Limelight (1952)

A fading comedian and a suicidally despondent ballet dancer must look to each other to find purpose and hope in their lives.

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writers:

Charles Chaplin (original story), Charles Chaplin (screenplay by)

Stars:

Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom, Nigel Bruce

Won 1 Oscar. Another 6 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Charles Chaplin	...	Calvero
Claire Bloom	...	Thereza 'Terry' Ambrose
Nigel Bruce	...	Postant
Buster Keaton	...	Calvero's Partner
Sydney Chaplin	...	Neville
Norman Lloyd	...	Bodalink
Andre Eglevsky	...	Dancer - Harlequin
Melissa Hayden	...	Dancer - Columbine
Marjorie Bennett	...	Mrs. Sybil Alsop
Wheeler Dryden	...	Thereza's Doctor
Barry Bernard	...	John Redfern - Calvero's Agent
Stapleton Kent	...	Claudius
Molly Glessing	...	Maid (as Mollie Glessing)
Leonard Mudie	...	Dr. Blake - Calvero's Doctor (as Leonard Mudi)
Loyal Underwood	...	Street Musician

Storyline

Chaplin's final American film tells the story of a fading music hall comedian's effort to help a despondent ballet dancer learn both to walk and feel confident about life again. The highlight of the film is the classic duet with Chaplin's only real artistic film comedy rival, Buster Keaton.

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Plot Keywords:

music hall | clown | vaudeville | older man younger woman relationship | recovering alcoholic | 

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Taglines:

The masterpiece of laughter and tears from the master of comedy!

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Genres:

Drama | Music | Romance

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Certificate:

G

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Academy Award that Charles Chaplin won for composing this film's score is the only competitive Oscar he ever received; his other awards were given to him for special achievement outside of the established categories.

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Goofs

During the final comedy act, the pianist's chair changes between shots.

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Quotes

Calvero: How do I look?
Terry: [can see he was drinking] Funny.
Calvero: I know what you're thinking, my health and all that. But there's a creamy white light going on and off inside.
Terry: Is it really worth it?
Calvero: Not that I care for success, but I don't want another failure.

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Crazy Credits

"The glamour of limelight, from which age must pass as youth enters."

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Alternate Versions

The version of the film that premiered in London in 1952 ran 141 minutes. It had been in distribution for several months, when Charles Chaplin recalled film prints and deleted a scene in which Calvero leaves the sleeping Thereza, and goes to a bar, where he meets his old friend Claudius, the arm-less violin player, who gives Calvero money. The film ran 137 minutes after this scene was edited out for worldwide distribution. In the ending credits, there is still a billing for Stapleton Kent as Claudius, even though he is no longer seen in the film. The DVD includes the deleted scene as an extra feature.

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Connections

Referenced in Jeopardy!: Episode #26.130 (2010)

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Soundtracks

The Death of Columbine
(1952) (uncredited)
Music by Charles Chaplin

User Reviews

"I'm Shameless, But I Can't Help It"

An ageing vaudeville comedian is well into his decline when he rescues a young ballerina from death and nurses her back to health. Her combination of vulnerability, gratitude and unconditional adoration give the jaded Calvero a new lease of life.

"Love, Love, Love" is the title of a Calvero stage number, and it would serve as a subtitle for the film, with the young Claire Bloom as the jewish gamine, the Paulette Goddard of the next generation. As usual, Chaplin does it all - acting, writing, directing, composing and choreography. He also packs the film with Chaplins, with no fewer than seven members of the tribe appearing. "Sounds like a novelette," says Calvero when he hears Thereza's story, and the observation applies equally validly to this shallow and slightly tawdry love story.

"What is this urge that makes us go on and on?" asks Calvero. The viewer can be forgiven for wondering the same thing. This is Chaplin at his most self-indulgent (and that's saying something), with long rambling speeches about "the secret of all happiness" and horribly pretentious twaddle such as "Desire is the theme of all life. It's what makes a rose want to be a rose!"

Desire is what makes Chaplin want to seem clever and profound, but these witterings are meaningless ("The heart and the mind! What an enigma!") He cites Freud twice as he 'psychoanalyses' a girl he doesn't know, without any grounding in Freud's methods. And the screenplay is horribly over-written. The strivings towards a self-consciously literary style are embarrassing. We get phrases like "the elegant melancholy of twilight", and at one point Thereza is made to remonstrate with Calvero against his despondency because "You're too great an artist!" She tells him that he is "excruciatingly funny", when in fact he's just excruciating. The overblown histrionic style had gone out of fashion forty years before this. Thereza is given dreadful bits of speechifying to do ("Truth! Truth!") and the newspaper review which gets read aloud is literary pomposity of the most grotesque kind.

"I wasn't funny," admits Calvero. Elsewhere he confesses, "I lost contact with my audience." How very true. Calvero is offered to us as one of the great artists of vaudeville, but the simple truth is that the 'turns' which he performs onscreen are embarrassingly weak. The patter is lacklustre and unfunny, and the wretched flea routine (which would not have survived the script consultation stage, had there been one) gets shown twice. It is an emblem of the film itself - too long-winded and not nearly funny enough. Calvero flirts with Mrs. Alsop, the tough old landlady, in what is meant to be a winning deployment of charm, but it fails because Calvero isn't charming. Worst of all is the seemingly never-ending ballet, Chaplin's most extreme form of self-indulgence in a film mired in directionless ego. As a pianist, Chaplin has dexterity without musicality: as a writer, glibness without eloquence: as a composer, facility without substance. In all of his 'artistic' endeavours, he tootles and tinkers without really ever saying anything. The clown demands to be taken seriously, but has nothing serious to say.

Plot articulations were never a Chaplin strongpoint (vide the train wheels in "Monsieur Verdoux"), and "Limelight" has some clumsy narrative apparatus. The hoary old contrivance of the surprise telegram is lazy plotting, as is the inelegant question-answer dialogue by which Calvero elicits Thereza's life story. Calvero has been on the verge of Skid Row for years, but suddenly high society rewards him for his artistic achievements with a benefit gala - and thus is Claire Bloom's ballet worked into the story. After a long, slow build-up to the ballet, the film ends with puzzling abruptness.

Postant the impresario (Nigel Bruce) and Neville the composer (Sydney Chaplin) occupy a no man's land somewhere between being developed as characters and being irrelevant to the plot. The suspicion has to be that Chaplin introduced Neville in order to render the film palatable to an American audience. The core story, that Youth must break free of Age's tutelage in order to fulfil its own potential, doesn't need Neville.

Chaplin was fond of back-projection (eg, the never-quite-halting train in "The Great Dictator"). Calvero and Thereza go for a stroll against a back-projection of the Thames Embankment, and it just doesn't work. The artifice is simply too distracting.

Can anything positive be said about "Limelight"? Well, the routine with Buster Keaton is delightful (but (1) was it really necessary to repeat the gags so blatantly? and (2) one hears ugly rumours that Chaplin butchered the scene at the editing stage because Keaton was so much funnier than he). There is a reverse-motion segment in the clownage, a device Chaplin had previously used in the 'globe dance' passage of "The Great Dictator"). Oh, and "Eternally" is a nice tune.

Details

Official Sites:

Instagram

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 October 1952 (France)

Also Known As:

Limelight

Filming Locations:

RKO-Pathé Studios - 9336 Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Box Office

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$7,506

Company Credits

Production Co:

Charles Chaplin Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

137 min 141 min (initial release) 147 min (London premiere)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1