City Lights

:This article refers to the Charlie Chaplin film. For the San Francisco bookstore see City Lights Bookstore. For the Glasgwegian sitcom see City Lights (sitcom).

Related Topics:
City Lights Bookstore - City Lights (sitcom)

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City Lights is a 1931 film written by, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin composed the musical score which comprised the majority of the sound on the film since there is no dialogue in the picture.

Related Topics:
1931 - Charlie Chaplin

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The Circus, released in 1928, was Chaplin's last film to debut before motion pictures with sound (known as "talkies" at the time) took over. Since The Circus, sound pictures quickly took over as the industry standard. It was not uncommon for silent actors to oppose the arrival of talking pictures. Had Chaplin been anybody else, he probably would have never been able to shoot City Lights as a silent film, but because of his power in Hollywood, and because he had almost complete control over his work, he was able to make this film silent (except for a few sparse sound effects, music, and some unintelligble sounds that mock speech).

Related Topics:
The Circus - 1928 - Silent film

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Charlie Chaplin was a known perfectionist; he was famous for doing many more takes than other directors at the time. At one point he actually fired Virginia Cherrill and began re-filming with Georgia Hale, Chaplin's co-star in The Gold Rush. This proved too expensive, even for his budget, and so he later re-hired Cherrill and was able to finish City Lights.

Related Topics:
Charlie Chaplin - Georgia Hale - The Gold Rush

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