Charlie Chaplin: The Little Tramp

This film covers Chaplin's early life with stills, as there is no movie record of it, and his meteoric rise to fame in 1914 to about 1917, with clips of "Auto Races in Venice (1914)" (where he first used his 'little tramp' getup), followed by clips of 13 other shorts in the period, including "The Floorwalker," "The Rink" and "The Immigrant." It was fairly well written and nicely hosted by Joel Grey, but it could have been much better. I was disappointed in the quality of many of the clips. They were not only scratchy, but also overblown with heads often cut off. And they were run at sound speed giving it that jerky motion which gives silents a bad name. Even in 1980, better clips were available and should have been used.

One of HBO's earliest experiences in documentary, "Charlie Chaplin: The Little Tramp" is a gathering of Chaplin films where he plays his most famous character Carlitos. Hosted by Joel Grey ("Cabaret") dressed as Carlitos, we have the pleasure to see a short biography of Chaplin, remarks on how he created one of the most adored character of all time and clips of his films such as "Kid Auto races in Venice" (the Little Tramp first appearance on screen. Comes as curiosity the fact Mack Sennett saying to Chaplin to pick a costume for the character and the rest is history, what a sweet improvisation), "The Immigrant" and many others.

Despite the quality informations the documentary is way too short, too much focused in presenting the clips (poor quality) without saying much about the man's geniality in performing extraordinary moments. The director should include more points of view from different people instead of just making a text and letting Grey narrated it. Most of the time is just scene after scene, a little explanation on it and that's it, somewhat boring to watch.

Good material, pretty decent but far from what one can expects to be see on the great comedian Charles Chaplin was.