The Real Charlie Chaplin

Charles Chaplin was the greatest comic actor, writer, producer and director of his time - from the infancy of film to the collapse of the studio system in the 1950s. For a long period, he was the most famous person on earth. His creation, The Tramp, was so flexible that he could find himself in a factory, a circus, a boxing ring, a gold rush - the list is endless. And it never didn't work. Wherever the Tramp went, he found himself immersed in the business of being human. This documentary wants us to know the man behind the Tramp facade. In many ways, they were very similar. Chaplin came from dire poverty in the hovels of late Victorian London. In many respects, he never left there. His politics were never very precise except that he was always for the underdog, for the Tramp. During the shameful period of American history when the FBI spied on every prominent person (probably still do) and tried to ruin the careers of all those who were sympathetic to working people (again, they probably still do) Chaplin was forced to leave the US and prevented from returning. He never fully recovered from the shock.