Limelight (film)
Encyclopedia
Limelight is a 1952 comedy-drama film written, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin
, co-starring Claire Bloom
, with an appearance by Buster Keaton
. In dance scenes, Bloom is doubled by Melissa Hayden
. The film score
is composed by Chaplin and arranged by Ray Rasch.
The film was released amidst scandal, since it was during touring to support the film that Chaplin was refused re-admittance to the United States. The film was subsequently passed over by many theaters. In 1972, the film was given a wide U.S. release and honored at the Academy Awards
.
in 1914, on the eve of World War I
. 1914 was the year Chaplin made his first movie. Calvero (Charles Chaplin), once a famous stage clown but now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer, Thereza Ambrose, alias Terry (Claire Bloom
), from suicide. Nursing her back to health, Calvero helps Terry regain her self-esteem and resume her dancing career. In doing so he regains his own self-confidence, but his attempts to make a comeback are less successful. Terry says she wants to marry Calvero despite their age difference, although she has befriended Neville, a young composer Calvero believes would be better suited to her. In order to give them a chance Calvero leaves home and becomes a street entertainer. Terry, now starring in her own show, eventually finds Calvero and persuades him to return to the stage for a benefit concert
. Reunited with an old partner (Keaton), Calvero gives a triumphant comeback performance but immediately suffers a heart attack and dies in the wings while just a few feet away Terry, the second act on the bill, dances on stage.
in the film, including five of his children and his half-brother Wheeler Dryden
. Chaplin chose stage actress Claire Bloom
for the role of Terry, her first major role in films.
Chaplin told his older sons he expected Limelight to be his last film. By all accounts he was very happy and energized during production, a fact often attributed to the joy of recreating his early career in the Music Hall
. Most people who have studied the life of Chaplin would assume that his character in the film was based on his father Charles Chaplin Sr who had also lost his audience and had turned to alcohol which led to his death in 1901. In both his 1964 autobiography, and his 1974 book My Life in Pictures, however, Chaplin insists that Calvero is based on the life of stage actor Frank Tierney. Then, in contrast, Limelight was made during a time where Chaplin himself was starting to lose his audience. In many ways, the movie remains highly autobiographical.
The pairing of Chaplin and Buster Keaton
in the final musical number is historic for being the only time the two appeared on film together. Chaplin at first had not written the part for Keaton because he believed that the role was too small. It was not until he learned that Keaton was going through hard times (before Limelight, Keaton had gone through a disastrous marriage, lost most of his fortune in the divorce in the process, and had appeared infrequently in films over the previous years) that Chaplin insisted that Keaton should be cast in the film. A rumor has persisted, fueled by the intense rivalry among fans of the two comics, that Keaton gave such a superior performance that Chaplin jealously cut his scenes so he would not be upstaged by his rival. A close associate of Chaplin claimed that Chaplin not only did not feel threatened by Keaton's performance, but also heavily edited his own footage of the duet while enhancing Keaton's. According to Keaton's biographer Rudi Blesh
, Chaplin eased his notoriously rigid directorial style to give Keaton free rein to invent his own comic business during this sequence. Keaton's widow Eleanor claimed that Buster was thrilled with his appearance in the film, and believed his business partner Raymond Rohauer
started and fed the rumors. Chaplin's son Sydney, who also appeared in the film, said that even if some of Keaton's best scenes were cut (which he did not believe), the storyline would not logically allow a supporting actor to suddenly appear and upstage the climactic comeback of Chaplin's character.
to promote the film Chaplin learned that he had been refused a re-entry visa to the United States
because of his alleged communist
sympathies, and many American theaters refused to play Limelight. Outside of cinemas in several East Coast cities, the film was not seen by the American moviegoing public. It was not until 1972 that the film was finally seen in wide American release, and Chaplin, Larry Russell, and Ray Rasch received the Oscar for best original score.
" with words by Geoff Parsons and John Turner
.
In 1972, twenty years after the film’s first release, Chaplin and his musical collaborators Raymond Rasch
and Larry Russell were awarded an Oscar
for Best Original Dramatic Score. It was the only competitive Academy Award Chaplin ever received. (He also received two Honorary Oscars).
