Even though he had great confidence in City Lights, Chaplin still couldn't help but worry that he would be seen as old-fashioned for making a silent picture. Now 40 years old, The Little Tramp, who had been one of the world's top box office stars for over a decade, could feel the public's interest in his career slowly waning, and it bothered him. "In the past my work had usually stimulated interest among producers," he said in his 1964 autobiography. "But now they were too preoccupied with the success of the talkies, and as time went on I began to feel outside of things; I guess I had been spoiled."

Since Chaplin owned his own studio, he was able to control every aspect of the production on City Lights. He could take his time and go at his own pace, spending as much time and money as he saw fit to get things done to his satisfaction. He demanded excellence from everyone working with him, but most of all he demanded it of himself.

Shooting got off to a somewhat rocky start when three days into the production Chaplin fired the actor playing the Millionaire, Henry Clive. When shooting the scene in which the Millionaire drunkenly tries to commit suicide by drowning himself, Clive refused to dive into the water. Some sources say that Clive had a cold at the time and asked Chaplin if they could wait until the sun had warmed the water before getting in. Chaplin responded by promptly replacing him with a new actor, former vaudevillian Harry Myers.

Chaplin also found himself often frustrated with co-star Virginia Cherrill and her lack of acting experience. For the crucial scene in which The Tramp meets the Blind Girl for the first time, Chaplin spent five days doing take after take over and over until Cherrill got it the way he wanted it. "This was not the girl's fault," said Chaplin, "but partly my own, for I had worked myself into a neurotic state of wanting perfection."

Chaplin's penchant for perfection carried over into all aspects of the production of City Lights. He had a very clear vision as to how every scene should play. Actor Robert Parrish, who had a small part as one of the newsboys who pelt The Tramp with peashooters, remembered in 1991: "Chaplin was a dervish. He would blow a pea from the peashooter, playing both my part and the part of Austen Jewell, the other newsboy. He then would run over and react as the Tramp being hit by it, then back to the newsboys and blow another pea. He would then play Virginia Cherrill's part of the Blind Girl. Then he was the Tramp. Then he would instruct what the background people should be doing. Everyone watched as he acted out all the parts for us. When he felt he had it all worked out, he reluctantly gave us back our parts...I believe he would have much rather played them all himself if he could."

According to Virginia Cherrill, she and Chaplin never cared for each other, and were never involved romantically like Chaplin had been with several of his other leading ladies. "I never liked Charlie...and he never liked me," she said in a later interview. "Most of the girls that worked for him had been involved with him," she said. "I was too old. I was twenty and had been divorced."

Cherrill and Chaplin butted heads often during the filming of City Lights, leaving Cherrill often frustrated. She described the experience of working with him as sometimes "painful. It seemed that the times you thought it was good, he'd hate it, and the other times when you felt flat and forced, he'd say it was great. If he enjoyed something, he'd do it forever until he was bored."

At one point, Chaplin went so far as to fire her. "There was no commissary at the studio and I had to 'brown bag' it every day," explained Cherrill. "I was not allowed to leave for lunch, but one day I did and was five minutes late. I kept Charlie waiting, which was not allowed. We got into a screaming row and I was fired."

As a result, Chaplin started testing other actresses for the part of the Blind Girl even though it would mean a tremendous amount of re-shooting. He came close to hiring his paramour and The Gold Rush (1925) co-star Georgia Hale. However, in the end he realized that it would make sense to keep the work that he already had and keep going. He re-hired Virginia Cherrill to resume her role, but not before she shrewdly made him double her salary.

One of Chaplin's most joyous times came during the film's famous boxing match scene that has The Tramp paired with a bruiser twice his size to hilarious effect. "The filming of the boxing scene was the only social life we had at the studio," recalled Virginia Cherrill. "Charlie must have had over a hundred extras present...and he encouraged his friends in town to come and watch. Everyone loved boxing in Hollywood in those days. And Charlie was so funny in the ring. The boxing scene became sort of a party at the studio. Charlie loved every minute of it."

While his demand for perfection could sometimes ruffle feathers, there was no question that Chaplin poured his heart and soul into the pantomime art that he deeply loved. The film's poignant final shot was one that he was particularly proud of, having put a great deal of work into it despite its deceptive simplicity. He felt "a beautiful sensation of not acting, of standing outside myself," he said. "The key was exactly right -- slightly embarrassed, delighted about meeting her again -- apologetic without getting emotional about it. He was watching and wondering without any effort. It's one of the purest inserts -- I call them inserts, close-ups -- that I've ever done."

Shooting on City Lights wrapped in the Fall of 1930. Chaplin immediately began working on post-production, editing the picture himself as he always did. City Lights would not be a silent film in its truest sense when Chaplin was through with it. Conceding the inevitability of sound, Chaplin added a few well-placed comic sound effects that utilized the technology to generate laughs without actual dialogue.

