Charlie Chaplin (1951)

"City Lights" 219 Henry Clive, Australian artist and a newcomer in the "clique." Production started in March 1928. No sooner had work got under way when panic struck Hollywood. The talkies had arrived to stay! — after a succession of failures to win the public from as far back as 1900. Improved amplification techniques and the spread of radio had made the public more receptive. By the summer and fall of 1928 the major companies were turning to talkies, though many in the industry still looked upon it as a passing fad. Talkies started a new migration of actors — and singers — from Broadway to Hollywood, as many old screen idols faltered in the new medium. New technicians and techniques came into the field. The sound "revolution" was on! Chaplin halted his picture. Chaplin had two advantages for a try at talkies had he wished it — a good voice and stage experience. But he considered pantomime a superior and more universal art, and better suited to the screen than the talkie, which he regarded as a mere imitation of the stage. He himself was essentially a pantomime artist and he considered the silent screen best, not only for himself, but for the character he had built up. Spoken dialogue, he feared, might destroy the illusion of the universal little-man character he had spent years perfecting. Moreover, many of his best effects were gained by "under-cranking" the camera, thus speeding up the action — an effect impossible with the sound camera which was run by motor, at a set speed of twenty-four frames a second. The most practical objection was that English dialogue would limit his enormous foreign market. (It was simple to translate titles.) He usually earned his production costs from Japan alone. When Chaplin resumed production of "City Lights," it was as a silent picture. On his small lot, elaborate sets began to go up — elabo