LIMELIGHT and the Hollywood Ballet Fad
In this newsletter,
I wanted to toast the recent publication
of the second volume of The
Chaplin Review, Frank Scheide and
Hooman Mehran, editors, by writing about
Limelight. Watching a fair share
of films on Turner Classic Movies as I do,
it came to my attention that there seemed
to be a sort of fad in the years following
World War II of including ballet sequences
in films, with Michael Powell’s The
Red Shoes obviously coming to mind
immediately as such a film. What intrigued
me about this observation was that, if proven
true, it would mean that the great non-conformist,
Charlie Chaplin, had released a film that
seems to conform according to trends in
Hollywood at the time. This fact alone is
interesting, but what if such conformity
was at least partially on Chaplin’s mind
as he prepared this film, i.e., what if
Charlie Chaplin hoped Limelight might benefit
from being similar to the critically acclaimed
and very profitable The Red Shoes, released
by Powell just four years earlier? Might
it not then help Chaplin get back into the
good graces of that fickle and finicky American
public with whom he was still out of favor?
These, to me, became interesting questions
to consider.
I’m sure you all
know, but I will mention briefly a little
background needed to consider this argument.
Monsieur Verdoux, released
in 1947, was not a particularly successful
film, and it can be argued that Charlie Chaplin’s
reputation at the time of its release
was suffering from the two Joan Barry
trials and a general belief that he
was at the least a radical liberal—at
the worst a Communist. Having gone rather
far afield from his own experience to
make Monsieur Verdoux anyway,
Charlie Chaplin decided to return to his roots
and to the setting of the London of
his childhood for his next film. Returning
as he does to this more comfortable
film environment, it’s not surprising
that we find one of the lead characters
to be a ballerina and the ballet itself
to be an important part of the story.
We already know of Chaplin's affection
for the ballet; we can see it visually
in many of his films, such as Sunnyside
and The Great Dictator. As
Charlie, Jr. tells us in his book My
Father, Charlie Chaplin, “Every
time a ballet troupe came to town Dad
would take in the performance, not once
but several times. He knew the stories,
the music and all the parts by heart.
He usually visited the troupe backstage
afterwards and always extended a cordial
invitation to them to come to the house
on the hill. The famous Ballet Russe
de Monte Carlo and the equally famous
Sadler’s Wells troupe were guests at
his home. Dad and the ballet dancers
had a lot of fun together. Dad has never
studied ballet, but he could mimic the
dancers superbly” (231). In fact, Robert
Helpmann, one of Sadler’s Wells’ stars
and a choreographer of The Red Shoes
ballet-within-the-film scene, told screen
writer Dudley Nichols that Charlie Chaplin “was
far better than he could ever be” (230).[For more images, please go to the Charlie Chaplin slide show.]
Read Chaplin Coincidences - Part I: Sadakichi Hartmann and The Last Thirty Days of Christ
Read Chaplin Coincidences - Part II: Chaplin and Henri Landru: Planting the seeds for Monsieur Verdoux |
