Black Limelight
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Black Limelight is a 1936 play by Gordon Sherry that in 1938 became a British crime film directed by Paul L. Stein and starring Joan Marion and Raymond Massey.[1]
"It concerns itself with the murder of a vulgar young woman [Lily]. Suspicion rests on refined young married Peter, who has disappeared, and is known to have spent week-ends with the young woman in question, apparently with the full knowledge of his charming wife [Mary]. She, on hearing of the murder, does everything in her power to screen her spouse. There are, of course, police and detectives on the track, but while they are seemingly very active, they rarely turn up at psychological moments. Peter therefore easily gains access to his home, despite the fact that no one could mistake him, in his unhappy condition, as other than one fleeing from justice. Did he commit the murder?"[2]
Production
Sherry's play was an early serial-killer drama ("the monster's homicidal mania leaps up at the time of the full moon,"[3] noted Time magazine) and was originally intended to be premiered in London. In the event it opened at Broadway's Mansfield Theatre on 9 November 1936,[4] with a London production only appearing in mid-April the following year. A preview week at the small Q Theatre was immediately followed by a West End transfer to the St James' Theatre on the 22nd, the production running in all for 414 performances.[5] The text used in London was somewhat revised; among other adjustments, the heroine's name was changed from Naomi to Mary.
Margaret Rawlings scored a huge success doubling two roles - protective wife Mary and, in an Act II flashback, murdered mistress Lily - which on Broadway had been played by separate actresses, Winifred Lenihan and Kate Warriner. The doubling arrangement was Sherry's preferred mode, in order to suggest "that Peter fell in love again with the very qualities which attracted him to his wife."[6] Similarly, in the Daily Mirror Godfrey Winn welcomed "the most thrilling show I have seen for ages" and suggested that "Every woman should go to hear Margaret Rawlings' soliloquy on marriage."[7]