Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. It is hard to not expect a lot after not long before Chaplin had one of his earliest career highs in 'The Kid'. 'A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate' doesn't disappoint, and it shows Chaplin having properly found his style and fully settled. As said with many of his post-Keystone efforts, it shows a noticeable step up in quality though from his Keystone period, where he was still evolving and in the infancy of his long career. The Essanay and Mutual periods were something of Chaplin's adolescence period where his style had been found and starting to settle. After Mutual the style had properly settled and the cinematic genius emerged. Very much apparent here in 'A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate', which may not be one of Chaplin's best but it is to me one of his most under-appreciated.It is let down by the melodramatic ending that comes over too as silly and an interpolated music score composed not long before Chaplin's death that is intrusive and doesn't fit the film. On the other hand, 'A Woman of Fate: A Drama of Fate' looks great, from Essanay onwards, and it is certainly the case here, it was obvious that Chaplin was taking more time with his work and not churning out countless shorts in the same year of very variable success like he did with Keystone. It's actually one of his technically best-looking efforts from this period.'A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate' is also funny and very charming, never coming over as dull and never being too over-sentimental. It features some of Chaplin's most remarkable directing of any effort of his up to this point in his career. He similarly gets the best out of his cast, with the standouts being the ever charming and quite touching Edna Purviance and especially a superb Adolphe Menjou in a star-making turn. Concluding, very well done. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate gives us a familiar little story: do you pick the man with the money or the man with the artistic drive and heart (and not really much money)? It's also set in the 1920's since it is, you know, from that decade, but it helps that Charlie Chaplin, in his one and only true dramatic offering, sets it in the milieu of Paris, France of the early 20's when things were bright and alive and Champagne flowed and people danced and so on. It fits to have this story here, and all of the actors are game for it. Ultimately, this may not be the most original story, as it follows a woman who is kicked out of her home (because, in brief, it sucks as we're told) and goes to Paris in a moment of high dramatic tension and then ends up being attached to one man (Menjou) while the other does come to town and becomes a painter. And lordy-lord it has some exceptionally melodramatic beats.But Chaplin's light touch connects well with a honestly dramatic and even existential story of a woman caught in a question of choice, and how the choices of the two men (one who is too guilt-ridden over his mother, the other who has no guilt about anything, certainly not the fact that he's made this woman the "other" woman) are wonderfully well drawn, and the performance by Purviance makes her akin to Diane Keaton to his Woody Allen (and there's Adolphe Menjou, who revels in being a high-society cad). Oh, and the music, while a bit repetitive, is also a great fit for the material.

"A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate" left me with two certitudes: Chaplin is the greatest film-maker who ever lived, and the film, had it not been 'sold' as a Chaplin film, would probably stand today as one of the most influential movies ever. It's a sad irony that Chaplin's very popularity undermined the success of his first attempt on drama. The movie met with some critical acclaim but popularity was vital to ensure a lasting appeal. Time did justice to "A Woman of Paris" the place it would have occupied definitely belongs to Murnau's "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans".But it's never too late to appreciate an underrated gem, and I'm sure all the Chaplin's fans, after visioning the 'established' masterpieces, had the opportunity to finally discover his most underrated gem and enrich their appreciation of the film-maker, the dramatic film-maker. Speaking from my own experience, my discovery of the existence of "A Woman in Paris" happened the oddest way. I bought a DVD of "The Great Dictator" and was shocked to see this film instead. I probably had the same response than the audiences who expected the iconic Tramp and were immediately deceived by the opening statement warning that Chaplin doesn't appear (his cameo is hardly noticeable). In a way, I feel even guilty for not having given the film a chance, and waited almost four years before watching it, but Chaplin's aura was so immense I couldn't imagine a film from him and without him.Now, I'm not an expert in dramatic movies from the Silent Era but I'm sure that the craftsmanship Chaplin displayed in "A Woman of Paris" was ahead of its time and influenced many of his peers. I had reservations when the film started but they were immediately swept off by the quality of a poignant and emotional first act. The film opens with Marie St Clair, Edna Purviance as a woman living in a small French village. She's in love with Jean, an artist, played by Carl Miller to her father's disapproval. The father locks her door of her room but she joins Jean from the balcony during a rendezvous à la "Romeo and Juliet". Her father, infuriated, definitely locks her out of the house, it's up to Jean to find her a bed for the night, forever. The drama goes crescendo when Jean's parents disapprove the union and force the couple to leave the village. They go to a train station, Jean promises to follow her but another succession of events leads her to leave the village, without Jean.One year later, she became the mistress of a wealthy businessman, named Pierre Revel and played by Adolphe Menjou. I knew Menjou from his performance in "Paths of Glory", and if his devilish smile and cynical attitude, carried by an imitable mustache totally fitted his role as the villainous general, it was perfect for his role as the suave and debonair Revel. If there is one performance that stands alone in the film, it's Menjou's. Not to diminish the lead actors' merit, but they're obviously playing tormented people torn between their love and other demons. For instance, we never question how and why Marie became this woman, Chaplin leaves that to our interpretations through an efficient ellipse, but the narrative is so rich and constructed that we're literally absorbed by the story, and it's as the story progresses that we understand the story of Marie. The film depicts a slice of Paris' roaring twenties, in the zany post-war years, and Marie lived such a nightmarish life we might empathize with her desire to have a break. When one loses the love of his life, better to deliberately sink into the decadence of an easy life.Yet Marie ultimately meets Jean, and never the story goes into standard directions. Chaplin surprises us by illustrating the continual torment in both Marie and Jean's hearts, she loves him but she never seems not to enjoy her current life, he loves her, he is eager to marry her, but can't find the nerve to disappoint his mother, who doesn't like the way she is. For once, we have characters who act not according to their feelings, but under the influence of much higher and powerful forces, wealth and luxury, authority and maternal love. We never doubt about their love, but we never take it for granted that they will walk together into the sunset at the end. Chaplin made a drama and sticks to it without overplaying it, which makes the emotional parts even more powerful, and he shows a remarkable screen writing talent, proving that silent movies can also benefit from the use of the right words at the right time.To laud the technical achievement, this review could cover every part of the film-making process: writing, directing, editing, but I mostly want to praise the triumph of storytelling that Chaplin demonstrated. I guess it's the mark of the real talent when a comedic actor proves his ease with drama as well as comedy, Woody Allen could also handle both genres with the same skills, except with dialogs, while Chaplin shows emotions through characters, on looks and body languages, and it's extraordinary how even one look can be translated in many words, characters look like archetypes but they're never three-dimensional.For the trivia, I read that the film was meant to leverage Edna Purviance's career, to prove that she could succeed without Chaplin. It didn't work because she wasn't talented, but because circumstances forced her to leave the business. Yet the scene-stealing performance of Menjou carries half the enjoyment. There is something of Menjou in Dujardin's last performance in "The Artist", but the comparison ends here, the film was a homage to silent movies, but it may have contributed to the idea that silent movies were just made of gestures and flat love stories. Rightfully, "A Woman of Paris" contradicts those clichés.

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.