Chaplin also composed music for the synchronized soundtrack to accompany the film. "One happy thing about sound was that I could control the music," said Chaplin, "so I composed my own. I tried to compose elegant and romantic music to frame my comedies in contrast to the tramp character, for elegant music gave my comedies an emotional dimension. Musical arrangers rarely understood this. They wanted the music to be funny. But I would explain that I wanted no competition, I wanted the music to be a counterpoint of grace and charm, to express sentiment, without which, as Hazlitt says, a work of art is incomplete."

When all was said and done, City Lights was nearly three years in the making between its initial concept to its release in theaters. Chaplin had sunk over $2 million of his own money into it along the way to realize his vision. To remind sound-oriented audiences of what to expect from City Lights, Chaplin billed the film as "a comedy romance in pantomime written and directed by Charles Chaplin."

Before it was released into theaters, Chaplin had a secret sneak preview screening in downtown Los Angeles. Unfortunately, it was an experience that he described as "ghastly" because "our film was thrown on to the screen to a half-empty house. The audience had come to see a drama and not a comedy, and they did not recover from their bewilderment until halfway through the picture. There were laughs, but feeble ones." Some of the audience members even walked out in the middle of the film, according to Chaplin. "I left the theater with a feeling of two years' work and two million dollars having gone down the drain," he said in his autobiography.

Despite that setback, Chaplin prepared City Lights for its official Los Angeles premiere at the brand new downtown Los Angeles Theatre at 615 S. Broadway on January 30, 1931. To his delight, enthusiastic crowds had formed, which gave him hope that the public was still very interested in his films. "The main street was packed with people for several blocks," recalled Chaplin. "Police cars and ambulances were attempting to plow through the crowds, which had smashed in the shop windows next to the theater."

With his special guest Albert Einstein seated next to him, Chaplin settled in to see how this new audience would react to his latest effort. "The picture started," he said. "It showed the credit titles, to the usual first-night applause. Then at last the first scene opened. My heart pounded. It was a comedy scene of the unveiling of a statue. They began to laugh! The laughter increased into roars. I had got them! All my doubts and fears began to evaporate. And I wanted to weep. For three reels they laugh. And from sheer nerves and excitement I was laughing with them."

Right in the middle of the film, however, disaster struck--at least, it was a disaster to Charlie Chaplin. The theater manager, H.L. Gumbiner, was justifiably proud of the gorgeous new state-of-the-art Los Angeles Theatre. Unfortunately, he had terrible timing. To Chaplin's horror, Gumbiner had the film stopped halfway through. "Before continuing further with this wonderful comedy," boomed Gumbiner's voice over a loudspeaker to a bewildered audience, "we would like to take five minutes of your time and point out to you the merits of this beautiful new theater."

Chaplin was livid. "I could not believe my ears," he said. "I went mad. I leaped from my seat and raced up the aisle: 'Where's that stupid son of a bitch of a manager? I'll kill him!'"

The audience was on Chaplin's side. They began stomping their feet, calling out, and eventually booing the poorly timed intrusion. Finally getting the message, Gumbiner stopped and the film started back up. However, Chaplin wondered if the film could recover from such an incident. "It took a reel before the laughter got back into its stride," said Chaplin. "Under the circumstances I thought the picture went well. During the final scene I noticed Einstein wiping his eyes -- further evidence that scientists are incurable sentimentalists."

The following day Chaplin traveled to New York for the film's east coast premiere. To his chagrin, he noticed that there had been very little publicity done for the City Lights premiere there. Chaplin took matters into his own hands, asking United Artists to help get the word out and taking several big ads out in the local New York newspapers. "I spent $30,000 extra with the newspapers," said Chaplin, "then rented an electric sign for the front of the theater costing another $30,000. As there was little time and we had to hustle, I was up all night, experimenting with the projection of the film, deciding the size of the picture and correcting distortion." Chaplin spent the day of the premiere granting interviews with the press, all in an attempt to drum up interest in City Lights.

Just as Chaplin had hoped, the New York premiere was a triumph. The next morning he received some very good news. "I was awakened by my publicity man," he recalled, "who came bursting into my bedroom at eleven o'clock, shrieking with excitement: 'Boy, you've done it! What a hit! There's been a line running round the block ever since ten o'clock this morning and it's stopping the traffic. There are about ten cops trying to keep order. They're fighting to get it. And you should hear them yell!'"

It was music to Chaplin's ears as the movie houses stayed packed with people coming to see City Lights and the rave reviews started pouring in. The risk of making a silent film in a sound world had paid off, proving that his unique talents were still as relevant as ever.

City Lights went on to be a bona fide classic that has continued to find new audiences with each new generation. Considered by many to be Chaplin's finest masterpiece, the film became one of his most beloved and definitive films. Chaplin's achievement with City Lights was extraordinary. He was able to create a critical and commercial smash hit silent film three years after almost everyone else had jumped on the sound bandwagon. Although Chaplin would eventually make the full transition into sound, City Lights was a great personal triumph of supreme artistry, vision and determination.

by Andrea Passafiume