Showing posts with label 1930s. Show all posts
City Lights [1931]: Charlie Chaplin's Masterpiece gave a Perfect Closure to the Silent Era
After the success of “The Jazz Singer [1927]”, Talkies were no longer a joke to those who laughed upon the idea of the merging of sound and images. Possibilities opened for a long list of young mediocre actors who could speak their dialogues well. In Simple words, there were no limitations in cinema anymore. It was a great development and everyone in the industry had something to benefit from it except the stars of the silent era.
A lot of actors went out of work once the talkies completely took over and no one had more to lose than the biggest star of Hollywood then, Charlie Chaplin. City Lights was his ultimate test and the world was rather curious if he would be able to entertain like before now that dialogues are a viable option.
Charlie Chaplin used sounds in Citylights but not in the way people expected, as the film started, there was a political speech where the characters are saying something, which sounded nothing more than a harsh squeal, this is how Chaplin took a dig on talkies “silently”.
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| Charlie Chaplin and Harry Myers in a scene from Citylights [1931] |
City Lights is the story of a tramp, played by Chaplin who falls for the blind flower girl [Virginia Cherrill]. The blind flower girl mistakes the tramp for a rich man and the tramp promises the girl to pay for her eye operation.
The tramp saved a man who was going to commit suicide; this man turns out to be a millionaire [Harry Myers] and becomes his friend. The millionaire is mostly drunk and has a dual personality; he despises the tramp when he is sober while he becomes a really caring and protective friend of the tramp when he is drunk.
The Tramp was quite a familiar character by then as Chaplin used to play the tramp in most of his films of the 1920s. However this time, Chaplin deepened the character and gave him more meaning and a subtle amount of Fragility. In a time when Talkies was such a rage, Chaplin retained the tramp’s charm by not indulging him in words. Also, Words and Voice limits one’s connect to those who can understand, but it was the silence that gave Chaplin and The Tramp a universal appeal.
Charlie Chaplin used to work with accomplished and beautiful actresses who were equally beautiful; either it is “The Kid” or “Modern Times” or “The City Lights”, the lead actresses were quite a charmer. Virginia Cherrill was brilliant as the blind flower girl, she deliberately underplayed her part showing the right amount of innocence as you’d expect from a poor blind girl and later displayed a little carefree attitude as the circumstances of her life improves.
Citylights is a treasure of classic comedy scenes; the open elevator scene on the streets, the attempted suicide at the canal, the parties with the rich millionaire and of course the boxing scene where Chaplin fights a boxer for money and does everything to avoid being hit. These were some of the greatest scenes in cinema and they were all in one single movie. My favourite is of course the heart wrenching climax, which is perhaps one of my favourite scenes from any Charlie Chaplin film. And I have seen a lot of them.
A great scene after another great scene, that’s how masterpieces look like. These scenes from Chaplin’s career has been imitated in one way or the other by so many film makers that you can easily say that Charlie Chaplin was one of the most influential person in Cinema.
"One night the Piazza San Marco was darkened, and “City Lights” was shown on a vast screen. When the flower girl recognized the Tramp, I heard much snuffling and blowing of noses around me; there wasn't a dry eye in the piazza. Then complete darkness fell, and a spotlight singled out a balcony overlooking the square. Charlie Chaplin walked forward, and bowed. I have seldom heard such cheering." wrote Late Roger Ebert in his review of City Lights.
Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★★★
The Tale of the Fox [1930]
The Tale of the fox is a 1930 stop motion animation film by Wladyslaw Starewicz. It is based on the classic stories of the clever fox which all of us must have read/heard as a kid. It is the story of one such clever fox Reynard who outwits every other animal and make a fool out of them time and again. Almost every other animal in the kingdom became the victim of his Shenanigans. After every new complain, the king [Lion] sent one of his agents to bring the fox in front of him but when all of them failed to do so, King himself leads an army to attack the fox’s castle.
Starewicz had previously done short animations such as the cameraman’s revenge and the Insect’s Christmas but collaborating with Irene, his daughter, he made his first and only feature length animated film.
Wladyslaw Starewicz was one of the pioneers of animation cinema; he used dead insects to create puppet animation and successfully made “the cameraman’s revenge”. The Tale of the fox was a development in his craft where he made use of extremely expressive puppets, using voiceovers and a soundtrack. There are details which is admirable even after 7 decades. If you liked Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, you would understand the effort and brilliance of this film.
Starewicz was among the ranks of Walt Disney, his career started a decade earlier than Walt Disney and the influence of his work can be seen in some of the earlier works of Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Sometimes his puppets looked creepy and insane that resembled the mannerism of Zombies.
Starewicz did complete justice with the film; he understood the innocence of the story and never made it appear too evil but humorous. The fox is sharp, sly but at the same time adorably entertaining. There is also a twist ending which many of us won’t expect from a fairy tale, but here we have an interesting ending to the story.
It is a pioneer work of animation and it is surprisingly fun to watch. It was only the sixth feature length animation in history. It is a true classic of cinema which didn’t receive its deserving larger audience.
Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★½
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Grand Hotel [1932]: A great film of its time
Cast: John Barrymore, Greta Garbo, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery
Directed by: Edmund Goulding
"Grand Hotel; people come, people go, Nothing ever happens"
This film is not the greatest from the standards of today’s cinema but for the year 1932, it was an innovative step in the then existing line of films. Director Edmund Goulding took an ensemble cast of the superstars of that era and made a creative film of intertwining stories. The cast includes some iconic names of Hollywood, such as Lionel Barrymore and the greatest Greta Garbo; other great names were Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery and John Barrymore.
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Plot: This is the story of multiple characters that spent 2 days in a hotel. Greta Garbo plays a ballerina who misses her country Russia and feels her life being empty and pointless and is saved by the charm of the Baron, played by John Barrymore. The Baron aims to steal her jewels and pay all his debts. Joan Crawford plays the stenographer and is trying to woo the Baron as she believes he is a rich business person. She is employed by the wealthy industrialist played by Wallace Beery; he also employed a dying old man, played by Lionel Barrymore, who is set to live rest of his life experiencing things he missed out till now, he eventually befriends the Baron.
Greta Garbo’s character spent most of her part in isolation. Grand Hotel won the Oscar for the Best Picture at the 5th Academy Awards. It holds the record as the only film in history that won a Best Picture at the Oscars and had no other nominations. This happened because there were so many subplots in the film and it must have been tough to select one of the performances. Overall, the film was pretty interesting with all the subplots mixed and matched perfectly. Some of my favourite films with intertwined stories are Pulp Fiction, Amores Perros and Magnolia, although all of them are very different films in nature.
Movie Geek’s Rating: ★★★½
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