User reviews

Charles Chaplin is noted for his comedy performances, and deservedly.

His direction, though, should be more highly regarded, if only for this one motion picture.

Compare the quality of the photography and the smoothness of the editing to, for example, "The Gold Rush," of about the same time.

"A Woman of Paris" is very modern; "The Gold Rush" is downright primitive (but, in spots, brilliant).

"A Woman of Paris" also shows some admirable acting talent in, really, all the players. Some of the lesser characters are still played beautifully, despite being "lesser," especially Marie's maids and her, more or less, friends, and very especially the masseuse.

And the scene where the artist's mother, played by Lydia Knott, bent on revenge, comes upon Marie -- with no words, just body movement and facial expression -- she tells the audience what the proverbial thousand words could not so well.

Credit for part of that good acting must, of course, go to the director, but even the best director can't make much of poor actors.

Chaplin had very good actors. Adolphe Menjou reached stardom, and deservedly. What a tremendous talent; he could do everything.

Edna Purviance should have achieved much more acclaim. She performed admirably, especially in this movie, and she was attractive. Fame is certainly fickle.

In some ways, "A Woman of Paris" might be written off by a few as "soap opera." But it is well worth watching for the performances and, especially, for the directing.

'A Woman of Paris' is rather a curiosity in Charles Chaplin's filmography. It stands as the only pure drama he wrote and directed. The film he made just to help foster Edna Purviance's career independent from him. This film was Edna's first and practically the last leading role ('A Woman of the Sea' from 1926 was never released and is now considered to be lost), which, of course, is a pity, because besides being gorgeous, she was a fine actress, and was able to shine on her own not only as of the sidekick of The Tramp. The complex role Marie St. Clair proved that. The film itself was a failure at cinemas not because it was bad (critics at that time liked it), but because Chaplin wasn't in it (only for a brief cameo - a man carrying the box in the trainstation). And it was, oh the horror! a drama.

I guess that's the reason, why Chaplin never tried his hand at a serious movie ever again (although he experimented with quite risky stuff later in his career). That's another pity - because Chaplin truly knew how to create complex characters amid moral turmoils and dilemmas. 'A Woman of Paris' is undoubtedly with flaws. Well, it was practically Chaplin's second feature film and the first time where he ventured that far from his comfort zone.

Altogether, 'A Woman in Paris' is a good drama (probably a bit overly melodramatic by the end), and needs more recognition from Chaplin fans and all silent cinema admirers alike. It really shows that Chaplin was much more diverse and deep as a filmmaker than just offering magnificent laughs.

If nothing else, you have to give Charlie Chaplin a lot of credit for taking a shot at something so different from his usual fare. (Though he himself only appears on-screen for a few seconds this time, he did almost everything else in the production.) And while "A Woman of Paris" is certainly a cut below his comedy features, it's a pretty good melodrama, and you'd have to think that with experience Chaplin could have gone on to become almost as effective with straight melodrama as he was with his sentimental comedies. It's not really surprising that after this he returned to comedy for good, but that was just to keep audiences happy, not because he couldn't do drama, since this is a decent effort.

Chaplin's own frequent lady Edna Purviance is convincing as the young woman whose tangled love affairs pull her away from her true love and into a set of tangled relationships in the empty, decadent world of the Parisian idle classes. Except for being rather contrived - there are far too many coincidences and pat developments in the plot, and they do not work as well in serious drama as they would in a comedy - the story is interesting and fairly creative. It does get a bit heavy at times, since there is very little comic relief, but Adolphe Menjou helps keep it from getting unbearably serious with a good performance as the carefree, irresponsible Pierre. He shows that even without dialogue he can make this kind of character lively and memorable.

Since it doesn't quite measure up to the standard of either the best Chaplin features or the best silent melodramas, "A Woman of Paris" may not have a niche of its own, except for its historical interest. But it's quite an interesting change of pace from Chaplin, and an above average movie that's worth seeing.

As his first United Artists picture, Chaplin tried a modern melodrama, perhaps thinking it to be what the public wanted. Unfortunately, it never comes together. Edna Purviance just seems to go through the motions though Adolphe Menjou is at his best.

