Chaplin re-shot the scene in which the Little Tramp buys a flower from the blind flower-girl 342 times, as he could not find a satisfactory way of showing that she thought the mute tramp was wealthy.
Chaplin's penchant for perfection carried over into all aspects of the production. He had a very clear vision as to how every scene should play. Robert Parrish, who had a small part as one of the newsboys who pelt The Tramp with peashooters, remembered in 1991: "Chaplin was a dervish. He would blow a pea from the peashooter, playing both my part and the part of Austen Jewell, the other newsboy. He then would run over and react as the Tramp being hit by it, then back to the newsboys and blow another pea. He would then play Virginia Cherrill's part of the Blind Girl. Then he was the Tramp. Then he would instruct what the background people should be doing. Everyone watched as he acted out all the parts for us. When he felt he had it all worked out, he reluctantly gave us back our parts...I believe he would have much rather played them all himself if he could."
Chaplin's first film made during the sound era. He faced extreme pressure to make the film as a talkie, but such was his popularity and power in Hollywood that he was able to complete and release the film as a silent (albeit with recorded music) at a time when the rest of the American motion picture industry had converted to sound.
Chaplin invited Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa to join him at the Los Angeles premier on January 30, 1931. When the house lights came up, Chaplin was surprised to see Einstein's eyes tearing at the final scene. Chaplin said in his autobiography that he had not known Einstein to be so "sentimental."