IMDB Top 250 Challenge – Movie #10 – City Lights

City Lights (1931) – IMDB Rank #41

Watched 15/2/13

So I finally watched my second Chaplin film, City Lights, for my IMDB Top 250 Movie Challenge. I watched Modern Times on 1/1/13 and LOVED it. It’s still my favorite movie I’ve seen in a long time but City Lights is a close second, I think. I don’t know – they’re very close. Not sure which one I prefer. Both are brilliant. Can’t decide!

When I “reviewed” Modern Times, I didn’t say much about it as I didn’t feel I could as I have zero knowledge when it comes to silent films. I just know what I enjoy & what I don’t and I’m quite surprised that, so far, the Chaplin films are the ones I’ve enjoyed the most by far since starting my IMDB Top 250 thing. My hubby is quite annoyed as he’s been trying to get me to watch Chaplin for years. But even though his movies are widely considered to be brilliant, you still kind of don’t expect silent films to be THAT much fun, do you? Yeah yeah… I should have watched them years ago! But at least I’ve finally made a start. 🙂

City Lights is fantastic. A sweet love story where The Tramp falls in love with a blind flower girl. It’s full of The Tramp’s usual funny & charming antics (usual in the three I’ve seen, at least! I’ve also now watched The Kid, which I’ll review next). The drunken times with the millionaire are very funny and I loved it when they went to the restaurant – the spaghetti gag was hilarious. I don’t know if it quite beats him accidentally getting high on cocaine in Modern Times, though. Lol! That was awesome. I wasn’t quite expecting that from a 1936 film…

I think Modern Times is probably a slightly better film overall – I think the comedy is a bit better and the overall look is very very cool with the different types of machinery (how cool were those gears Chaplin goes through?). However, though it does have an ending I really liked, it certainly can’t compare to the ending of City Lights. LOVED IT. Too bad I’d already done my list of Top Ten Movie Endings before watching City Lights – I’m going to have to go back & add it because it’s amazing and I’m getting all happy just sitting here thinking about it.