Many nice touches of the sort seen in pictured directed by Erich von Stroheim. Wonderful women's costumes and sets in the best Hollywood style. Try to see the film with live musical accompaniment - the Chaplin score is overwrought.

This is the first feature made by Charles Chaplin for the recently formed United Artists and took everyone by surprise as he was not exactly renowned for his romantic sophistication. If, as has been suggested, the character of Pierre Revel is a self portrait of Chaplin himself, then it is just as well that the immaculate Adolphe Menjou played the role!

A year earlier Chaplin had enjoyed a brief liaison with notorious gold-digger Peggy Hopkins Joyce who regaled him with tales of her romantic adventures and boasted that a young man had killed himself for love of her. This formed the basis for his screenplay in which the Marie of Edna Purviance is torn between the insouciant womaniser played by Menjou and charmless Carl Miller as a melancholy painter.

It was hoped that this film would establish Miss Purviance as a dramatic actress but such was not to be the case whilst Menjou's growing reputation was further enhanced. There is excellent support by Betty Morrissey and Malvina Polo as a couple of glamorous feather-brains and Lydia Knott as Jean's mother whilst an uncredited Nellie Bly Baker does a marvellous turn as a poker faced masseuse.

Chaplin's direction here is faultless and one is struck by the naturalness of the acting. What was for the time a rather risqué party scene is brilliantly handled and the final scene of Pierre's luxury car passing Marie on a hay cart is worthy of a Lubitsch.

One of United Artists' founder members Mary Pickford commented on the film, "Oh, how well Chaplin knows women." Something of an understatement.

A Woman Of Paris was an acclaimed success with the critics when it was Originally released on 1st October 1923. However, the audience despised it as they wanted to see Charlie Chaplin the tramp starring in a film not a film directed by Chaplin in which he does not appear (albeit in a small cameo role). When i first saw the film on BBC2 around Christmas 1998 i thought Chaplin had a starring role so was naturally disappointed when i found out this wasn't the case. However, since then i have become a huge fan of Chaplin and all his work so now I think this film is rated among Chaplin's best features. His musical score composed in 1976 with Eric Rogers was Chaplin's last ever work in his film career which spanned 62 years. By 1976 Chaplin was very frail and struggled to communicate so the fact that he could compose the music for a near 80 minute film is amazing and the fact that the music score is as good as any of his other films is also astonishing. Charles Chaplin was a true genius of Cinema and A Woman Of Paris is an excellent example of Chaplin as director, writer and composer.

This charming film easily proves that Charlie Chaplin could do serious drama if only the public would have allowed him.

TCM announcer Ben Manciewicz notes that "A Woman of Paris" bombed at the box office but that couldn't have been due to the performances, which were uniformly wonderful.

Edna Purviance seems an unlikely heroine -- not dazzlingly gorgeous but convincingly expressive as a woman who'd like to give herself to a troubled artist who lacks the backbone to stand up to his mother and commit.

Carl Miller does well as the conflicted painter but Adolphe Menjou is wonderful as a shallow bon vivant who is more entertained by than enamored with the lovely Marie.

Lydia Knott is very good in the unglamorous role of Jean's doting mother.

I liked the way this film ended on an inspiring note by citing the redemptive value of giving to others -- an ageless message.

Coda: Music is used to wonderful effect in this film, as in sequences in which Pierre picks up a miniature saxophone and gives it a tootle. Impressively, it was Chaplin who composed the score.

A melodrama rather than the saucy Parisian comedy the title and the name of Charles Chaplin suggests. Promptly withdrawn by its creator, 'A Woman of Paris' was for over half a century one of those films whose reputation was based upon it's unavailability for reappraisal and like many of Chaplin's later films was to prove a disappointment when it was finally revived in the 1970s.

Both the plot and the wardrobe worn by Chaplin's leading lady Edna Purviance evokes the era of Chaplin's fellow United Artist D. W. Griffith rather than the continental sophistication suggested by the title, while the presence of Adolphe Menjou happily anticipates the nascent sophistication of the twenties.

