The Circus

THE CIRCUS (Chaplin, 1928/1968)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Sep 24, 2019

Review by Christopher S. Long

For years, Charlie Chaplin rarely talked about “The Circus” (1928), not even in his autobiography. This might seem odd considering that the film was a huge commercial hit and gave the greatest star in America a chance to celebrate his beloved circus performers, but the film was a deeply troubled production from the start. During two years of shooting, Chaplin had to cope with a bitter and public divorce from his second wife, Lita Grey, an IRS determined to carve out a huge chunk of his financial empire, and an array of disasters from fires to storms that forced long and costly delays. In addition, though Chaplin began shooting right at the commercial peak of silent cinema in January 1926, the film would be released in January 1928, near the beginning of the inconceivably rapid transition to talking pictures, a tectonic shift Chaplin would resist almost single-handedly for more than another decade.

In 1968, the septuagenarian director, now enjoying a lavish semi-retirement in his giant Swiss mansion with wife Oona and a brood of young children, revisited his labor of love, composing a new score for it and even singing the theme song himself (“Swing Little Girl, Swing High...”) to prepare for a re-release. Fortunately, Chaplin resisted any other extensive changes, still leaving “The Circus” intact as silent pantomime. He must have been reminded rather quickly of just how good his “forgotten” movie really was.

Chaplin unleashes his best gags at the beginning. The Tramp, homeless and starving, is mistaken for a pickpocket and winds up being chased by the police through an amusement park. An extended hall of mirrors bit is dazzling and disorienting enough, but Chaplin ups the ante with one of his finest stunts when he pretends to be an animatronic figure in a Noah's Ark set. As a confused policeman keeps a suspicious eye on him, Chaplin pivots in place like a clockwork cuckoo, bonking a man (the real pickpocket) on the head and rearing back in a mechanized laugh. It's one of the most convincing special effects of any era and it's pure Chaplin.

Forced to make a break for it, The Tramp stumbles into a circus where he unwittingly becomes the star attraction, prompting a previously bored audience to shout “Bring back the funny man!” Chaplin is no doubt patting himself on the back here, but he's also just telling the truth. American audiences really did fall in love at first sight with The Tramp back in 1914 because, gosh darn it, he's just a funny, funny man. The public wanted more back then, and by 1928, their appetite was nowhere close to sated, no matter their fascination with Al Jolsen and the newfangled talking picture.

There aren't many laughs behind the scenes at the circus, which is ruled by a tyrannical ringmaster (Allan Garcia) who saves his greatest cruelties for his daughter Merna (the ill-fated Merna Kennedy in her starring role), a horseback rider in the show. His abuse is genuinely frightening, and Kennedy endures some harrowing stunts as she is grabbed and hurled about the set with force. The Tramp, of course, falls in love with her and dreams of being the gallant knight who can save her. Unfortunately, he has stiff competition in the form of the brave and manly Rex (Harry Crocker), a genuine stick in the mud but also a daring tightrope walker who makes Merna's heart flutter.

Chaplin's most impressive trick isn't balancing on a tightrope or sharing a cage with a lion (two feature bits later in the film), but rather making The Tramp appear so effortless. In the film, he can only get laughs when he's being himself, not when he's trying to perform a routine. Of course, The Tramp just “being himself” was the result of thousands of hours of stage work in the British Music Hall and then in early Hollywood, an overnight success many years in the making. But the act works better when you don't give audiences time to think about that because they're laughing too hard.

Audiences watching “The Circus” today, just like audiences watching it in 1928 or in 1968, will be laughing mighty hard. 

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. “This new 4K restoration was undertaken at the Cineteca di Bologna” from a 35 mm duplicate negative made in 1967. I don't think you can quite call the image quality “razor sharp” throughout. There are several scenes where faces and other details look a bit soft, but we're talking about a film made 90 years ago and now being sourced from a dupe negative made 40 years later. Black-and-white contrast is generally robust. Overall, the 1080p transfer looks quite pleasing, as good as you can reasonably expect for a 1928 film.

Audio:

The linear PCM mono track only has to present the music which it does just fine. It's a bit flat but it was never meant to be a stereophonic blowout. Intertitle cards are in English, and no subtitles are provided.

Extras:

Criterion has packed this release right to the tip of the big top.

The film is accompanied by a commentary by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance.

