Charlie Chaplin (1951)

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"City Lights" 231 snatches a banana which, when he is shut out, he nonchalantly peels as he stalks off in unperturbed dignity. At the familiar corner the blind girl is missing. The little tramp hurries to her home, where, peering through a window, he sees that she is ill and hears the doctor say she needs special care. Determined to help the girl, he finds work as a streetcleaner, and is promptly appalled by the threat of work for him in a procession of circus animals, including an elephant. At lunch, as Charlie washes his hands, his soap cake interchanges with his neighbor's block of cheese. The bawling out he gets is enlivened with the soap bubbles, issuing with the curses. "To play the part of a gentleman without the millionaire was difficult, but he did his best." He brings the girl food and reads her an article about a Viennese doctor who has a cure for blindness. "Wonderful! Then I'll be able to see you," exclaims the girl. He is pleased at first, then pauses, realizing the risk in that. In a wool-winding episode he loses his underwear by degrees as an unraveling thread is wound into the ball. Learning that she and her grandmother are to be evicted for non-payment of rent, he promises to bring her the money next morning. The girl, tears in her eyes, thanks him for his generosity, while he, with a snap of his fingers, acts every inch the millionaire. Returning to work late, he is fired. A boxer, seeing him discharged, takes him aside, asks him if he wants to make some easy money. That night, in the dressing room of the boxing arena, the little tramp waits to go on. He is to fight a fixed match with his new acquaintance; they will split the purse fifty-fifty. After warming up a bit, Charlie whispers something in his friend's ear, and his friend points off right, presumably to the lavatory. Charlie goes off, but