Limelight

Limelight (1952) is Charlie Chaplin's drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. In Edwardian London, a washed-up music hall comic named Calvero — drinking away the memory of audiences that no longer laugh — stumbles onto his neighbor Terry, a young ballerina who has just tried to take her own life.

Terry can't walk, whether from illness or from a faith in herself that has simply broken. Calvero sets out to coax her back to dancing and to living, even though he no longer believes the spotlight will ever find him again. Something grows between them that the aging clown stubbornly refuses to call love, sure the gap in their years is too wide. It is a story about a fading talent handing his fire to one just beginning to burn.

Chaplin directed, wrote, scored and starred, with Claire Bloom opposite him and one priceless scene shared with Buster Keaton — the two giants of silent comedy together on screen for the only time. The film is openly autobiographical and, thanks to a quirk of release rules, only collected its Oscar for the score two decades later. Tender, melancholy and deeply personal late Chaplin. Stream Limelight (1952) online on iFILM.