["City Lights"] is a completely organized and a completely created whole which exists for itself without question and without comparison. The immediate effect of the picture is that it is funnier than many things [Chaplin] has done and infinitely inventive; the second effect is that it is magnificently organized, deeply thought out and felt, and communicated with an unflagging energy and a masterly technique. Chaplin is the only artist whose pictures always give the impression of being created before your eyes, with this extraordinary result, that when you see them you cannot believe that they have ever been shown before, and that when you see them a second time you are constantly surprised and elated by their perfection.

Chaplin's "secret" is so plain that it seems an absurdity to state it; nevertheless, it is a quality which occurs only once or twice in a generation. He creates illusions...