1923's "A Woman of Paris is probably not what you'd expect in a Chaplin film based on the totality of his body of work, both in features and in shorts. However, that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile viewing. It just means if you are new to Chaplin, you might not want to start here.

"A Woman of Paris" showed Chaplin's talent behind the camera without him appearing in front of it, except for a lone cameo in which he quickly appears and then disappears acting as a luggage boy. He made it for two reasons, to do some pioneering in cinematic technique and to help give his long time costar and companion Edna Purviance a career boost. The film is actually quite good with great performances by Purviance and by Adolphe Menjou as a carefree playboy. The film did make a star out of Menjou. It didn't really help Purviance that much. The film is about a pair of star-crossed lovers that circumstance drives apart and then brings back together and the eventual tragedy that occurs due to the weakness of will of Purviance's character's one time fiancé, played by Carl Miller.

The film was a failure at the box office, not because it was bad, but because audiences expected to see Chaplin when they went to a Chaplin film. After the failure of this film, Chaplin went back to formulas that were tried and true for him and never really went out on a limb experimenting again, which is too bad for all of us.

Fans of Charlie Chaplin flocked to the theaters anticipating a good laugh in his next film, September 1923's "A Woman In Paris." Despite a disclaimer in the beginning of the movie that this was a serious drama, viewers paying to see a comedy were dismayed and disappointed by it. But movie critics loved it, praising its subtleties and emotional depth. As writer David Robinson stated, "Chaplin inaugurated a whole new style of comedy of manners, and new styles of acting to suit it...by revealing the inner workings of his characters' hearts and minds through their external actions and expressions."

Chaplin felt that his regular comedic sidekick, Edna Purviance, who appeared in over 30 of his films since 1915, was becoming too mature of an actress to continue doing slapstick. He wanted to feature her in a serious, dramatic role to illustrate her expressive and sincere yet sober acting abilities. Gleaming a story idea from one of the country's most gold-digging of multi-millionaire wives, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Chaplin formulated a story on a woman who leaves for Paris on a train after her supposed fiancee doesn't show up at the platform. Marie (Purviance) hooks up with a rich businessman, Pierre (Adolphe Menjou), and lives the life of luxury, until she meets up with her former fiancee. A suicide spices up Chaplin's plot, all derived from Joyce's own personal experiences. The comedian at the time was having a fling with this most interesting Virginian-born woman, Peggy Joyce, whose fangs dug into six very lucrative marriages. She was famous for quotes such as "True love was a heavy diamond bracelet, preferably one that arrived with its price tag intact."

Once the public realized the movie was all serious and lacked a Chaplin presence (he did have a short cameo as a train porter), the chairs in the theaters playing it became empty. Chaplin was forced to pull "A Woman In Paris" prematurely, which, being his first film for his co-ownershipped United Artists, hit the company's bottom line.

Chaplin's original desire to launch a new direction for Purviance fell flat. Not only was the film a failure at the box office, but a New Year's Day incident of 1924 involving a male friend put a crimp on her future acting ambitions. Attending an intimate gathering of three at oil magnate Courtland Dines' apartment with actress Mabel Normand, Purviance witnessed chauffeur Horace Greer (alias Joe Kelley) arrival to pick up Mabel. Conflicting accounts were given as to what happened next: either Greer saw something that hinted Dines being caught in the act with Mabel, or the host unexplicably approaching him angerly waving a wine bottle. Whatever happened, the chauffeur shot Dines three times. Purviance went to the wounded Dines assistance, and for the next 90 minutes tried to staunch the wounds in his bed. Greer drove to the police station to give himself up while the two actresses finally called an ambulance. With Dines refusing to testify during the trial, the jury came back with a not guilty verdict.

The scandal, with all the rumors filling in the blanks, basically slowed Purviance's career to a crawl. She was in one other Chaplin film, 'A Woman of the Sea,' which the unhappy director destroyed, and a 1927 French film. Her two uncredited parts in Chaplin's later movies were her swan songs of the secretary who turned into a movie actress. She received a small monthly salary from Chaplin for the remainder of her life. When she passed away in 1958 at 62, Chaplin, who appeared in over 30 movies with the actress, said "How could I forget Edna? She was with me when it all began."