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, co-starring Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
, with an appearance by Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
. In dance scenes, Bloom is doubled by Melissa Hayden
Melissa Hayden (dancer)
Melissa Hayden was a Canadian ballerina at the New York City Ballet.-Early life:...
. The film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
is composed by Chaplin and arranged by Ray Rasch.
The film was released amidst scandal, since it was during touring to support the film that Chaplin was refused re-admittance to the United States. The film was subsequently passed over by many theaters. In 1972, the film was given a wide U.S. release and honored at the Academy Awards
45th Academy Awards
The 45th Academy Awards were presented March 27, 1973 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, and Rock Hudson....
.
Plot
The movie is set in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1914, on the eve of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. 1914 was the year Chaplin made his first movie. Calvero (Charles Chaplin), once a famous stage clown but now a washed-up drunk, saves a young dancer, Thereza Ambrose, alias Terry (Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
), from suicide. Nursing her back to health, Calvero helps Terry regain her self-esteem and resume her dancing career. In doing so he regains his own self-confidence, but his attempts to make a comeback are less successful. Terry says she wants to marry Calvero despite their age difference, although she has befriended Neville, a young composer Calvero believes would be better suited to her. In order to give them a chance Calvero leaves home and becomes a street entertainer. Terry, now starring in her own show, eventually finds Calvero and persuades him to return to the stage for a benefit concert
Benefit concert
A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...
. Reunited with an old partner (Keaton), Calvero gives a triumphant comeback performance but immediately suffers a heart attack and dies in the wings while just a few feet away Terry, the second act on the bill, dances on stage.
Cast
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
as Calvero - Claire BloomClaire BloomClaire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
as Terry - Nigel BruceNigel BruceWilliam Nigel Ernle Bruce , best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
as Postant - Buster KeatonBuster KeatonJoseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
as Calvero's partner - Sydney Earle ChaplinSydney Earle ChaplinSydney Earle Chaplin was a film and theatre actor.-Biography:The third son of Sir Charles Chaplin and the second by his second wife, Mexican-American actress Lita Grey, Sydney Chaplin was named after his uncle Sydney Chaplin .Lita Grey was 16 when she married the 35-year-old Charles Chaplin in 1924...
as Neville - Norman LloydNorman LloydNorman Lloyd is an American actor, producer, and director with a career in entertainment spanning more than seven decades. Lloyd, who currently resides in Los Angeles, has appeared in over sixty films and television shows....
as Bodalink - Melissa HaydenMelissa Hayden (dancer)Melissa Hayden was a Canadian ballerina at the New York City Ballet.-Early life:...
as Terry's dance double - Geraldine ChaplinGeraldine ChaplinGeraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
as Little Girl in Opening Scene - Josephine ChaplinJosephine ChaplinJosephine Hannah Chaplin is an actress and the daughter of actor/comedian/director Charlie Chaplin and his last wife, Oona O'Neill. Her siblings include Geraldine Chaplin, Christopher Chaplin and Michael Chaplin. She was also half-sister to Sydney Chaplin, Charles Chaplin, Jr...
as Child in Opening Scene - Charles Chaplin Jr. as Clown
- Michael Chaplin as Child in Opening Scene
- Oona ChaplinOona O'NeillOona, Lady Chaplin was the daughter of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill and writer Agnes Boulton, and the wife of British actor, director and producer Charlie Chaplin....
as Extra
Production
Although the film is set in London, it was entirely filmed in Hollywood, mostly at the Chaplin Studios. The street where Calvero lives was a redressed set at Paramount Studios, the music hall scenes were filmed at RKO, and some exterior scenes use back-projected footage of London. Chaplin prominently featured members of his familyChaplin family
The Chaplin family is an English/American/Swiss acting family. There are the descendants of Hannah Chaplin, chiefly known as the mother of Charlie Chaplin, the Academy Award-winning English comedic actor and filmmaker. Hannah Chaplin's mother was half-Roma...
in the film, including five of his children and his half-brother Wheeler Dryden
Wheeler Dryden
George Dryden WHEELER was an English actor and film director, the son of Hannah Chaplin and music hall entertainer Leo Dryden and thus the half brother of Charles and Sydney Chaplin...