The disc includes an interview (15 min.) with Eugene Chaplin, son of Charlie and Oona Chaplin. He takes viewers on a brief tour of the Chaplin family mansion in Switzerland and shares some home movies, most shot by Oona.

Film scholar Craig Barron, a familiar face to fans of Criterion's silent comedy releases, talks about the innovative visual effects used on “The Circus.” In this 20-minute piece, Barron goes into quite a bit of detail on the split screen techniques used to combine composite images. You mean Chaplin wasn't really up on that high wire and didn't really face down that roaring lion? This is a great piece.

“Chaplin Today: The Circus” (26 min.) is a 2003 documentary by Francois Ede and featuring some interviews with director Emir Kusturica, a big fan of the movie. There's some useful information here, but I didn't find this feature terribly enlightening or riveting.

In “Stepping Out” we're treated to approximately 40 minutes of outtakes from “The Circus.” Scholars Kevin Brownlow and David Gill screened many hours of outtakes from the Chaplin archives when they released the miniseries “The Unknown Chaplin” in 1983 (I remember I loved it, but it appears my no-doubt comprehensive review of the DVD has tragically been lost to history). One result of that project is the 10-minute scene included here, which they edited from “Circus” outtakes. It's mostly a scene of The Tramp taking Merna out on a date that, of course, goes wrong and, of course, involves twin boxers. This scene comes with a new score by Timothy Brock. We also get 30 more minutes of outtakes which are accompanied with narration by comedy choreographer Dan Kamin.

“A Ring for Merna” (7 min.) includes a few more outtakes from the scene where The Tramp buys a wedding ring that he plans to give to Merna. Though this piece runs 7 minutes, there's only a few minutes of outtakes that are edited into where they would have been in the film.

We also get audio excerpts (10 min.) of an interview conducted by Jeffrey Vance of Eric James, Chaplin's musical collaborator.

“Swing Little Girl” provides five minutes of an audio recording session for the title song Chaplin composed for the re-release of “The Circus.” It was originally meant to be sung by Ken Barrie before Chaplin decided he was the right man for the job.

The attractions continue with silent publicity footage from the movie's Jan 27, 1928 premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. It includes circus stars (both humans and other animals) along with many of the film celebrities of the day.

We also get a brief excerpt (5 min.) of a 1969 interview Chaplin conducted for reporters at his Swiss mansion.

Finally, the extras wrap up with two Re-Release Trailers (5 min. total)

The slim fold-out booklet features an incisive essay by critic Pamela Hutchinson.

Final Thoughts:

“The Circus” might get overlooked today both because Chaplin himself tended not to talk about it and because it arrived in the middle of the all-world sequence of “The Gold Rush” (1925), “City Lights” (1931), and “Modern Times” (1940). But on a gag per gag basis, it's as funny as any Chaplin comedy, though it might feel a bit slight in terms of narrative heft. Criterion has loaded this fairly short feature (72 min.) with a ton of extras, which should be enough to please any Chaplin aficionado.

The Kid

THE KID (Chaplin, 1921/1972)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Feb 16, 2016

Review by Christopher S. Long

Slapstick, pathos, heaven and hell, the forgotten charms of child boxing - “The Kid” (1921) really has it all.

Charlie Chaplin was already famous, perhaps the most famous man in America and much of the rest of the world, by the time “The Kid” played to sold-out theaters, but the master's now-legendary heartstring-tugger was the clearest indication to date that there might well be no limit to The Tramp's appeal. Chaplin had experienced something close to overnight success after he moved from London to Hollywood to be one of Mack Sennett's players at Keystone Studios. Chaplin first appeared on screen as the character who would come to be known as The Tramp in February 1914. By 1915 he was already a national obsession and by 1917, Chaplin had parlayed his initial $150/week contract into a $1 million annual salary. Not adjusted for inflation today. A cool million (and more) in 1917.

Chaplin exploited his immense fame and fortune to take control of his career to an unprecedented degree and soon had built his own studio where he would function as actor, writer, director, producer, composer and virtual lord and master over his own kingdom for much of the next half century. Chaplin had mastered the assembly-line craft of the one and two-reeler, the short films that were still the coin of the realm for silent comedians in the late teens. But as the twenties dawned, the ambitious artist and entrepreneur still wanted to expand his horizons, and was confident enough (some might say egotistical enough) to ignore the naysayers who told him that a comedy, and certainly not a slapstick comedy, would never hold an audience's attention at feature-length.

