Chaplin's first picture in five years has for its theme "the glamor of the limelight—from which age must pass as youth enters."… However Limelight is garnished with a little Freud, some ballet, a few aphorisms about life, and a certain artiness….

In accord with Chaplin's tendency of recent years, there is little comedy in Limelight. One of Chaplin's lines in this picture is: "Life isn't a gag any more. From now on I'm a retired humorist." There is scarcely a trace of the gags, satire, fantasy, caricature and slapstick of his earlier work. (p. 466)

Limelight is filled with autobiographical overtones. Although there is something in it of Chaplin's father, a music hall entertainer of the nineties, much more of the story and of the dialogue derives from Chaplin's position today. He was stung to the quick by the financial failure of Monsieur Verdoux, the only one of...