What the Nominees Were: Cimarron, East Lynne, The Front Page, Skippy,
Trader Horn
Other Movies That Should Have Been
Considered: Frankenstein, Little
Caesar, The Public Enemy, Street Scene, and our winner…
What Did Win: Cimarron
How It’s Aged: Very poorly. This talky western melodrama’s
half-hearted whispers of feminism were drowned out by a roar of unintentional
racism.
What Should’ve Won: City Lights

Director: Charlie Chaplin
Writer: Charlie Chaplin
Stars: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia
Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers
The Story: The little tramp is back to
take on the Depression. He falls
in love with a blind flower girl, then rescues a suicidal millionaire, who
goes back and forth between lavishing gifts on him when drunk then kicking him out when sober. Can the tramp stay in his good graces
long enough to help the girl?

Any Nominations or Wins: None whatsoever!
Why It Didn’t Win: It’s simple enough:
Chaplin was the only filmmaker who refused to transition to sound. He broke off and went
his own way. This movie was not at all
the image that Hollywood wanted to project in 1931.
Why It Should Have Won:
- No one was better than Chaplin at a pratfall, or an elaborate set-up and pay-off, but this movie shows how much of his genius lay in his scene choreography, elegantly demonstrated in the movie’s delightful boxing match.
- One great
thing about “Downton Abbey” is the way it conveys the capriciousness of life
without a social safety net: the rich were more than happy to take care of the
poor—when it occurred to them.
Made in the darkest days before the dawning of America’s long-overdue
New Deal, this movie hits that point even harder. Whenever the millionaire is drunk, the tramp has it made,
but otherwise it’s a boot to the ass.
- Cherrill’s
role could not be more sentimental in its conception, but she makes it work by playing
the role as a real person, not a suffering saint. Few female stars at the time were allowed to look this genuinely
annoyed:
- As a good
communist, Chaplin dreaded the notion that his work would no longer be an
international (or should that be internationale?) art form. He skewers sound every chance he gets
here. The first shot is a windbag
getting up to give a speech, but when he opens his mouth, all we hear is
trombone music (shades of Charlie Brown!)
The film does have a synchronized soundtrack, but only to provide
annoyances: a swallowed whistle, a police siren, that boxing bell…
- The movie is
most famous for its indelible final shot, in which the now-sighted flower girl
finally gets a look at the tramp, who suddenly realizes that he may not pass
this final test. It’s the ultimate
riposte to anyone who doubts Chaplin’s serious-acting chops.
How Available Is It?: All of Chaplin’s
movies are available on the same so-so DVDs from the ‘90s. They’re crying out for new
editions.
3 comments:
I believe that CITY LIGHTS has aired in HD on TCM. And that there's definitely a Criterion Blu-ray in the works. CIMARRON is so bad that even a genius of the Western genre like Anthony Mann couldn't do much with it when he remade it 30 years later. Of all the Westerns he's made it's probably the one I like least.
Believe it or not, I was actually forced to read the book Cimarron in high school. Edna Ferber wrote great stage plays, but that book: oof.
I like your style: brief and informative. Good job!
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