Limelight (1952)

Calvero: Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.

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Calvero: The heart and the mind, what an enigma.

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Calvero: What a day! The sun's shining, the kettle's singing, *and* we've paid the rent. There's going to be an earthquake, I know it, I know it, I know it.

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Charles Chaplin and Buster Keaton had an interesting relationship. Long considered rivals but always having avoided commenting about each other in the press, Chaplin hired Keaton for a part in Limelight. Keaton, who was flat broke at the time, went into a career decline after having been signed by MGM in 1928, as the studio would not let him improvise in any of his films nor allow him any writing or directorial input, and he was eventually reduced to writing gags - often uncredited - for other comedians' films. Chaplin, at this point, felt sorry for Keaton due to his hard luck, but Keaton recognized that, despite Charlie's better fortune and far greater wealth, Chaplin was (strangely) the more depressed of the two. In one scene in Limelight, Chaplin's character was dying. While the camera was fading away, Keaton was muttering to Chaplin without moving his lips, "That's it, good, wait, don't move, wait, good, we're through." In his autobiography Keaton called Chaplin "the greatest silent comedian of all time."
The rumor has been widely circulated that Buster Keaton was much funnier than Charles Chaplin in their scene together, so Chaplin cut Keaton's best scenes. In her book "Buster Keaton Remembered", Keaton's widow Eleanor Keaton refutes this story; according to her, the rumor was started by Raymond Rohauer, Keaton's business partner. The point of the scene was to show Chaplin as Calvero having one final triumph before he has a heart attack and dies. It would not have made sense for Keaton, who was not even a major character in the movie, to outshine Chaplin.
Chaplin worked for 2½ years on the screenplay and then devoted nine months to the score.
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