I was looking in Charlie Chaplin's memoirs and I found that his original idea for the plot of A Woman Of Paris came from pillow talk with Peggy Hopkins Joyce involving one of her former boyfriends, a French publisher. From this came Charlie's idea to direct, but not appear in a film and hopefully make his long time leading lady from slapstick comedy, Edna Purviance a major dramatic star.

The reason given for the non-success of A Woman of Paris is usually given as the fact that people bought tickets and were disappointed that they did not see a Charlie Chaplin comedy. Probably on the silent screen, star images were even more fixed in people's minds than they were when sound came in.

But seeing it today it really does go overboard into melodrama. Edna's a simple country girl who loves Carl Miller, a struggling artist. Some blind mischances of fate and she winds up the paid woman of Parisian rake Adolphe Menjou. It's the tragedy of one romantic and the salvation of sorts for the other that are the basis of the story.

You couldn't make a film like it today, audiences would just laugh at it. In 1923 audiences were looking for laughs attached to the Chaplin name and found none. Edna does a fine job, but the public would not accept her in a drama. Adolphe Menjou as the rake comes off best in the cast.

The film ironically enough was Chaplin's first for the newly formed United Artists of which he was a quarter interest partner. After this one failed at the box office, he went back to cranking out the comedies we expected from him.

Back when I was working person at New York State Crime Victims Board, I had a claimant named Wayne Purviance who was the victim of an anti-gay bias attack in 1982. It was a crime that galvanized the GLBT people of New York City, this person in particular. Wayne was the grand nephew of Edna Purviance.

He's no longer among the living, but to you Wayne Purviance who took some real blows for millions of people, this review is lovingly dedicated to you and your wonderful aunt.

Finally saw Woman of Paris: this was a legendary film in its day, but mostly because it was virtually never re-released for sixty years after it premiered in 1923, so the legend grew in its absence. The parts of the story that were not told would have made a better movie than the movie, for example why the lovers' fathers at the beginning of the film are against the marriage, and how Marie (Edna Purviance) became a (shudder) "Woman of Paris" during the year following her departure from her fiance. So I didn't buy the story but the camera work and editing do marvelous things with the story that is there. The melodramatic climax is a bit much to be believed, but not comical as a lot of silent mellers appear today. A little D.W. Griffith (sophisticated early use of photography to tell story and set mood), a little Tolstoy ("bad woman" story contrasted with storyteller's emphasis on happy marriages and wholesome family life), a touch of Dreiser ("sinful" characters shown with realistic insight) and I'd guess a soupcon of Terrence Ratigan (sophisticated attitudes) but I doubt he was around then. The ad copy for this film says Chaplin has a cameo as a railway porter but I didn't notice one in the train scene: I suspect instead he was the ticket agent whose hand appears pointing out the ticket window toward the train. Altogether a satisfying and entertaining film, but the story would have been better if Chaplin had worked on it a little longer.

This romantic drama from Charlie Chaplin is certainly a departure for him, and aside from a brief cameo as a porter at the train station early on, he doesn't appear in this film. It centers on a couple who love one another (Edna Purviance and Carl Miller) and plan to elope, but fate intervenes. The pair actually separate twice over the course of the story, once because she doesn't trust him (not knowing he can't come to the train station because his father has died), and the second, because he doesn't trust himself (foolishly telling his mother than he won't marry him which she overhears). Both times, she ends up in the arms of a rich playboy (Adolphe Menjou), though she grows disillusioned there as well, because he plans to wed and keep her on as a mistress.

It's a decent enough story but gets a tad melodramatic, making it not particularly noteworthy. My enjoyment came more from the little moments in the film, like a waiter cooking a big basket of black truffles in champagne table-side (goodness how decadent!), Purviance's character spanking her friend (Betty Morrissey) for staying out all night, and a woman (Bess Flowers) wrapped up like a mummy and slowly unwound until she's naked at a party. The scenes of revelry and excess seem particularly well informed, and there are lots of visual details in the sets and clothing that make it a pleasing film to watch, the Jazz Age being in full swing and all. Adolphe Menjou makes a debonair rascal, and according to Jacqueline Stewart at TCM, said he learned more about acting from Chaplin while making this film than he did any other director. Overall, not a masterpiece, but held my interest and worth 82 minutes.

