Unknown Chaplin

Unknown Chaplin is a three-part 1983 British documentary series about the career and methods of the silent film luminary Charlie Chaplin, using previously unseen film for illustration. The series consist of three episodes, with title My Happiest Years, The Great Director and Hidden Treasures.

The film was directed and written by film historians Kevin Brownlow and David Gill. They were granted access to unseen material from Chaplin's private film archive by his widow Oona O'Neil Chaplin. Episode one of the series was also based on a large cache of pirated outtakes from the Mutual Film Corporation period of Chaplin's career (1916-1917), made available by the film collector Raymond Rohauer. The documentary also includes interviews with Chaplin's second wife Lita Grey, his son Sydney Earl Chaplin, and his surviving co-stars Jackie Coogan, Dean Riesner, Georgia Hale, and Virginia Cherrill.

The series gives unparalleled insight into Chaplin's working methods and filmmaking techniques. In particular, the Mutual outtakes (which Chaplin ordered destroyed due to content inappropriate for the time) show his painstaking approach to developing comedic and dramatic ideas on film, examined in what director Brownlow described as an "archaeology of the cinema". Also shown for the first time are completed scenes Chaplin cut from his classic feature films The Circus, City Lights, and Modern Times, and an enigmatic sequence from an abandoned film entitled The Professor from 1919. The program also includes footage of Georgia Hale as the flower girl in City Lights during a period when Chaplin had fired Cherrill, and rare home movies of Chaplin, including a remarkable behind-the-scenes private film of him at work on City Lights.

The series exhibits various outtakes of Chaplin laughing or getting angry when scenes go awry. Edna Purviancecorpses in several clips, and in one she plays a joke on another actress during filming. A compilation of alternate takes illustrates how Chaplin slowly developed the story line of The Immigrant.

La película fue narrada por James Mason , y la música original fue compuesta y dirigida por Carl Davis , basada en gran parte en temas compuestos por el propio Chaplin. PBS distribuyó la serie en Estados Unidos en 1986 como parte de la serie American Masters . En el lanzamiento en DVD de la serie en 2005, Brownlow relata parte de la historia de fondo de Unknown Chaplin . La serie fue reeditada en DVD en noviembre de 2024. En 2010, Brownlow publicó un libro sobre la realización del documental titulado The Search for Charlie Chaplin .

• Chaplin desconocido en IMDb
• El episodio 1 de "Unknown Chaplin" — "My Happiest Years" está disponible para su visualización y descarga gratuitas en Internet Archive.
• El documental "Chaplin desconocido: Ep. 2 - El gran director" está disponible para su visualización y descarga gratuitas en Internet Archive.
• Chaplin desconocido: Ep. 3 - Tesoros ocultos está disponible para su visualización y descarga gratuita en Internet Archive (rollo uno).
• El episodio 3 de «Chaplin desconocido: Tesoros ocultos» está disponible para su visualización y descarga gratuitas en Internet Archive (rollo dos).