Deborah Ross

May put you off Chaplin for ever: The Real Charlie Chaplin reviewed

You’ll never be able to watch The Kid in the same way again

You’ll never be able to watch The Kid in the same way again: Charlie Chaplin in his twenties 
issue 19 February 2022

Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous movie stars ever and is certainly the most famous movie star with a little toothbrush moustache. He was around when I was growing up as his films were often on television, particularly, if I recall rightly, on Saturday mornings. My sisters and I resented that as we wanted to watch The Partridge Family (or The Brady Bunch) on the other side but my father loved him, and I do remember being struck by his childlike innocence, as well as all the falling over. (Chaplin’s, not my father’s.) I now regret watching this documentary. Not because it’s bad (it isn’t) but because I know things about him that I wish I didn’t. It may even have put me off Chaplin for ever.

The film is by directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney, the same team behind Notes on Blindness. It’s compiled from archive footage, film sequences and stills, audio from an interview Chaplin gave to Life magazine in 1966 and some never-seen-before home footage, particularly covering his later years in Switzerland. (Not especially revealing, but he does still turn it on for the cameras.) Some interviews have been re-enacted with the original audio dubbed over, which seems unnecessary, and it’s quite distracting. But the story is fascinating, the most impressive rags-to-riches story ever, given that he was born into abject poverty and then became, we are told, ‘the highest-paid actor in the world’.

I regret watching this documentary because I now know things about Charlie Chaplin that I wish I didn’t

So we begin at the beginning in Victorian London and the slum where he lived with his mother, Hannah, a music-hall performer. His father had abandoned them and Hannah was in and out of mental asylums (syphilis, probably). Charlie, meanwhile, was in and out the workhouse from when he was, gulp, just four years old.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY 3 MONTHS FOR $5
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Start your 3-month trial today for just $5 and subscribe to more than one view

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in