The Untold Labor That Helped Make Charlie Chaplin’s Film Scores

To work with the great Charlie Chaplin meant suffering some of the most traumatic creative pains imaginable. One of the most pivotal filmmakers of the early Hollywood era, Chaplin developed a reputation for perfectionism. He worked some of his actors and crew into the ground until they quit, were fired for less-than-perfect quality, or collapsed from mental exhaustion. The opening scene of City Lights (1931)—wherein Chaplin’s signature childlike, vagrant character, the Tramp, is given a flower by the romantic lead, Virginia Cherrill—took an astounding 342 takes over the course of five days before Chaplin fired, and then rehired, Cherrill.

Stories of Chaplin’s onerous on-set demands are part and parcel of an enduring legacy, even if his treatment of collaborators isn’t considered legally