Charlie Chaplin was a funny guy 100 years ago. He made a few really good silent films, almost all of them dependent on the Little Tramp character. Viewed today they are still funny, though perhaps a bit cruel. I'm not sure he was any funnier than his contemporaries, and Buster Keaton still gives me just as many laughs without the cruelty.Chaplin failed miserably to make the transition to the talkies, as did many others Laurel and Hardy are the best comedians to make the change, and I think their best work was later in life.Why the adoration? I don't get it. And why a focus on his Limelight which was surely one of his weakest films.

. . . version of Galileo, who had his thumb cut off by religious authorities for daring to suggest that the world was actually round!! As CHAPLIN TODAY: LIMELIGHT documents, the bozos running the American Legion decided to persecute Chaplin and LIMELIGHT (a totally apolitical romance) out of pure spite, meanness, jealousy, ignorance, and xenophobia. The legionnaires thought that since British native Chaplin had lived in America for more than five years and become rich, he was duty-bound to renounce his monarch, vote G.O.P., and contribute often and generously to the John Birch Society (what the Ku Klux Klan changed its name to in the late 1900s). They prevented LIMELIGHT from being shown in 99.2% of American cities, and gave enough money to Richard Nixon that Chaplin practically had to accept his belated Oscar awarded for LIMELIGHT two decades later in an airport men's room. As Chaplin Today points out, a man many regard as the world's all-time best actor and director had his career cut short in his prime. It is exactly as if jack-booted Prussian storm-trooping legionnaires marched on Ludwig van Beethoven after the completion of his 4th Symphony due to rumors of trombones in a planned 5th, depriving civilization forever of Beethoven's 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Symphonies!!

When Warner Brothers released DVDs of Charlie Chaplin's full-length films, they did a great job. First, the prints were amazingly crisp and clean. Second, they were chock full of many wonderful extras. One of the extras included in each of the films was a "Chaplin Today" short film. Each was about a specific full-length film and featured a modern director who would give their insights into the movie during the final portion of the short. Apparently, this was made for European TV some time ago.Of the six or seven films in this series, this is among the best. Part of it is because Bernardo Bertolucci's comments were more relevant than those of some of the other directors. Also, the insights into "Limelight" were very interesting and helped to show how the film was a close parallel to the life of Chaplin off screen. Well worth seeing and well made.