A fading comedian and a suicidal despondent ballet dancer must look to each other to find meaning and hope in their lives. The English movie ‘limelight’ was screened here on Friday at Bharat Bhavan marking the closure of Charlie Chaplin Film Fest.
Notably, 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 movie is set in london in 1914, on the eve of World War I. 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 (Sydney Earl Chaplin), 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 from him Terry, the second act on the bill, dances on stage.
This represents the end of a generation and the coming of another, the fading of age and the emergence of youth under the limelight, as said during the initial credits.
The movie evoked a satisfactory response by the adherent movie lovers.