A Woman of Paris is a feature-length American silent film starring Edna Purviance that debuted in 1923.
Marie St. Clair and her fiancé, aspiring artist Jean Millet, plan to leave their small French village for Paris, where they will marry.
A year later in Paris, Marie is enjoying a life of luxury as the mistress of wealthy businessman and philanderer Pierre Revel.
Marie enters the wrong building and is surprised to be greeted by Jean, who shares a modest apartment with his mother.
The following night, Jean slips a gun into his coat pocket and goes to the exclusive restaurant where Marie and Pierre are dining.
Chaplin elected to trim the film (approximately 8 minutes of footage was removed) for the reissue version to further tighten the action.
The Museum of Modern Art held the world premiere of A Woman of Paris with Chaplin's new music soundtrack on December 23, 1976.
At the premiere Chaplin had flyers distributed informing those in line that A Woman in Paris diverged from his normal work, and that he hoped the public would find it enjoyable.
United Artists producer and screen star Mary Pickford declared it a favorite: Woman of Paris allows us to think for ourselves and does not constantly underestimate our intelligence.
The actors simply react the emotions of the audience...Charlie Chaplin is the greatest director of the screen...He's a pioneer.
Vance notes: Most examinations of A Woman of Paris select a key scene such as Marie on the train platform or Pierre removing a handkerchief from Marie’s dresser drawer, or the natural and simple approach to performance as the basis of the film's critical laurels, while overlooking Chaplin's overall construction of the visual narrative.
Chaplin achieved his purpose of conveying 'psychology by subtle action' throughout the visual narrative by imbuing the décor with symbolism, by using objects for their metaphoric and metonymic value, and by parallel storytelling and editing.
[15]Historian Lewis Jacobs reminds viewers that the full title of the film is A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate.
"[16] Critic James R. Quirk in Photoplay (September 1923), noted that Chaplin achieves this through "an unrelenting realism that makes each incident seem inevitable.
When Marie tells her lover that she hopes for domestic security so as to raise a family, Pierre points out the window to the city street and a sordid tableau: an impoverished family trods past, the mother slapping a child, the father carrying a heavy burden and more children trailing behind the parents.
[20] Historian Lewis Jacobs observes that A Woman of Paris inspired director Ernst Lubitsch's The Marriage Circle (1924), which, in turn influenced "dozens of other films.
"[21] In A Woman of Paris, and other films of this genre, "the harlot and the adventuress were no longer hussies but women to esteem and emulate.