A Woman of Paris (1923) was the first film Chaplin made for United Artists Film Corporation, which he founded with his friends Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith. It was Charlie Chaplin's dramatic film debut, an attempt to prove he could do more than comedy and didn't need to star in a film to appeal to his audience. The sophisticated melodrama stars Chaplin's onetime lover, Edna Purviance, as Marie St. Clair.
The film opens with Marie planning to escape suffocating parents and her provincial village for Paris with her betrothed, Jean Millet (Carl Miller). But the sudden death of Jean's father keeps him from meeting Marie at the train station. The deeply wounded Marie boards the train for Paris alone. By the next scene, a year later, Marie has become the mistress of the city's wealthiest bachelor - and most notorious rake Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou) who lavishes Marie with material things, but is promised in marriage to an heiress.
A year later she accidently meets Jean, who has come to Paris with his mother to study art. Suddenly, Jean re-enters her life, and Marie must choose between her lost true love and the lifestyle she has become accustomed to.
Recent Comments