Poetic ‘Jennie’ Closes Tribute to Dieterle

A tribute to director William Dieterle concludes Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Goethe Institute, 5700 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 110, with “Portrait of Jennie” (1948), one of the most exquisitely poetic films in Hollywood history.

In this adaptation of the Robert Nathan novel of the same name, Jennifer Jones is so radiant yet ambiguous that she gets away with playing not only a young woman who progresses from a 10-year-old to adult in a very short span of time but also someone who has come back from the dead (to beguile painter Joseph Cotten). A very handsome black-and-white film, it has a wonderful supporting performance by Ethel Barrymore and a perfect Debussy score.

Information: (310) 825-1898.

Chaplin’s Tramp: On Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” will screen at the Los Angeles Theater for the first time since it opened the opulent movie palace at 615 S. Broadway in 1931. It is being presented one night only as part of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s “Last Remaining Seats” series of classic films shown in historic theaters.

“City Lights” remains a work of simplicity and charm, grace and poignancy, although it does not possess the substance of Chaplin’s subsequent film, “Modern Times” (1936). Nonetheless, in its roundabout way it does build to one of the most affecting, justly famous endings in the history of the movies. In short, a smash finish overcomes a rather discursive, sometimes thin, buildup.

The film turns upon the Tramp’s friendship with a pretty blind young woman (Virginia Cherrill, later and briefly the first Mrs. Cary Grant) for whom he becomes determined to raise money to pay for an operation that will restore her sight. Along the way there’s a subplot involving the Tramp’s escapades with a millionaire playboy (Harry Myers) and many hilarious moments.

In his autobiography, Chaplin recalled that he found himself agreeing with a critic who said “City Lights” was very good but verged on the sentimental. Yet it’s hard to disagree with Chaplin’s later re-evaluation: “Had I known what I know now, I could have told him the so-called realism is often artificial, prosaic and dull; and that it is not reality that matters in a film but what the imagination can make of it.”

Information: (213) 623-CITY.

Sternberg’s Gangster: Josef Von Sternberg’s 1927 “Underworld” (Wednesday at the Silent Movie), often regarded as the first true gangster picture, is a vivid melodrama, elementary and sentimental, even though it is closer to “Othello” than “Little Caesar” or “The Public Enemy.”

Crude, burly George Bancroft, playing a reigning gangster, is one of those men who laughs hard all the time but who actually takes himself very seriously. He adores his girlfriend Feathers (Evelyn Brent) but makes the mistake of taking under his wing an on-the-skids intellectual (Clive Brook); unfortunately, Bancroft fails to realize that Brook is no Iago.

It would seem that “Underworld’s” pungent aura of authenticity owes much to the original story by Ben Hecht, who had been a Chicago newspaperman. However, according to Sternberg, Hecht hated the film--but went on to accept an Oscar for his contribution to it without complaint.

Information: (213) 653-2389.