MARCH 12 - "WOMEN IN TROUBLE"

March 12 - 7:00pm

A Woman of Paris

Charles Chaplin (1923) 93 mins

A commercial failure on its initial release, Chaplin’s bold romantic drama is now widely regarded as one of the key works of his long career. This sophisticated, groundbreakingly complex Lubitschean drama of manners involves a French girl (Chaplin favourite Edna Purviance) who, due to a misunderstanding, fails to marry her sweetheart & ends up in Paris as the mistress of perennial sophisticate, Adolphe Menjou.

Preceded by

The Count

Charles Chaplin (1916) 18 mins.

One of Chaplin’s finest Mutual comedies features Charlie in a hilarious tale of impersonation..

---

March 12 - 9:00pm

The Godless Girl

Cecil B. DeMille (1929) 113 mins

DeMille’s final silent drama, with a concluding sound coda, is a supposed condemnation of the atheist movement then prevalent on high school & college campuses, & also a reform school exposÈ with sadistic jailers & lurid torture scenes that DeMille claimed mirrored “life”. DeMille pulled out all the stops aware that this was his farewell to the silent screen. Part outrageous melodrama, part social comedy, part prison reform propaganda, & part religious parable, it is a film of irrational yet compelling power, a film oddity worthy of re-appreciation.

Imported 35mm print courtesy of UCLA Film & TV Archive.