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City Lights Clippings 238/387

R. H., Guardian, Manchester, England, February 28, 1931.

Er ist da! Der begeisterte Empfang Charlie Chaplins in London

(...) Photo, Berliner Tageblatt, Berlin, March 8, 1931

& Best Wishes

      Charlie Chaplin

Dominion Theatre (...)

      To-Night, Friday, Feb. 27th, at 8.30 p. m.

R. H. Gillespie presents

      The London Première

      of the

Charles Chaplin

      Production

„City Lights“

      United Artists

Dominion City Lights Program Cover, London,

February 27, 1931, detail

      R. H. Gillespie is Managing Director of the Dominion.

& DOMINION THEATRE (...) 2858 seats

(...) Kinematograph Year Book, London, 1942

„This is indeed a great triumph for me“

Editorial content. „CHAPLIN FIRST NIGHT

      Only Man Who Did Not Laugh

      „CITY LIGHTS“ TRIUMPH

      (From our London Staff.)

                                             FLEET STREET, FRIDAY.

      Huge crowds assembled outside the Dominion Theatre for

the first showing of Charlie Chaplin‘s new film. The cars

stretched far up Tottenham Court Road, and the adjacent side

streets were blocked. People in evening clothes trudged

through through the rain, having their cars as far off as Charlotte

Street, and fought their way into the theatre. A battery

of searchlights beat on the entrance, and the scene at the first

night of a silent film was rather like a silent war film as

the crowd broke through the police and the flashlights of the

photographers intermittently lit up the scene.

      Charlie Chaplin appeared on the balcony outside the

theatre, and was frantically cheered by the waving

and screaming crowd, who were quite undeterred by the

police. He then came to the front of the theatre

circle where he was seated, and was no less enthusiastically

greeted by the entire audience, half of whom did not

see him. He did not, however, speak till the end of the film,

when he went on to the stage.

      A BRIEF SPEECH

      During the performance he sat sedately with distinguished

people of the day in a received block of seats. He was

the only man in the theatre who never laughed, though it is true

that he sometimes smiled at this shambling, merrymaking

ghost of himself. ,This is indeed a great triumph for me,‘ he said,

in his speech afterwards.“ (...)

      „The picture was rapturously received by an excited

audience, and there was no doubt, of course, that,

odd as a non-talkie seemed, it would have been ridiculous

to make the little tramp speak. Chaplin has done the

next best thing, and synchronized it with grotesque music of his

own composition. Though City Lights may not be as

funny as The Gold Rush, it proves that there is no one as good

as Chaplin but Chaplin.                            R. H.“

      The London Premiere of City Lights takes place

      at the Dominion February 27, 1931.

      Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London.

    

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