Most ordinary people fall into a role and a persona in their lives, and tend to not veer very far from it if it provides for them. Perhaps, due to extreme situations, they may find it necessary to reinvent themselves once or twice and rise to the occasion or fall into dissolution.

An artist like Chaplain had to reinvent himself over and over again over four decades, particularly in a medium that was changing every few years. That's probably why he had so many failed marriages with younger woman; he had to feel like a "player" to keep the flow going and fight back the doubt and anxiety (and the terror of becoming irrelevant) that inevitably begins to haunt creative men in their twilight years. Don't underestimate the power of sex magic!

Limelight is a film about those demons, and the immense courage (and yes, the love of a much younger woman, too, doesn't hurt), that is required to triumph over them. Still, everyone knows there is one specter that no man can outrun -- Death. Chaplain masks this existential dimension in layers of sentimental melodrama which you will have to decide for yourself is effective, but I think he does this intentionally to smuggle in some deep and darker themes that filmmakers like Bergman would become famous for continually exploring masterfully.

I found myself going back and forth with Limelight; there are times when the melodrama overpowers the film, and the pedestrian cinematography doesn't help matters. A few times I felt like I was watching the old Abbot and Costello TV show, particularly the apartment scenes. However, Chaplain is such an immense presence you can't help be engaged and encouraged to keep watching because you want so much for his character Calvero to triumph. His co-star, Claire Bloom, is quite effective, too, and she has several "looks" in this film to contrast and mirror the ongoing struggle the old comedian in having internally.

Getting on in years myself, and feeling washed up and without hope and purpose, Calvero's plight and faltering desire to once again command the Limelight was quite cathartic. I was amazed by his final performance with Keaton; when Calvero starts rocking that violin like Eddie Van Halen in his prime, I was in a state of sublime fascination. Here was a true artist giving everything up for his audience, feeling the peak thrill of having the audience at his command once again for a few fleeting moments; a thrill that, tragically, he will pay dearly for.

We can only hope that we, too, can earn such an exalted death as Calvero's. Perhaps that is Chaplain's hidden message in this film; that life is, in the final analysis, about striving for a death that ennobles those you leave behind.

Charles Chaplin stars as Calvero, an alcoholic, washed-up music hall comedian who saves a rooming house neighbor from committing suicide when he passes by her door and smells gas. The neighbor, young ballet dancer Thereza (Claire Bloom), attempted suicide because she believes that she will never walk and therefore never dance again. She stays with Calvero while she recuperates, and the old comic starts to improve himself as he sets out to get Thereza the chance to prove herself as a world-class dancer. Thereza wants to marry Calvero in spite of their large age difference (I won't go into how art is imitating life here), but he feels that a young composer (Sydney Earl Chaplin) would be a better match. Complications ensue.

Chaplin's last starring role came in this bittersweet drama, a massive hit everywhere else in the world, but barely released in the U. S. due to Chaplin being labeled a "dangerous leftist". I had the same opinion of this that I did with many of his silent movies: it's technically proficient, but the sentimentality is a bit too thick, and it often seems blatantly phony, and not earned by what has been shown on screen. I've grown to like many of Chaplin's films on repeat viewings, and even love a couple of them, but I've always preferred the work of Buster Keaton. It was nice seeing the two on screen together, but it wasn't for long enough. The movie eventually received an Oscar-qualifying premiere in L. A. twenty years later, and thus bizarrely won the 1972 Oscar for Best Score (Charles Chaplin, Ray Rasch, and Larry Russell).