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Chaplin, United Artists, premiered 6 February 1931 in Los Angeles. A silent feature with his own recorded score, issued after talkies had taken the shops. The Tramp meets a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and a drunken millionaire who knows him only when drunk. Chaplin held out for pantomime and spent months on the woman recognizing a face she has never seen. Albert Einstein attended the opening. The last shot is the point of the film, and Chaplin ends on it without a title; National Film Registry, 1991.
In three programmes
A 1931 silent released after the talkies had won, and it made more money than anything he had done. The boxing match is the method at its most exact. The last shot, a woman recognizing a face she has never seen, is the reason it is here. Chaplin holds the close-up and does not explain it.
A silent in 1931, with a score and no talk. The opening speech is a saxophone squawk, which is Chaplin's review of the talkies. Then the boxing match, the millionaire, the flower girl. He was refusing a tool he did not need yet, and the last close-up is the proof.
A silent four years after the talkies, with a score he wrote. The boxing match is the method at its most exact. The flower girl, sighted now, touches a hand and knows it. Chaplin holds the close-up and ends. The face, not the road, and the whole collection points at it.
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