A Woman of Paris

saiths

a tale of death, love and regret. in that order. chaplin once again doesn't disappoint and i'm mostly convinced he can do no wrong.

AKFilmFan

Not your typical melodrama. Chaplin does great behind the camera with this vehicle for Purviance despite it garnering more success for Menjou. Great cameo of Chaplin as a railroad station porter.

Dave

Actually an incredibly good drama/tragedy from Chaplin. I am amazed that he made this in 1923, at the height of his selling power as the biggest movie star on the planet. It's not as good as the comedies he starred in, but it is high quality stuff.

Renton47

Programmed by Melbourne Cinematheque with a Lubitsch film, showing Chaplin under the influence. I may be haste in my derision, I found the milieu unpleasant and the compositions fairly rudimentary only to then be schooled by Liv Ullmann in my DVD extras. Perhaps I attributed a moral governance to the time rather than film, awakening to its levelled depictions of these complicated lives.

Michael Harbour

A solid drama about the dangers of being "sophisticated". Dramas of mundane existence didn't seem to find their voice, so to speak, until the advent of sound in cinema. It's just an extremely difficult genre to execute successfully in silent film, depending as it does more on dialogue than the more melodramatic action, spectacle, and comedy which made for successful silent films.

Pierluigi Puccini

Charles Chaplin is not the star of this, his first serious drama. It's a silent film but Chaplin's direction of actors is so good that they don't overact, all seems very natural. the story is full of controversial or indecent themes for the time it was made (rebellious children, sex outside matrimony, women's lib). A very subtle novelty, as Chaplin said "it's all about how men and women tend to hide their emotions"

jonrock411

A weaker Chaplin for sure, mostly due to the lack of his classic comedy, but still maintains a certain beauty in the art form that shows he was more than just a funny guy

Dan Kenneth Gigernes

While intended as a centerpiece for Edna Purviance it ends up being the film's sleazy playboy villain that takes the limelight from her with his charming yet sly smile as he hunts down women for his nightly prey. It ends strong and show a dramatic side of Chaplin that he would use effectively in his comedies later on but never again in a melodramatic films like in this stand-alone box-office failure.