Wow, if I wasn't trying to curb my spending these days, I would be sorely tempted to get the new Charlie Chaplin boxed set -- it's got my two favorite films of his (1921's The Kid and 1931's City Lights), plus The Chaplin Revue is a not-bad anthology of three of his short films, including what I believe was his last short film ever, The Pilgrim (1923) -- a most-see for those who want to explore Chaplin's treatment of religion. True, the set also includes three of Chaplin's more questionable non-Tramp films, including A Woman of Paris (a dull melodrama, as I recall, made in 1923), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and A King in New York (a very self-serving and generally unfunny spoof of McCarthyism made in the late 1950s), but what the hey.

The set also includes 1928's The Circus, so between this and the first boxed set (which included 1925's The Gold Rush, 1936's Modern Times, 1940's The Great Dictator and the early-1950s film Limelight), it would seem all of Chaplin's feature-length films are available now (except for A Countess in Hong Kong, a by-all-accounts-just-awful 1960s film that AFAIK has never been available on video in any format).

FWIW, I wrote an undergrad paper on Chaplin's treatment of religion that became one of the first articles of mine ever posted on the web -- at Jeffrey's site, in fact. I wrote a revised, shortened, and more newspapery version of this for the local Christian paper not long afterwards, when a Chaplin retrospective came to the Cinematheque.

A Countess From Hong Kong is plain unwatchable. I had two reasons to give it a chance: Chaplin, and a fascination with films on marquees in the summer of '67 when my family was in the U. S. on furlough. Oh, and Sophia Loren. I couldn't bear more than half an hour. It stinks.

Enjoyed your essay, Peter. I'm with you on City Lights but I prefer Modern Times or The Great Dictator to The Kid -- precisely because of that dream sequence in the latter. Its meaning is muddled and it doesn't advance the plot. I think Chaplin is a little too in love with himself as a director on that film.

One person who was able to make films that were rich with humour as well as intense meaning was Charley Chaplin.
Two great films of his, "Modern Times" and "Goldrush" were rather funny, exuberant, and sad all at the same time, while his shorter films, such as "City Lights" were OK.
One of Charley Chaplin's films, "the Great Dictator" was his most intense, and probably his best, with many funny moments in it. However one other film of his, "Monsieur Verdeau", which was sort of a black comedy, was one that I didn't care for as much.
Any thoughts on the Charley Chaplin Films? Too bad they're not showing in theatres anymore, either.

Nice topic, Miki. A Chaplin collection was recently released on DVD and is worth picking up; I own most of the remastered laserdisc titles from the mid to late 1990s, and as wonderful as they are, I assume the DVDs are even better.

I'm surprised you'd describe City Lights -- an acknowledged masterpiece -- as just "OK," but not all films work for all people. If it's laughs you want, try The Circus.

I'm not the biggest fan of The Great Dictator, but I have a soft spot for Limelight. And I agree with you on The Gold Rush, which is a personal favorite.

Hmmm. Haven't watched it in years. Time to give it another look.

Chaplin is one of the great masters and early artists who defined what cinematic art was capable. He also effective wove a social consciousness into nearly all his films, combining entertainment, art, and social commentary as few have ever done.

Another amazing Chaplin feat was that he make the transition to sound that left behind his peers such as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and others. He was also a powerful business person behind the film industry, one of the founders of United Artists.

[This thread was merged with an existing one.] >> Always use the search engine before starting a new thread, Miki.

I loved “Modern Times” (just recently saw that one in a theater) and “Gold Rush” has always been a favorite – it was the first Chaplin film I saw.



You might have your titles mixed up… “City Lights” was a full length film, not a short. And “City Lights” is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of silent drama. For me, it made the strongest impression of any of his films.



I liked “The Great Dictator” quite a bit, but it was disturbing because of the subject matter. As a film, it suffers from the tramp actually speaking to the audience at the end. As a document of the time and an expression of Charlie Chaplin’s understanding of the goals and potential of Nazism, it is absolutely chilling. Too bad more people in the U.S. did not recognize Hitler for what he was.



