ethyl Barrymore, Alfred Knopf, Somerset Maughm, Dorothy Gish, and Charlie Chaplin.  As a movie, its value lay in the cameos by the celebrities.  The film itself is not that interesting.  Being an experimental piece, there are a lot of strange camera movements and abrupt cuts.  I have to admit that it was a chore getting through this.  If it had been 10minutes long, I would have enjoyed it better.

The print used is very old and faded.  The image was foggy and had a lot of haze.  This wasn't the high point of this DVD.

Photo Gallery:  Some production stills from the movie.

Movie Posters:  A selection of movie posters advertising A Woman of Paris from all around the world.  It includes original releases and re-issue posters.

Trailers (3 min):  A collection of trailers from the re-release of A Woman of Paris.

Chaplin Collection (12 min):  A selection of scenes from each of the movies in the Chaplin Collection.
 
 

Charlie Chaplin left the United States in 1952 to go to Europe to promote his latest movie, Limelight.  Soon after he left he received a shock:  his permit to reenter the US had been revoked.

During the 1950's Chaplin was just what the FBI was looking for to prove that they were tough on Communists.  Chaplin had arrived in US in 1910 as an underpaid vaudeville performer and had stayed to become one of the highest paid people in the country.  The English actor had become fabulously wealthy and incredibly famous in the US, yet had never applied for citizenship.   Even with his great wealth, he refused to pay his what he owed income tax.  Chaplin had been in trouble with the IRS for years because of his (and his brother's) complex schemes to hide his assets and income. What was worse was that he spoke at communist rallies, gave money to Communist causes, and even criticized his adopted country in his film, Monsieur Verdoux.  Taken together, these were enough to revoke his reentry permit.

Though Chaplin realized that this might happen, he was devastated.   His counsel said that if he just returned to the US, there was a good chance that he would allowed to return, but Chaplin would have none of that.  If the US didn't want him, he wouldn't come back begging.  He sent his wife Oona back to the US and she sold everything:  His studio, Beverly Hills mansion, and all his assets.  Then they bought a villa in Switzerland, and as a final form of protest, Oona renounced her US citizenship.  Chaplin would never live in the US again.

But Chaplin couldn't just retire.  As he once said "To work is to live, and I want to live."  He soon started thinking about making another movie.  He toyed with the idea of revisiting The Tramp, but soon decided that the character's appeal lay in his ability to get out of trouble with physical comedy, something Chaplin, in his mid-50's at the time, could no longer do.  He briefly considered bringing Monsieur Verdoux back, but no one he mentioned the idea to like it.   Finally he decided to create a new character, an exiled King.

No longer owning his own studio, Chaplin would have to rent the soundstage time, and that was expensive.  He knew that he would no longer have the luxury of working his story out in front of the camera, as he was accustomed to doing.  So he spent two years working on the script.  When it was finished, he went to England and filmed the movie in a record (for him) 12 weeks.  This would be the last movie that he stared in.

The Movie:

King Shadov (Charlie Chaplin) flees his country when his people revolt because he will not allow nuclear bombs to be manufactured in his land.  He goes to New York to experience the excitement of the big city that he has heard so much about..  He is planning on living on the assets that he has sent to the States in advance of his arrival, but he soon finds out that his finance minister has stolen the funds, and he is left penniless.  Forced to raise money somehow, Shadov turns to doing TV commercials.

While touring the city, King Shadov meets young Rupert (played by Chaplin's son, Michael) the son of Communists who is well versed in Marxism and the shortcomings of capitalism.  Unfortunately, his association with known Communists brings Shadov to the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Though Chaplin denied that this movie was political in nature, it is impossible to view it without seeing the political aspects.  From young Rupert's tirades against passports and capitalism to the trailers in the movie theater, the movie is full of commentary on American society.  Unfortunately, Chaplin aims at too many targets and the film becomes just a gossamer fabric to which Chaplin attaches everything that he finds objectionable.  It becomes a series of gripes, not a comic movie.

Even there is humor it does not work well.   The slapstick scene where the King douses the House Un-American Activities Committee with a fire hose, something that Chaplin should have been able to turn into a laugh riot, fell flat.  It was very easy to predict what was going to happen, and the shots of the members being hit with the hose lasts too long.  The whole scene feels forced.