This is not such a bad film, but how much did Chaplin really have to do with the direction? Much of the film looks like it was made by Monta Bell (credited as editor) who specialized in fallen women, grimy quarters, and mother-fixated men. Chaplin certainly wrote the thing, though: it keeps cueing us to identify with the Struggling Artist-- that is, with Chaplin, or Chaplin as he was a few years earlier. Menjou and Purviance and the supporting cast are so good in the early Paris scenes that the arrival of the artist is a nuisance. The conventional resolution after the triangle meet trashes the delicate ambiguity set up in these scenes; it turns out that the writer has just been stringing us along. But it's still worth seeing for these scenes.

I remember starting 2022 off by watching a movie that was to turn 100 that year: the 1922 horror/drama/sort-of-documentary, Haxan. It seemed like a nice tradition to start: watching a 100-year-old movie at the start of every New Year, but I ran into a bit of a stumbling block when it came to what to watch at the beginning of 2023. Hopefully, this won't offend too many people, but 2023 was a bit of a shrug of a year for cinema. I'd already seen the two most well-known 2023 movies, too (a Buster Keaton movie called Our Hospitality, and Harold Lloyd's most famous movie, Safety Last).

I dug a little deeper and found a Lon Chaney-starring Hunchback of Notre Dame as an option, but ended up settling on A Woman of Paris, which is one of the few feature films directed by Charlie Chaplin I hadn't seen (I do need to catch up on all his pre-1920 short films one day). I've liked most of what I've seen from the actor/director/writer/composer, and even though A Woman of Paris is easy to get mixed up with his similarly-named movies A King in New York and A Countess From Hong Kong, hopefully, it'll stand apart in my memory (haven't seen the former, but it's better than the latter).

This explicitly differentiates itself from Chaplin's usual type of movie with a pre-movie title card that tells audiences A Woman of Paris is not a comedy, and that it won't feature Chaplin in the lead role. Instead, his duties were behind the camera, and the movie ends up being a melodrama about a woman being torn between two different lifestyles. The background of the movie, the way it stands out among Chaplin movies, and the reason I chose to watch it are all more interesting than the film itself, which is just fine by silent movie standards. Not the worst film of Chaplin's I've seen, but leagues from his best.

Also, while I respect he tried something different here, his brand of drama and emotional scenes often work so well when paired with his comedy (like how City Lights is hilarious but also a tragic love story, Modern Times is inventive and clever while also shedding light on The Great Depression, and The Great Dictator is silly and satirical with less humor as it goes on, ending with a powerful final speech/plea to the world). There are brief humorous moments here, but it's mostly serious and melodramatic throughout, meaning it doesn't have that great sense of contrasting emotions Chaplin's best films have.

The second film in my somewhat unusual Charles Chaplin double feature (after the delightfully black 'Monsieur Verdoux (1947)'), 'A Woman of Paris' is perhaps the silent comedy master's least mentioned film, perhaps partly due to it not actually being a comedy, or because Chaplin himself appears only in a very brief cameo role. His first and, I'll venture, his only strictly dramatic feature, the film traces the romantic dilemma of a young French woman living in Paris. It was Chaplin's first film with United Artists – which he had founded in 1919 with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith. Originally entitled 'Public Opinion' and then 'Destiny,' Chaplin considered a dozen more titles before he finally settled on a name.

Marie St. Clair (Edna Purviance) and her romance Jean Millet (Clarence Geldart), an aspiring artist, residents of a small French village, have plans to move to Paris and get married. However, unfortunate circumstances delay their plans, and Marie impulsively boards the train without Jean. A year or so later, Marie has assimilated into the upper-class lifestyle of Paris, having become the mistress of a wealthy, cynical businessman, Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou). It is then that she and Jean suddenly meet again. Though there are undoubtedly still feelings between them, Marie must decide whether she can sacrifice all of Pierre's luxuries to pursue the man that she loves.