If you like in or near a major metropolitan area, you will occasionally be able to see some of these old films. As mentioned before, I got to see “Modern Times” with a theater audience at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

For some reason The Great Dictator is my favorite film, even though it's completely incongruous for a Jewish barber to be quoting the Gospel of Luke (and incongruous for Chaplin as well). City Lights is more tightly constructed/directed/edited, but at least two scenes in The Great Dictator (the globe balloon ballet and the shaving scene) are unparalleled masterpieces of physical comedy.

City Lights is also probably his best balance of storytelling, comedy, and social commentary, although Modern Times comes pretty close. The social commentary could get a little out of whack at times (witness the dream sequence in The Kid or the trial scene in Monsieur Verdoux).

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the "Charley" spelling—after all, no less an eminent literary personage than Lawrence Ferlinghetti used it. The artist himself usually went by "Charles," did he not?

Thanks for all your output on Charley Chaplin films. I live right near Boston, and I sometimes scan the ARts/movie sections for possible showings of Charlie Chaplin movies, not to mention other favorite films of mine. I totally forgot about City LIGHTS. MAYBE it was Limelights that I got "City Lights" mixed up with.
I enjoyed the "Great Dictator" a great deal, because it DID deal with disturbing matters, which was necessary. Black comedy, which "Monsieur Verdeaux" seemed to have all through it, unfortunately, is something that I could never, ever get into, for some reason, but, different strokes for different folks, as some people say.
I guess I must've missed some of the Chaplin movies. Since I'm not a big TV watcher, I don't have cable, a VCR, or a DVD player. I had no idea that Chaplin movies were out on DVD/. Thanks for the info.

By the way, how do I use the Search Engine when I wish to start a new thread? That's another thing I didn't know. Thanks again for the info.

use it before you start a new thread.

I've never quite gotten into Modern Times (1936). I know it's got a lot of critical respect, but -- at least where those giant gears are concerned -- it has always felt to me like Chaplin was trying to do Buster Keaton a decade after the fact.

Like I say above, The Kid (1921) and City Lights (1931) are my favorites of his feature-length films, though that probably just exposes what a rank sentimentalist I am. The thing is, those particular films are rooted in very powerfully rendered relationships, whereas I suspect The Gold Rush (1925) and The Circus (1928) don't linger in my brain so much because they were not. (And I don't care much for The Great Dictator (1940), partly because The Tramp really shouldn't be talking -- Chaplin's voice doesn't really match his image, does it? -- and partly because it ends on such a sermonizing note.)

Just wondering, who else here has seen A Woman of Paris (1923), possibly the only film Chaplin directed that he did not star in? I have, but it has been so long since I saw it, I don't remember much except I didn't care for it.

Never saw "Woman in Paris", "The Kid", or "The Circus", so I can't really compare them with anything else.

The Kid is one of his better known works; I used a clip from it for my film class. It whould be easy to get on a bargain-bin DVD or from Netflix.

Like you, I haven't seen the other two.

Turns out A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) is now on DVD after all.

In preparation for having some time stuck in bed this week, I went to the library to get some humor (if it worked for Norman Cousins...) and one that I picked up was The Gold Rush. To my surprise, it's 2 discs. One has the 1942 sound version, the other the 1925 silent version. Is there any reason that I should even bother touching disc 1?

The sound version, prepared by Chaplin, had definite charms of its own. The Tramp doesn't talk -- instead, there's a sort of tongue-in-cheek quasi-documentary commentary track, doing much the same thing that I used to do with my kids watching silent films. The narrator calls the Tramp "the little fellow" throughout ("Now let me see, thought the little fellow...")

My extremely brief review

There's a month-long series of Chaplin shorts screening in Seattle, Monday nights for the rest of September.

I've seen most of these on the small screen, but it would be fun to try them out on a bigger scale. And maybe the prints will be better.

The final sequence of City Lights is probably my favorite of all time. It has everything. If I had to vote for the best artist of the last century, it'd be Charlie Chaplin.