It is obvious that by this time Chaplin has forgotten what made his movies so appealing in the past.  It was the sentimentality mixed with comedy that made him famous.  The Kid was a funny movie, but everyone remembers the chase when Chaplin is trying to rescue the boy he has grown to love.  All of his best films have a sentimental, yet not sappy, element to them.  A King in New York isn't sentimental at all, and King Shadov is his least endearing character.  The scene near the end where the government agent has pressured Rupert comes across as cold and unfeeling.

The main problem with the film though is that it is not subtle.  Instead of hinting at things like he did in his silent movies, Chaplin feels that he has to pound his points home with a huge mallet.

It has been often said that this movie was "banned" in the United States.  That simply is not true.  When the movie was finished, Chaplin screened it for executives from United Artists.  They felt it would be so poorly received in the US, that they decided not to distribute it.  Chaplin either could not find, or did not look for another distributor, and the movie was not screened in the US until its revival sixteen year later.  The lack of distribution had nothing to do with any "ban" against the product.

Overall, Chaplin's penultimate movie is a disappointment.
 

The DVD:

Audio:  This movie has both the original English soundtrack, and a French dub.  There is the choice of the original mono audio, or a 5.1 mix.  Both have been remastered.  There is not a lot of difference between the mono and 5.1 tracks.  The mono is a little thinner and not as full sounding, but neither track is dynamic and vibrant, due to the nature of the movie.  A pleasant sounding DVD, there are no audio defects that one usually associates with a film of this age.

Video:  The restored full frame video for this movie was very good, as it has been with all the DVDs in this set.  The image was clean with an excellent amount of detail.  The contrast is very good with the blacks being solid and a good range of gray tones.  A stunning looking disc.

Extras:

This DVD contains a number of great extras:

Introduction by David Robinson (5 min):  The Chaplin biographer gives a short overview of Chaplin's life at the time he made A King in New York, and recaps the movie.  A nice brief overview putting the movie in context of Chaplin's life.

Chaplin Today:  A King in New York (26 minutes):  Another in a series of featurettes about each of Chaplin's films.  A  very informative featurette about the film.

Deleted Scenes (16 minutes):  A series of 14 scenes that Chaplin deleted when he reworked the film near the end of his life.  None of these would have made the film any better.

Mandolin Serenade (3 minutes):  Chaplin conducting the orchestra while they rehearse for a musical number.

Photo Gallery:  Some production stills from the movie.

Movie Posters:  A selection of movie posters advertising A King in New York from all around the world.

Trailers (9 min):  A collection of trailers promoting A King in New York.

Chaplin Collection (12 min):  A selection of scenes from each of the movies in the Chaplin Collection.
 

Final Thoughts:

These are not my favorite Chaplin films.  A Woman of Paris' plot is too melodramatic and I was never interested in the characters.  With A King in New York Chaplin discarded the subtlety of his earlier movies for an in-your-face indictment of capitalism and the US.   It lacks humor and grace, this was a sad last appearance of a comic genius.  Niether of these films have a lot of replay value in my book, but they are interesting from a historical point of view.  Rent it.

1)  In 1924 a scandal ended any hopes she had of continuing her career.  Edna and silent comedian Mabel Normand were in Cortland Dynes apartment when the police arrived after receiving a call from Normand's chauffeur, AL Kelly.  Dynes, a millionaire oil broker, was laying on the couch shot.  Edna and Mabel were hysterical and claimed that they had no idea how the man was shot.  Eventually the chauffeur claimed to have shot Dynes with Mabel's gun that she kept in her nightstand.  He couldn't explain why he had it.  Dynes lived, and at the trial he and all the witnesses claimed to have forgotten what had happened.  There were rumors that drugs were involved, and that Kelly confessed because he was in love with Mabel.  Whatever happened, it effectively ended the two woman's careers.  There were calls for censorship boards to ban their movies across the country.  To Chaplin's credit, he did stand by Edna and publicly stated that she was still his leading lady.  She never had a staring role in one of his pictures after this.  Though it is more probably that this was due to her age and appearance than because of the scandal.