Written, produced and directed by Chaplin, 'A Woman of Paris' is a tightly-paced drama/romance, employing a lot of dialogue (somewhat unusual for Chaplin, who usually relied on extended slapstick comedic set pieces to drive his silent films) and a three-way relationship that has since become commonplace in films of this sort. The film allowed Chaplin to extend his skills beyond the realm of the lovable little Tramp. Unfortunately, this seemingly was not what audiences wanted. Perhaps perceived as a harmful satire of the American way of life, 'A Woman of Paris' was banned in several US states on the grounds of immorality, and it was a commercial flop. Chaplin had conceived the film as a means of launching the individual acting career of Edna Purviance, though this bid was unsuccessful. It did, however, make an international star of Adolphe Menjou.

Many critics, despite the poor box office performance, praised the film's startling realism. Notably, director Michael Powell ('Black Narcissus,' 'Peeping Tom') cited 'A Woman of Paris' as his greatest inspiration to become a filmmaker. In 1976, a frail Charles Chaplin – just one year before his death – reissued the edited film with a new musical score he had composed, aided by music arranger Eric James. A criminally underrated silent classic, 'A Woman of Paris' is yet another testament to Chaplin's undeniable cinematic genius.

Marie St. Clair (Edna Purviance) is running away to Paris with boyfriend Jean Millet (Carl Miller). Unfortunately his father dies and he can't go. She goes alone. A year later she is a "kept" woman of rich Pierre revel (Adolphe Menjou). Then, by accident, she runs into Jean who has moved to Paris with his mother. She still loves him...but will he want her now? There are some huge problems with this film. For one thing--the overbearing music score that director/writer Charlie Chaplin added in 1977. It's loud, annoying and obtrusive. Often it doesn't even match what's on the screen! Cheerful music playing during dramatic sequences totally destroy any effect those scenes might have held. Also the plot is just ridiculous and very corny and VERY melodramatic at the end.

I'm giving this a high rating for a few reasons: it's beautifully directed by Chaplin--just stunning to look at. And, despite the plot, all the actors are just fantastic. Miller is handsome, strong and very affecting as the hero. Purviance is just perfect as Marie--you feel all her pain and indecision. Best of all is Menjou--this made him an instant star. He's just great as the heartless Revel.

So, I recommend it. Just turn the sound off and the acting will carry you over the rough spots.

Have to give this film a BIG TEN, it is a wonderful look back into the 20's when things were silent on the big screen and it was a different generation than 2000 plus. In those days everything was Radio and the Film Studio's. This is a great production by Charlie Chaplin and his mistress Edna, who was the love of his life, Edna Purviance. The story is about a young man who falls in love with a young gal and his dad and mom disapprove and at the same time tragedy hits the young man's family and he misses out on a very important date. Years go by and the young man still hangs on to his mother and finally meets up with the young gal he was deeply in love with years ago. Charlie Chaplin, produced, directed and composed the music for this film and did have a brief walk on appearance in the film. The public at the time were disappointed in this film, because Chaplin did not appear in the film, which he should have. In real life Charlie should have married Edna Purviance and ended all the scandal he created. This is too great a Classic film to find fault or criticize a masterpiece of the 1920's.

Previously my picture of Mr Charlie Chaplin in my mind's eye had been the following: a tiny clownish fellow who kicks other actors in the ass and gets thrashed and kicked in reply. In the course of time my perception changed. His music was playing as the background for the movies he participated in. Surprise. It was not Mozart but the clown himself. Now there is this film and it's definitely cinematic art. So many present-day directors cannot reach even 1/100th of the effect that is achieved by this black-and-white film that is even mute. It has no fountains of blood, no slo-mo, no bullets hitting foreheads, no explosions, no sex scenes, no *beep* words, no crude toilet humour, no trash-talk, no flat melodramatic elements, no crocodile tears, no stupid laughs. What more should a viewer want? The bitter irony and drama are scattered here and there. Its quality can be compared to the quality of the famous "Jeeves and Wooster" before it hit the appalling cast changes (hope, you know what is meant here).

Here goes mine 10.

Thank you for attention.