. Chaplin chose stage actress Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom
Claire Bloom is an English film and stage actress.-Early life:Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales...
for the role of Terry, her first major role in films.
Chaplin told his older sons he expected Limelight to be his last film. By all accounts he was very happy and energized during production, a fact often attributed to the joy of recreating his early career in the Music Hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
. Most people who have studied the life of Chaplin would assume that his character in the film was based on his father Charles Chaplin Sr who had also lost his audience and had turned to alcohol which led to his death in 1901. In both his 1964 autobiography, and his 1974 book My Life in Pictures, however, Chaplin insists that Calvero is based on the life of stage actor Frank Tierney. Then, in contrast, Limelight was made during a time where Chaplin himself was starting to lose his audience. In many ways, the movie remains highly autobiographical.
The pairing of Chaplin and Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
in the final musical number is historic for being the only time the two appeared on film together. Chaplin at first had not written the part for Keaton because he believed that the role was too small. It was not until he learned that Keaton was going through hard times (before Limelight, Keaton had gone through a disastrous marriage, lost most of his fortune in the divorce in the process, and had appeared infrequently in films over the previous years) that Chaplin insisted that Keaton should be cast in the film. A rumor has persisted, fueled by the intense rivalry among fans of the two comics, that Keaton gave such a superior performance that Chaplin jealously cut his scenes so he would not be upstaged by his rival. A close associate of Chaplin claimed that Chaplin not only did not feel threatened by Keaton's performance, but also heavily edited his own footage of the duet while enhancing Keaton's. According to Keaton's biographer Rudi Blesh
Rudi Blesh
Rudi Blesh was an American jazz critic and enthusiast....
, Chaplin eased his notoriously rigid directorial style to give Keaton free rein to invent his own comic business during this sequence. Keaton's widow Eleanor claimed that Buster was thrilled with his appearance in the film, and believed his business partner Raymond Rohauer
Raymond Rohauer
Raymond Rohauer was an American film collector and distributor.Rohauer moved to California in 1942 and was educated at Los Angeles City College. Rohauer made a five-reel 16mm experimental film Whirlpool which was not successful. He subsequently became active in film exhibition at the Coronet...
started and fed the rumors. Chaplin's son Sydney, who also appeared in the film, said that even if some of Keaton's best scenes were cut (which he did not believe), the storyline would not logically allow a supporting actor to suddenly appear and upstage the climactic comeback of Chaplin's character.
Reception
While touring BritainUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to promote the film Chaplin learned that he had been refused a re-entry visa to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
because of his alleged communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
sympathies, and many American theaters refused to play Limelight. Outside of cinemas in several East Coast cities, the film was not seen by the American moviegoing public. It was not until 1972 that the film was finally seen in wide American release, and Chaplin, Larry Russell, and Ray Rasch received the Oscar for best original score.
The music
The theme to this film, titled "Terry's Theme" (written by Charles Chaplin) became a popular, often-covered song as "EternallyEternally (1952 song)
Eternally is a song with music by Charles Chaplin, and words by the English lyricists Geoff Parsons and John Turner. The music was initially composed for Charles Chaplin's film Limelight titled "Terry's Theme"; the film won an Oscar for "Best Original Dramatic Score" at the45th Academy Awards in...
" with words by Geoff Parsons and John Turner
John Turner (lyricist)
John Turner was the pseudonym used by the English lyricist James John Turner Phillips.He ran the Peter Maurice Music Company whose most important lyricist was Geoffrey Parsons. The company specialized in adapting songs originally in foreign languages into the English language. He would usually...
.
In 1972, twenty years after the film’s first release, Chaplin and his musical collaborators Raymond Rasch
Raymond Rasch
Ray Rasch was a pianist and arranger on the Hollywood scene in 1950s and 1960s. Rasch won a posthumous Academy Award in 1972 for "Best Original Music Score" for Chaplin's 1952 film Limelight .-External links:...
and Larry Russell were awarded an Oscar
44th Academy Awards
The 44th Academy Awards were presented April 10, 1972 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Helen Hayes, Alan King, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Jack Lemmon. One of the major highlights of the evening was the appearance of Betty Grable, who was battling...
for Best Original Dramatic Score. It was the only competitive Academy Award Chaplin ever received. (He also received two Honorary Oscars).