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City Lights Clippings 226/387

Evening World, reprinted in Film Daily, N. Y., February 15, 1931.

City Lights Rehearsal Scenes, 1929, Discovering Chaplin

& THE CURRENT CINEMA 

      Mr. Chaplin Opens (...)

      OF the Charlie Chaplin picture, „City Lights,“ running

at the George M. Cohan Theatre, I shall have more

to say next week. In the meantime I can advice you only to go

and see it, for it is Charlie himself back again, and

the years have not dimmed his powers, nor has he, thank

Heaven, thought his old humor unworthy now.

(...) New Yorker, Feb. 14, 1931

& OF ALL THINGS (...)

      Chaplin believes that there will always be some things

which can most effectively be presented on the silent

screen. The two best examples we know are Charlie‘s feet.

(...) New Yorker, Feb. 14, 1931

„Illusion is the basis of his appeal“

Editorial content. „International Appeal of Charlie Chaplin

      As Charlie Chaplin‘s picture opened the other night,

the tremendous thought occurred that Charlie is the only picture

actor left in the world with all nations for an audience

and all countries for his market. Which is a staggering thought

for any one man. By means of his pantomime and absence

of spoken dialogue, he still exerts an international appeal. He still

is understandable to all the universe, just as he was when

he first began to coax smiles from weary souls. On the other hand, every player who embraced the talkies has restricted

his appeal, to the country whose language he employs. Few

people know, too, that Charlie remains in character in all

other walks of life. He has passed up a sizable fortune offered

him for radio contracts. He has refused them all. When

the Yale and Harvard playshops and the Oxford University and Cambridge groups asked him to appear before their classes

to explain the psychology of pantomime, he refused, although this

is probably the highest honor ever paid a Hollywood actor.

The secret is that Charlie knows that illusion is the basis of his

appeal. He knows that his appeal comes from the heart,

and that there is only one means by which it can be projected –

by pantomime. So with the exception that there is more

satire and a greater depth of subtlety in his work, he has changed

very little from the Chaplin of 18 years ago.

                                                 George Gerhard, Evening World.“

     The world premiere of City Lights takes place in Los Angeles

      January 30, 1931 at the Los Angeles Theatre.

      Los Angeles Theatre, 615 South Broadway (between

      6th and 7th Streets), Los Angeles.

      City Lights opens in New York February 6, 1931

      at the Cohan Theatre.

      George M. Cohan Theatre, 1482 Broadway (between

      42nd and 43rd Streets), New York.

     

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