Chaplin had no intention of just kicking people in the rump for an hour or so, of course. The Tramp had started life as a rabble-rouser and, let's be honest, a bit of a prick, but Chaplin had gradually added layers of sympathy to his rough-and-tumble rascal. With “The Kid” he intended to go all the way.

But not right off the bat. “The Kid” opens with The Woman (longtime Chaplin collaborator Edna Purviance), whose “only sin was motherhood,” emerging from a charity hospital with a bundle of less-than-joy in hand. Hoping to give her baby boy a better life, she attempts to give him to a wealthy man,

but after a brief adventure with a couple of hoodlums, the poor titular Kid finds himself in the hands of The Tramp who doesn't immediately warm to the prospect of fatherhood. He initially attempts to abandon the baby in an alley, foist him off on a nearby mother and then a passing hobo, and even briefly contemplates dumping him down a sewer drain before finally deciding to adopt his darling “John.”

Once The Tramp commits, he commits all all the way, employing all his hardscrabble ingenuity to design home-made cribs, potties and all related accoutrements. An abrupt jump to Five Years Later shows that The Tramp has even taught little John (now played by little Jackie Coogan) a trade, employing the precocious tike to lob rocks through windows which The Tramp then conveniently offers to repair for a reasonable fee.

Lighthearted comedy yields to a gut-wrenching paternal melodrama. When authorities hustle the kid away from his unsanctioned home, The Tramp takes to the rooftops in a desperate race that ends with him leaping onto the back of a truck to embrace his darling child with tears streaming freely for everyone, including an audience who probably didn't think it was possible for Mr. Chaplin to find a way to make them root for The Tramp even more than they already had over the previous half-decade. They soon learned that they had hardly begun to cry, as child is inevitably reunited with mother (now a successful movie star) and the lonely Tramp is left slumped in a decrepit doorway to dream of a heaven where he still has someone to love him. Yes, Chaplin was absolutely shameless in toying with the audience's sympathy, but damned if he doesn't get away with it like almost nobody else could. 

Chaplin's feature-length experiment was an unqualified success that further solidified The Tramp as the world's most beloved character, but it also helped to launch the career of its young star Jackie Coogan, five years old when the lengthy production began and a grizzled six by the end. If Coogan didn't quite match Chaplin's success, he came closer than anyone could have imagined, with his parents soon forming a production company just to manage (or, more often, mismanage) his considerable earnings from films like “Oliver Twist” as well as manifold product endorsements. Coogan practically invented the category of “child star” in Hollywood, with the various misfortunes attendant to the title.

Chaplin spent much of his later years re-cutting and re-releasing his silent films for contemporary audiences. In 1972, he lopped off several scenes with Edna Purviance's character and composed his own score for the film's newest theatrical tour. Criterion has included the 1972 version here (otherwise we wouldn't get the Chaplin score), but has also included several of the scenes and original titles cut from the 1921 version.

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. From the Criterion booklet: “This restoration was created from a 35 mm first-generation 1921 element preserved by the Cineteca di Bologna. The element was scanned in 4K resolution on an ARRISCAN film scanner and edited to match Charlie Chaplin's 1972 re-release; for a severely decayed 370-foot portion of the film, a first-generation 1921 fine-grain from the collection of Roy Export was used instead.” The restoration was completed in 2015 at the L'immagine Ritrovata labortory.

Sourced from this restoration, this high-definition transfer provides the best image quality most viewers have ever seen for “The Kid.” It's not perfect, mind you. The image is soft enough at points that some detail is difficult to pick out – you might have to hit pause to read a note at one point. However, the image quality overall is strong and, most importantly, whatever considerable restoration has been conducted does not result in any compromising of the rich grain structure so integral to the medium. This is an image with depth and texture even in some of its softer spots.

Audio:

The linear PCM Mono track presents the original score by Chaplin crisply and with little evidence of damage or distortion. Intertitles are, of course, in English.

Extras:

Wondering if you're not getting your money's worth with a film that runs under an hour? Well, that's a silly thing to think in the first place, but no worries, Criterion has stacked this Blu-ray release with extras.

The film is accompanied by a new audio commentary from Chaplin historian Charles Maland.

