Celluloid : the film to-day (1931)

CITY LIGHTS 103 Contemplation of Chaplin's position as an independent producer may well be made, and we can applaud his achievement of such a status, for had he not been at liberty to follow his own course when the rest of the screen talked, we should have seen him destroy all that City Lights means to-day with the lugubrious banality of speech. If only more directors were able to achieve this enviable position, we should have many more worth-while films instead of so many patently committee-made products. Fairbanks, it is true, has reached the stage of independent production, but amongst his many gifts he has not that of creative ability. But there are directors in America who have that power, and I would that they could aim to strike free from the trammels of studio routine. I wish that it were possible for more independent pictures to be produced, along certain commercial lines but without the tyranny of the studio executive-committees. There are scarcely any directors in the cinema to-day who can make films as they wish, and who are allowed to rely on their own experience of what the public desires in the way of entertainment. Chaplin is not by any means the only director who is capable of independent production, but he is the only one who has broken free from the herd. King Vidor, Erich von Stroheim, John Cromwell, George Hill and Josef von Sternberg, to mention but a few, would each probably make infinitely more interesting films if it were made possible for them to do so. The stranglehold of the big companies and the difficulties presented by distribution, however, prevent this from becoming a reality.