A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate (1923)

(Criterion Streaming, March 2020) Interestingly enough, the first-even film written, directed and produced by Charlie Chaplin was a straight drama that did not feature him as an actor. A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate has a ponderous title, and a just-as-melodramatic plot with multiple missed connections for our lead romantic couple, tragedy often striking, and a conclusion meant to be moving more than anything else. Far more serious than even Monsieur Verdoux and Limelight, A Woman in Paris is a charming and definitely unknown oddball in his filmography—and you can’t even say that, “well, Chaplin wasn’t as well known as a comedian back then” because his short comedy films were quite popular by 1920: The Tramp itself dates from 1915. As for the film itself, well—A Woman in Paris is often a mean-spirited narrative, making heavy use of ironic coincidences and roughing up most of its characters. Whether you like this or not will be based partially on your tolerance for melodrama, and partly on your fortitude in tackling silent drama movies from the technically very rough early 1920s. It’s revelatory of Chaplin’s artistic intentions, but not particularly fun or entertaining.