Four interviews kick off the bulk of the additional features. Recorded in 1980 (11 min.), a 65 year-old Jackie Coogan reflects on his work with Chaplin, remembering how his father, Jackie Coogan Sr., played multiple roles in the film and also how Chaplin's fake mustache had a distinct aroma. Amazingly, Coogan claims he never saw “The Kid” until Chaplin screened it for him in the 1930s.

Lita Grey Chaplin (1993, 10 min.) is interviewed by Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance. Grey plays a seductive temptress in Chaplin's dream of heaven in “The Kid” - she was all of 12 years old at the time. She would become Chaplin's second wife in 1924. Here she talks about both her time with Chaplin and her later career when she became a successful agent for several actors. Longtime Chaplin cinematographer Rollie Totheroh (1964, 8 min.) speaks in a brief audio excerpt. And Mo Rothman (1998, 10 min.), also interviewed by Jeffrey Vance, discusses his distribution deal with Chaplin which involved re-releasing several of Chaplin's films, including “The Kid,” beginning in 1972.

“Jackie Coogan: The First Child Star” (19 min.) is a 2015 video essay written and narrated by Chaplin historian Lisa Haven. In just under twenty minutes, Haven paints a fascinating portrait of a complex career. “The Kid” launched Coogan to stardom, but like many child stars, he didn't get to enjoy many of the benefits after his parents squandered his earnings on bad investments and other poor decisions, some possibly fraudulent. This led to the Coogan Bill designed to protect other child actors. Despite a series of personal tragedies and estrangement from his mother, Coogan found a way to re-ignite his career as an adult, perhaps becoming best known as Uncle Fester on “The Addams Family.”

“A Study in Undercranking” (2015, 25 min.) provides silent film specialist Ben Model the opportunity for some detailed visual analysis centered on the practice of undercranking. While film is (was... 'cause, hey, what's this thing you call film, buddy?) projected at 24 frames per second, silent filmmakers often shot at 12-16 frames per second, since they didn't need to worry about synchronized sound. As Model argues, they were fully aware of the difference between shooting and projection speeds, and performed accordingly. Masters like Chaplin could take advantage of the difference to achieve effects possible only on film. Model compares clips at different speeds to illustrate his argument. You might not be convinced by every example as the differences are sometimes subtle, but it provides a lot to think about, especially if you weren't aware of this practice before.

“From the 1921 Version” (7 min.) includes three scenes that Chaplin cut from the 1972 re-release, all of which expanded the story of The Woman. In 1972, of course, Chaplin wanted the film to be as centered on The Tramp as possible. You can also see the original 1921 Titles compared to the 1972 version (6 min. total).

“Charlie On The Ocean” (4 min.) provides some rather banal newsreel footage from Chaplin's much-publicized 1921 European tour, his first triumphant return home after taking America by storm in 1914.

“Nice And Friendly” (1922, 11 min.) was a short film shot quickly at Pickfair, the estate of Chaplin's friends Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. This knock-off was made by Chaplin as a wedding present to Lord and Lady Mountbatten who get to star in an adventure with The Tramp and a kid played by Jackie Coogan. Oh, those one-percenters of yore. The Tramp is only in it for a few minutes and the paper-thin plot is formulaic even by the most formulaic standard, so enjoy it as a curiosity piece rather than as a Chaplin masterwork.

Finally (whew!), the disc includes 8 minutes worth of trailers for the 1972 re-release of “The Kid” which played on a double bill with the 1921 Chaplin Short 'The Idle Class”in some markets. Trailers are included from the United States, Germany and Netherlands.

The fold-out insert booklet includes an essay by the great film scholar Tom Gunning.

Final Thoughts:

Yeah yeah, “The Kid” is sappy. It delivers on its promise/threat to be “a picture with a smile – and, perhaps, a tear.” Here's my in-depth analysis of that: it just works. Chaplin found a way to make blunt pathos feel sincerely won and has left us with some of the most moving shots in film history. The ending of “City Lights” is still the tops, but The Tramp clutching Jackie Coogan in the back of a truck while both father and son weep is something nobody can ever forget.

Limelight

LIMELIGHT (Chaplin, 1952)

Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date May 19, 2015

Review by Christopher S. Long

Charlie Chaplin's portrayal of the aging comedian Calvero who has lost touch with his audience is indisputably autobiographical, but don't let that lull you into a simplistic reading of “Limelight” (1952), Chaplin's final American film.

