Charlie Chaplin: Limelight [DVD]

More affectionate and philosophical than the comparable Sunset Boulevard (1950), the story movingly echoes A Star is Born (1937) and The Red Shoes (1948), while one brilliant touch is the inclusion of Chaplin's fellow "silent" era star, Buster Keaton as his stage partner. Comedy is not forgotten, but this is at heart a moving reflection on the passage of time, a deeply autobiographical work in which the never seen background of the Great War is an ironic contrast to Chaplin's celebration of youth, theatre, music, love and life itself.

On the DVD: Limelight is presented in the original 4:3 black and white with excellent mono sound and a picture which apart from a little unobtrusive grain is absolutely immaculate. Also included are French and Italian-dubbed versions and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 version of the soundtrack, which simply adds unnecessary spatial processing to the mono original. The disc features multiple subtitle options, including English for hard of hearing.

Disc 2 features a very useful six-minute introduction by David Robinson and an excellent 26-minute new documentary featuring contributions from Claire Bloom, Sydney Chaplin and Bernardo Bertolucci. One remarkable extra is Chaplin's entire Oscar-winning 58-minute score available as 36 separate musical cues in excellent mono. There is a four-minute scene that was included in the original release of the film and later cut, an unfinished short from 1919, The Professor (6 min), which introduces the flea circus idea developed in Limelight, as well as English and Italian trailers. Also included is a nine-section photo gallery and selection of posters, as well as two extracts from Chaplin reading Footlights, the unpublished novel upon which he based the film. Finally, 15 minutes of colour home movies show the star with his family in 1950 and more remarkably, revisiting the London of his youth in 1959. --Gary S Dalkin

Winner of 4 Academy Awards. Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design and Original Score, 1976. Winner of 2 BAFTA Film Awards. Best Direction, Best Cinematography, 1976.