Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely the worst movie.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is a masterpiece with some funny scenes, especially at the end, but mostly because of the tremendous empathy this film carries, conveys and communicates about life, about death, about doing something with the life we have been entrusted with, something positive, something that may serve the community, other people, something that provides love to those who need it, who deserve it. It is impossible to tell the story of this film without in many ways destroying it. We are in London just before the First World War and we are in show business with Charlie Chaplin as an old comedian, Calvero; a young dancer, Thereza who has some stage fright problems that paralyze her legs, and is impersonated by Claire Bloom; and a young composer, Neville enacted by Sydney Chaplin. In Calvero's comeback, he will perform with an old partner of his played by Buster Keaton. The interest of the film is its comic dimension intertwined with the dramatic content, with this dancer who has to be supported and even reconstructed in order to be able to use her legs to perfection. Everyone will remember the slap from Calvero in the wings just seconds before she enters the stage when she is having a sudden paralysis fit caused by stage fright. And the slap works because she is so shocked she cannot even think of her legs anymore.Charlie Chaplin after the Second World War seems to be a lot more humane, empathetic with people, individual people, just as if the war had battered him down tremendously and let him sore in his heart and sad in his mind. The big political and social subjects are more or less kept in the past and now he looks at the mental state of human beings in this world that has to be reconstructed after the five years of absolute folly. Maybe McCarthy and his campaign in Hollywood that forced Charlie Chaplin to move back to Great Britain is softening his critical tone.This final period in Charlie Chaplin's creative life is, just the same as with Picasso, different but yet the same as for imagination, creativity, intensity, human sympathy and compassion. I must say that the scene of flea taming is really funny, though I may prefer the final act with Buster Keaton, the grand piano, and the violin. The satire of classical concerts is so strong and to the point: formality and appearances that have to be saved, kept and protected so much that then the music or the performance becomes stiff and even forbidding.To be seen urgently if you haven't already done so. You will all like Calvero's death on stage, or nearly and you will all think of Molière himself, the greatest comedian of all times and one of the best playwrights, who actually died on stage performing a hypochondriac would-be sick man.Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

Charlie Chaplin is undeniably one of the greatest and most influential directors of all time. And Limelight is probably his most personal and underrated film. While most of Chaplin's films or a satire of the current political state, (modern times is of course about the Great Depression, and the great dictator is obviously about the Nazi party and WWII). But Limelight is a satire about the entertainment industry and more importantly Chaplin himself. Though Limelight is one of his lesser known films, its influence can definitely be seen in films like, Birdman, and Hail Cesar, and Limelight also perfectly represents what the film industry was going through at time, (similarly to all about eve, and sunset blvd) Hollywood was moving from the old to the new, and the old was being forgotten. Limelight is about a washed-up former alcoholic clown, who rescues a young dancer from attempting suicide, after the incident is over, Calvero (the name of Chaplin's character, the clown) looks after until she is well again. The presence of the young dancer, reinvigorates Calvero, and he tries to restart his career under a fake name, while the dancer climbs to the top. Limelight is very clearly art imitating life. It had been five years since Chaplin made his last film, Monsieur Verdoux, and that film was received poorly in America, (though it did better in Europe), and Chaplin was beginning to be forgotten. He was a relic of the past, of the silent film era. He was turning into another Buster Keaton, who actually makes a short cameo in the film. And limelight perfectly represents his fears and anxieties. Limelight was a massive success at the time grossing over 5 times as much as Monsieur Verdoux, but it slowly faded from the public eye, and is typically forgotten when talking about Charlie Chaplin's greatest films, which is a shame. 8.7/10

. . . as the American Legion watched some old footage of Hitler's pep rallies, and launched a nationwide boycott of LIMELIGHT. Apparently these legionnaires were not bright enough to realize that Charles Chaplin was SPOOFING Hitler when he made his GREAT DICTATOR flick, and they believed Chaplin WAS Hitler! If it wasn't for the war profiteer types (mostly the father\grandpa of two later U.S. presidents--who said crime doesn't pay?) who made a bundle selling Hitler the diesel fuel additive necessary for the Blitzkrieg to work, there would have been millions fewer legionnaires around in the 1950s, as WWII most likely would not have occurred, and the six million Jews gassed would have thrived to the point of quadrupling today's population level for their group. Charles Chaplin was a lonely voice in a wilderness of war profiteers gunning for battle when he spoofed Hitler before the war. The brave young boys--America's best and brightest--got slaughtered off during the subsequent conflict, and the worst and the dullest who survived became easily manipulated legionnaires goaded by the goons Ike christened the "Military\Industrial Complex" into persecuting the man who could have saved their comrades with his timely warning. But what else could you expect, from the sort of righteous folks who did in Jesus, too!

After almost half a century in the USA for whom among other things he sold war bonds in two World Wars, Charlie Chaplin got his walking papers from our government. And maybe the unkindest cut of all was that he got them as Limelight was premiering. Chaplin had retired his little tramp character after Modern Times and he conceded that sound was here to stay. But the tramp kind of made a comeback in this film. As for Chaplin this film is about the old age of a performer who knows nothing else and a last touch of romance in his senior years.Making her debut in Limelight is Claire Bloom and she plays a fragile young thing with hopes of being a prima ballerina who tries to take her own life with gas. Charlie who also rents a room in the same boardinghouse saves her and the two begin a relationship of sorts. He's a once famous comedian who has seen his best days as public tastes change and takes solace in alcohol as the fuel to keep him going. But she provides him a reason to live other than to drown his sorrows and Chaplin provides Bloom with hope and tenderness.Charlie who took a great deal of this story from A Star Is Born works some real wonders here. One thing about Chaplin films, they were his personal projects even more than Orson Welles. He wrote, produced, directed, did the music and starred in Limelight and unlike Welles never had to worry about who would release his films, he was a founding partner of United Artists. I was going to make a crack that he didn't do the choreography and then read as the film concluded he did have a hand in it. Was there no limit to this man's talents?Limelight is most famous for Charlie doing a once in a life time duo act with his silent comic rival Buster Keaton. The two do a very funny routine with a violin and piano. Chaplin worked on his projects only, Keaton however was starting to come back if not as a headliner, as a reliable character player in a lot of films that were way beneath what he had been before.The performance pieces were nice, but the real key to Limelight is Chaplin expressing his opinions on love and life and how precious both are. The only time I heard it expressed as well is by Burt Lancaster in Birdman Of Alcatraz. It's all quite profound for a clown.