Focus Features

Orson Welles told me to see it. I was never much of a Chaplin fan and remembered W.C. Fields’ remark that Chaplin usually came across as a “ballet dancer.” “Yes, I know, but you must see City Lights,” Welles insisted. “You’ll see Chaplin in City Lights.” So, of course, I did see it. Produced in 1931, after the introduction of sound, Chaplin steadfastly held out to make silents. Every gag, every shot, every movement and plot twist elegantly combined into a perfect masterpiece. [Buy]

Lon Chaney’s film is actually just awful. In 1925, it was the Waterworld of its day, running over budget, bringing in new directors, inspiring fights on and off the set. But you just have to watch it for the sheer audacity, the over-the top horror. And at the center of it all is Chaney. Watch his hands and the delicate gestures he uses to underplay the screen’s weirdest monster. His make-up, incidentally, was its own magic show, changing from shot to shot to give the impression of an amazing Phantom that never existed at all. [Buy]

Maybe it’s my fondness for stage illusions, but I’m a sucker for a good ghost story. And David Belasco’s ghostly melodrama was brilliantly realized in this 1935 Lionel Barrymore film. It is sweet and sentimental, and a reminder that the best storytelling is done with simple stories and simple tricks. The technology of the ghost was quite elegant, a sort of “out of focus” mask that provides an otherworldly effect throughout the film.

The 1951 film is just great science fiction, claustrophobic and cosmic at the same time, timeless and also a perfect snapshot of 1951, with its neurotic population on the brink of the cold war. And, of course, Gort. The first movie robot appeared in Houdini’s 1919 Hollywood serial, The Master Mystery, but the best robot of all was The Day the Earth Stood Still’s weirdly rubberized Gort. [Buy]

For decades, magicians have sniffed about this 1953 biography of the great magician. It was too inaccurate; it was too glossy, or too sensational. But you know what? Houdini would have loved it. It’s vaudeville seen through the lens of 1950s Technicolor. All of Houdini’s wrinkles were removed and the sparkle of his career survived. No, he didn’t die in the Water Torture Cell. (He performed it for 13 years.) But the story is better this way. [Buy]