“Limelight” opens in London in 1914, the exact time when 25-year-old Chaplin's unparallelled Hollywood success story was opening its first chapter at Keystone Studios. By contrast, Calvero (played by a 60-year-old Chaplin) has already traded in success for the transient companionship of the whiskey bottle. Partially in denial, Calvero tries and fails to win over jaded audiences with hoary song-and-dance numbers and a pantomimed invisible flea circus routine that scratches precisely nobody's itch. His used to slay 'em; now he puts 'em to sleep.

The parallel to Chaplin's (in)famous one-man holdout against the talking picture is obvious, but the aging Calvero shouldn't be conflated with the aging Chaplin, not directly at least. Chaplin had experienced his first commercial flop in decades when he dared to turn the beloved Tramp into a serial wife-killer in his previous film “Monsieur Verdoux” (1947), but it was one of the very few blips in a nearly unbroken string of critical and box office triumphs by a movie star whose career spanned almost the entire existence of movie stars. Chaplin viewed the failure of “Verdoux” as an aberration, partially attributable to the terrible press he was receiving at the time due to the very public paternity suit filed against him by actress Joan Barry. He was confident that the still knew exactly what the public wanted and fully expected “Limelight” to be another hit.

Chaplin had, however, seen virtually all of his music hall and silent film contemporaries fall by the wayside, some done in by the emergence of cinema itself, others by film's traumatic shift to sound, a few by alcohol and depression. No doubt he was anxious about just how long he could be the sole survivor, but Calvero should be seen as an amalgam: part Chaplin, part Chaplin Sr. (the absentee father whose Calvero-like career and life was cut short by booze), and parts of various entertainers like Frank Tinney, a once-famous blackface comedian whose decline once prompted Chaplin to observe, “The Muse had left him.”

And so Calvero sings and dances and tumbles for increasingly unappreciative crowds; one audience heckler suggests it's time for him to go back home and, with a stiff tip of the cap, our hero agrees with the cruel but honest assessment. But while Calvero's professional comeback seems unlikely, hope arrives in an unexpected form. Stumbling home one afternoon to his empty apartment, the broken-down drunk Calvero briefly summons a sober and heroic impulse when he rescues an aspiring ballerina named Terry from a suicide attempt. Played by relative neophyte Claire Bloom, Terry assumes her place in the pantheon of blind flower girls and gamines from Chaplin's oeuvre, all damsels in various states of distress. Partially paralyzed, Terry remains bedridden as Calvero nurses her back to health and urges her on to the stardom he now believes he will never recapture for himself.

This thread produces some of the film's strongest and weakest sequences. Conversations between Calvero and the bedridden Terry grind the film's pace to a halt at times, their repetitive, strictly functional editing anchoring a performer renowned for his ethereal grace. The pantomime-loving Chaplin had long ago warned that “action always has to wait for dialogue” and these scenes seem to prove his point. Yet when a fully recuperated Terry finally takes the stage, her lengthy ballet performance (with professional dancer Melissa Hayden as stand-in) as Columbine, the result is movie magic, and a scene Chaplin considered one of the most satisfying achievements of his career as he composed and choreographed it all.

Bloom brings a wide-eyed innocence to her role that is undeniably attractive and “Limelight” benefits from the presence of a series of great supporting players including Nigel Bruce and Norman Lloyd, but the star attraction remains the same as in almost all of Chaplin's films: Charlie Chaplin. One of Chaplin's many unique gifts was the ability to teeter constantly on the edge of mawkishness without ever tumbling over. His infinitely expressive face can conjure any reaction on command and he knew how to work his sad eyes, his rueful smile, his comical gait to perfect effect whenever need, like striking keys on a piano. Chaplin is so at ease with his sixty-plus years that he seems every bit as impish and youthful as in his most Trampish days while also mining every wrinkle on his face for its accumulated wisdom. Calvero is both clearly past his time and utterly timeless.

The finest example of this qualilty is in the show-stopping finale which pairs a resilient Calvero

with his unnamed former stage partner played by the great Buster Keaton who had not quite made the transition to sound as seamlessly as Chaplin. Teamed up for the first time in a feature film, Chaplin and Keaton absolutely blow off the roof. The old guard still has to clear the stage for the youth wave, but they might as well show them how to do it right before taking their final bows. This final number would justify the entire film by itself, but it is merely the topper on a movie filled with delights.

