The Real Charlie Chaplin 
Directed by James Spinney and Peter Middleton 
 

AT ONE point hailed as the most famous person in the world, it is hard not to think of Charlie Chaplin without picturing his small hat, cane, boots and signature moustache. 

“Chaplin makes the Tramp and the Tramp makes Chaplin,” narrates Pearl Mackie in James Spinney and Peter Middleton’s comprehensive and gripping documentary which aims to shed new light on who the real Charlie Chaplin is. 

The legendary comic actor elucidates on his life and work in an audio interview — recorded over three days — that he gave in 1966 to Life Magazine, while his childhood friend Effie Wisdom, in an 1982 interview, describes in her distinct cockney accent his life in abject poverty in Victorian London’s Kennington, and how he was sent to the Lambeth workhouse.

When he returned years later a huge success, she chided him for losing his own accent and sounding posh.

The film chronicles his extraordinary rags-to-riches story, his perfectionist work ethic, his turbulent private life, his stark fall from grace while exploring his comic genius in front of, and behind, the camera, and his disturbing propensity for underage girls.

His second wife Lita Grey — who first appeared in Chaplin’s films at the age of 12, fell pregnant by him at 15 and married him at 17 — describes their abusive marriage and divorce, revealing how she was pilloried and not believed as he was loved by everyone. 

Yet, shockingly, it was his political beliefs, award of the communist World Peace Council’s international peace prize and accusations of being a communist — pursued vehemently by the FBI — and not his pursuit of teenage girls that led to his downfall and turned public opinion against him. This was epitomised by the 1947 press conference for his film Monsieur Berdoux, the first without the Tramp, in which journalists dropped all niceties and went straight for the jugular. 

Through unprecedented access to the Chaplin archives, family home movies, interviews with some of his children and careful reconstructions bringing to light previously unheard recordings, the film paints a fascinating but complex picture of this iconic figure who lived in fear of poverty all of his life. 

It is a great introduction to the comedy icon who was a genius but clearly a troubled man and provides some insight into the real Charlie Chaplin — who would have serious questions to answer today.

In cinemas