Charlie Chaplin was the brightest star of silent cinema, yet many of his masterpieces — "City Lights" "Modern Times," "The Great Dictator" — were made after the invention of talkies. Chaplin was trained as a physical comedian, not a verbal one, and he held his tongue until the last minutes of "The Great Dictator," when he warned the audience against the looming threat of right-wing storm troopers.

More than 80 years after "The Jazz Singer" popularized sound, a few purists still maintain that black-and-white silent movies were superior to Technicolor talkies, but no one since Chaplin has made the case more effectively than French director Michel Hazanavicius in his delightful tribute "The Artist."

This mock melodrama is loosely based on the fate of matinee idol John Gilbert, whose career capsized because he had a weak voice, but the self-conscious spoofery is more akin to "Singin' in the Rain." Hazanavicius is an astute student of movie history, and his previous two films were satirical updates of the 1960s secret-agent series "O.S.S. 117." For his latest parody, Hazanavicius has reunited with star Jean Dujardin, but the difference between the single-note grooviness of "Lost in Rio" and the symphonic glory of "The Artist" is like the difference between shag carpet and champagne.

Dujardin stars as George Valentin, a Hollywood heartthrob circa 1927. He's strutting on top of the world until an avalanche called audio knocks him off his feet. While he's downsized by a sympathetic studio chief (John Goodman) and abandoned by his haughty wife (Penelope Ann Miller), George watches with bemusement as an ingenue named Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) rises from a fan outside his movie premiere to the marquee attraction who lures the audience away from his self-financed silent thriller.

For students of cinematic craft, "The Artist" is a master class, with exquisite black-and-white cinematography, skillful montage sequences and emotive music. Even the silence is used to creative effect, and when George hears sound for the first time it's like the frightening flash of color in "Pleasantville."

Although George's loyal chauffeur (James Cromwell), his life-saving terrier and his star-crossed affection for the meteoric Peppy are supposed to telegraph pathos, there's a steady undercurrent of comedy that keeps the movie buoyant.

"The Artist" may be too cute to qualify as high art, but it's highly entertaining.

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"The Artist"

Three and a half stars (out of four) • Rating PG-13 • Run time 1:40 • Content Some mild peril