City Lights

CinemaSerfJul 2024

3.5

Virginia Cherrill charmingly plays a young, blind, flower seller whom the tramp (Charlie Chaplin) falls for, hook line and sinker. Later that night, he is crossing a bridge when he encounters a suicidal, dipso, millionaire (Harry Myers) whom he convinces to hang about for a while longer, and who by way of appreciation invites him to a party at his mansion, then to a series of evening entertainments. Thing is, when he wakes up with the mother of all hangovers next morning, though, he has never a clue who the tramp is and so gets his butler to send him packing. Meantime, still determined to help his new love, our kindly vagrant reads in a newspaper that there might be might be a cure for her blindness - but it will be expensive. His boozy buddy offers him $1,000 to help but when, as usual in the morning, he sobers up and denies all knowledge of the "gift". The police are called and things now take a series of unhappy turns that force the tramp to think of other ways of raising the cash. This challenge is especially spurned on when he discovers that she has left her usual selling spot and is now quite poorly and being taken care of by her grandmother (Florence Lee) - and they are facing eviction. It's probably his attempts at boxing that provide for most of the entertainment here, but there are plenty of other humorous exploits - especially between him and Myers and the scenes with Cherrill are touching and joyous, too. Chaplin keeps the pace moving along well with plenty of variety in a film that's a gem to watch.