6. City Lights (1931)
Horrible Idea At The Time Because... Audiences Didn't Want To See Silent Movies Anymore
City Lights is often considered to be Charlie Chaplin's masterpiece, a near-flawless silent movie that is all together funny, romantic and touching, shot with visual mastery and featuring Chaplin himself (as the Tramp, no less) at the peak of his powers. And although this movie is considered to be a classic picture of the silent era, it was actually made outside of the official silent era, in 1932, 3 years after everyone decided that they liked their movies to be accompanied with talking and sound effects. Chaplin, resentful of the talkies, cited them as a fad. So he ploughed onwards, not bothered about whether or not he should make a movie with sound, but firmly in the belief that the sound era would soon come to a close. When the movie was done, though, nobody wanted to see it and original previews were unenthusiastic. Had Chaplin, too stubborn to "get with the times," overshot the mark? Slowly, though, word of mouth began to spread, and although it seemed terribly outdated,
City Lights became a smash hit against the odds: it made back 5 times its budget, and Orson Welles even called it his favourite movie.