Chaplin's confidence in the commercial prospects for “Limelight” proved unfounded. But then the film never really got a chance, at least in America. Hounded by charges that he was a Communist (false) and a moral degenerate (depends on your POV), Chaplin, a resident alien who had never filed for American citizenship, was denied re-entry to the United States after a trip to London for the film's world premiere. Instead of fighting the charges, Chaplin decided to relocate his family and his business, eventually settling in Switzerland where he proved he wasn't done working just yet. “Limelight” barely played in America due to numerous protests and wouldn't get an “official” Los Angeles opening until 1972.

“Limelight” survived. So did Chaplin. As for the various demagogues who nipped at Chaplin's heels, when's the last time you heard about any of them?

Video:

The film is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio. This transfer is sourced from a restoration conducted by Criterion and the Cineteca di Bologna. The result is quite impressive and certainly a massive improvement over the mediocre (though serviceable) transfers on the 2003 DVD from Warner Brothers. Image detail isn't razor sharp as with the top-line Criterion high-def transfers but it's very strong. Black-and-white contrast is both rich and subtle with a soft, naturalistic look throughout.

Audio:

The linear PCM Mono track is solid if unremarkable. There are a few minor drop-offs from time to time that are probably due to the source material, but nothing that detracts meaningfully from the experience. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras:

Criterion has included several new features for this 2015 Blu-ray release as well as some older features from a prior release.

The new features begins with a new video essay by preeminent Chaplin biographer David Robinson (2015, 21 min.) Robinson discusses the film's lengthy and unusual genesis, including mention of how Chaplin wrote a novel (called “Footlights”) instead of a screenplay to prepare the film; it included extended character backgrounds that didn't make it directly into the final film.

The disc also includes new interviews with actress Claire Bloom (2015, 16 min.) and actor/producer/everything-else Norman Lloyd (2012, 15 min.) My note on Bloom's interview is simply “Wow!”, a reaction to how charismatic she is. The magic of a disc like this: you can fall in love with 20-year-old Bloom in the movie and then again with 80-year-old Bloom on this feature. She has plenty to say about her first-time film experience with such a controlling and brilliant director. Lloyd is in his late-90's in this interview and is sharp as could be.

Another new inclusion on this Criterion release is the 1915 Chaplin short film “A Night in the Show” (25 min.) This is one of the later non-Tramp performances by Chaplin in the silent era and sees him in two roles as Mr. Pest and Mr. Rowdy causing havoc at a theater which features star acts such as La Belle Wienerwurst and Tootsy Frutti the Snake Charmer. This one cracked me the heck up. It has been restored by Lobster Film in 2014 and looks remarkably clear though also with little grain evident, suggesting some strong digital boosting. The film is accompanied by a new 2014 by composer Timothy Block.

The disc also includes several features that are also available on the 2003 Warner Bros. DVD release of “Limelight.” These include the short documentary “Chaplin Today: 'Limelight'” (2002, 27 min.) directed by Edgar Cozarinsky and featuring archival footage as well as interviews with Claire Bloom, actor Sydney Chaplin (Charlie's son) and director Bernardo Bertolucci.

The older features continue with a Deleted Scene (4 min.) in which Calvero meets an armless man, a former colleague from the stage as well as two brief Audio Excerpts (2 min. total) of Chaplin reading from “Footlights,” the novel he prepared for the film.

Finally, we get a six-minute excerpt from the unfinished 1919 short “The Professor” in which Chaplin performs the invisible flea circus bit that resurfaces in “Limelight.”

The collection concludes with several Trailers, running four minutes total.

The thick 40-page insert booklet begins with an essay by the late, great critic and filmmaker Peter von Bagh and continues with an on-set report written in 1952 by United Press correspondent Henry Gris. It was apparently only published in excerpts in a few newspapers and was later discoveered among the Chaplin archives.

Film Value:

Because I screened this film as part of a course last year, I've now seen “Limelight” five times in the past ten months or so. It has grown on me each time. The sequences with Calvero talking to the bedridden Terry still drag for me, but when Chaplin/Calvero is on stage, it's magical. And it's just extraordinary to witness how Chaplin can generate just as much sympathy as a sexagenarian in the sound era as he did as the young, impish Tramp in a distant silent age. I guess the secret is talent.