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Back to the Feature: Limelight (1952)

There is a notable twinkle in the eye of Charlie Chaplin that makes the ending shot of City Lights so emotionally iconic. That same twinkle reappears a few times in Limelight, made over twenty years later. If Chaplin’s career was in potential danger in 1931 as the silent film looked to be rapidly a thing of the past, it was by and large over by 1952. He’d made only a single misfire of a movie(in which he played a serial killer) in the twelve years since his last honest hit The Great Dictator, though it is possible a part of the setback had to do with allegations of Communist sympathies -though he was never fully blacklisted he was heavily boycotted -to the degree that Limelight, which came at the height of McCarthyism, never even played in Los Angeles. This is how it wound up being eligible for the Oscars a further two decades later in 1973, when it was at last rediscovered, reappraised, and released in that city. Chaplin was nominated for and won an Oscar for Best Original Score, the only time such an award was given to a movie so out of date.
That sort of irregularity would have to suggest a particularly special movie, and Limelight really is -if perhaps not so exceptional as the Academy deemed in this instance. A story of a washed-up performer in need of love and one last comeback, it has been called semi-autobiographical of Chaplin’s life. And there is some truth there certainly, though it also may be heavily drawn from the life of Chaplin’s father, whose career in British music hall and subsequent alcoholism is much more literally transposed here. Most likely the movie is an amalgam of the two and had a resonance Chaplin identified deeply (he had to, he adapted it from his own unpublished novel).
His character is Calvero, a former music hall stage clown who has faded to irrelevance in the early years of the twentieth century, living in relative obscurity in London, depressed and a drunk. On happenstance he saves the life of a young woman in his building, a dancer on the verge of suicide due to her own career shortcomings, Thereza or “Terry” -played by Claire Bloom in what would be her breakout role. In guiding her recovery Calvero gradually brings her out of her slump, his own spirits rising by association -and the two, soon engaged in their own ersatz kind of romance, eventually take to the stage again, to curious results for each.
This is the oldest I’ve ever seen Charlie Chaplin in a movie, and the first without his signature toothbrush moustache (understandably he couldn’t get away with keeping it post-World War II). Notably too he is credited on the film as “Charles Chaplin” adding a perhaps mildly amusing veneer of seriousness that is nonetheless warranted for a movie like this. While it does feature several comic and slapstick routines seen in-movie performed by Calvero, the context surrounding them is grounded and sincere. It’s not hard to see why so many took it for Chaplin’s own story, specifically as comment on the state of his career by the early 1950s. The sadness that shines through his worn face and eyes, even his smile, has a real authenticity to it. And yet the movie does not quite feel like a woe-is-me kind of flick if for no other reason than the presence of those comic moments in juxtaposition -either as flashback or resurgent act. Chaplin is just as buoyant as he ever was as the Tramp through them -he’s got a playful emphatic energy, it truly feels like him coming home. Perhaps the presence of his family on set accounted for this (a little Geraldine Chaplin appears in an early scene and Charlie’s son Sydney plays his character’s more age-appropriate rival love interest for Terry), or it was as they apparently noted the nostalgia for Chaplin in performing the kinds of routines he used to at the start of his comedy career. Either way he is a delight to watch through these sequences.
What’s also great to see is the interesting take here on the relationship between Calvero and Terry, which is as much about artistic support as romance. Each props the other up and brings out their best spirits -Terry has a much easier time post-depression returning to her craft and finding success there, dance being a more universal medium. But even though Calvero struggles, her encouragements make a difference and they settle into a very organic kind of rapport -Bloom is exceptional it must be stated. Terry does want to marry Calvero but he is unwilling, much as he does love her -and their age gap does matter to his sentiment. Remember that this was an era where middle-aged male actors were frequently paired with much younger romantic leads to very little comment (Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in Easter Parade, Clark Gable and Grace Kelly in Mogambo, Gary Cooper and Audrey Hepburn in Love in the Afternoon); and especially given Chaplin’s own relationships (his wife at the time, Oona O’Neill, was only a few years older than Bloom, having married Chaplin when she was eighteen and he was forty-four), one might assume the same apathy would apply. But this movie does understand they are of different generations -and though a part of it has to do with Calvero’s own self-loathing, his pushing her towards a younger man instead is something uniquely curious and selfless for a movie of this era. Terry grew up with Calvero’s entertainments, she was a fan -and the film seems aware at least on some level of the issue with that, the power differential that exists. And it does this without delegitimizing Calvero’s real feelings -those kind of romantic inclinations do occur and are complex, and responsible people grapple with them before acting on them.
The tender drama aside of course, the big moment for Chaplin’s fans is the climactic show done to be Calvero’s last after some misfortune reviving his career. It is a benefit performance that unites Calvero with his old slapstick partner, nameless on-screen but played by Chaplin’s great contemporary and rival Buster Keaton. Chaplin and Keaton -the two greatest comedians of the silent era- had never appeared together before, but they came from similar performance backgrounds and obviously similar skill sets for slapstick comedy. And it is surreal to see both of them at this age in the context of friendly partnership -propping each other up in the act they perform. It’s a gimmick for the movie, but it comes from a place of heart -Chaplin having apparently insisted on Keaton being cast after hearing about his poor state following the loss of much of his fortune in a divorce and his struggle to find even minor work. He even gave Keaton creative control over his performance. And the two of them work tremendously together, the novelty matched by the comic spontaneity -each still able to pull off some of their old tricks and a few new ones (though thankfully Keaton doesn’t put himself in any life-threatening situation here). The audience loving it, giving Calvero the adulation he’s desired, may as well be the audience watching along at home.
According to some close to the production, Chaplin anticipated the movie being his last (he actually directed two more films before his death in 1977). His direction, perhaps as a result of this, is more melancholy -though also notably interesting and stylized. I think of the way he juxtaposes his first flashback with the present -a great match cut from his happy younger-seeming performance face on stage with his dim, depressed visage in his present-day flat -posters from his former glory framing him in the scene. Nobody knows his own strengths better and he plays them well to the camera. The comedy routines are staged like his old silent films, emphasizing the greater contrast with dramatic moments; and I wonder if Chaplin had seen The Red Shoes at all, because though his movie is in black-and-white, the ballet sequences that Terry partakes in are similarly drawn out and beautifully shot. There is a great deal of admiration for the dance that we are meant to see the same way Calvero does.
This is especially true of the ending, dim and melodramatic but earned, and visually deeply meaningful -both for Calvero the character and Chaplin the artist. It is quite the touching send-off -one that did perhaps ring more strongly in its late release rather than the one that was intended in the time it was produced. Keaton sadly never lived to see the movie's reappraisal, and though it is more Chaplin's story, it is relevant to him as well -and to all of those left behind by the changing fashions of art. Limelight is a sad movie, but it is also a celebratory one; a movie that was both nostalgic and ahead of its time. It challenged Chaplin artistically, as a storyteller, and as a purveyor of great pathos. A last great curtain call, not just for Chaplin, but for the era he defined.

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