Script of Charlie Chaplin's unfinished final film 'The Freak' to be published
The project, which Chaplin had been developing before his passing in 1977 at the age of 88, has been reconstructed from his drafts, storyboards, and sketches, reports The Guardian.
The script of Charlie Chaplin's unfinished final film, "The Freak", is set to be published for the first time, decades after the legendary filmmaker's death.
The project, which Chaplin had been developing before his passing in 1977 at the age of 88, has been reconstructed from his drafts, storyboards, and sketches, reports The Guardian.
Rising from the slums of Victorian London to become one of cinema's first great comic artists, Chaplin left behind a rich legacy with masterpieces like The Great Dictator and Limelight. The Freak adds a new dimension to his body of work.
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Titled The Freak, the fantasy tells the story of "a beautiful creature with wings … a bird with a human body," as Chaplin described. The otherworldly female character, named Sarapha, possesses the power to heal and bring peace to the world.
Chaplin himself planned to appear in a cameo role as a startled drunk, watching Sarapha soar above London's Houses of Parliament.
The surviving papers for The Freak are more extensive than for any of Chaplin's other films, suggesting he was close to production. They include detailed scene breakdowns, special effects sessions for the wings, financial projections, and minutes from technical meetings.
David Robinson, Chaplin's official biographer and editor of the new book containing the material, said: "It's a shame that it wasn't finished because it could have been a marvellous film."
Chaplin had cast his teenage daughter, Victoria Chaplin, as Sarapha.
She recalled, "For hours, for weeks, for months, he [Chaplin] studied the movements of birds in flight – the living mechanics of wings. He watched films where men and women soared through the sky. But the techniques back then did not satisfy him.
"He wanted to find his own way – crafted, personal – a way to translate the sensation of flight onto the screen. I believe he would have found it. But time clipped his wings. Charlie Chaplin never brought his vision to life."
Sticking Place Books will publish The Freak: The Story of an Unfinished Film this weekend.
British publisher Paul Cronin said Chaplin had created a heroine as timeless as the Little Tramp: "Chaplin made that very clear in his production notes."
This marks the first time the script will be published in English. It previously appeared only in Italian in 2020, in a limited edition by the Cineteca di Bologna, which has catalogued the entire Chaplin Archive.
Cecilia Cenciarelli of the Cineteca di Bologna, who edited the new book in collaboration with the Chaplin family, said the film was virtually unknown even among scholars: "We found ourselves handling hundreds of pages of this film we've never heard anything about and turned to David [Robinson's] 'bible', Chaplin: His Life and Art, for clarification, only to realise that The Freak was barely mentioned."
Among the papers were casting notes marked "confidential," naming Robert Vaughn, James Fox, and Richard Chamberlain as contenders for the role of an English professor who discovers Sarapha injured on his roof and befriends her.
In one scene, Sarapha tells him, "I don't like mystifying and frightening people … I am afraid of everyone and everyone is afraid of me." In another, Chaplin wrote that Sarapha "loved him in spite of the fact that he was without wings."
In 1969, Chaplin was in London exploring options for the flying scenes, consulting companies that specialised in stage and film effects, including experts at Shepperton Studios.
The upcoming book includes an interview with artist Gerald Larn, who created 150 sketches of the flying sequences. "Charlie was very clear and detailed about what he wanted and what he expected from us … We thought it would be a difficult project, but not impossible … The good thing was that we always got feedback from Charlie," Larn said.
Arnold Lozano, manager of the Chaplin estate, described the forthcoming publication as "the first comprehensive presentation of Chaplin's last, unfinished film project."
He added, "Drawn from nearly 3,000 pages of Chaplin's words, photographs and designs, along with his own recorded readings and piano compositions for the score, it reveals The Freak as perhaps his final bequest. Unique within his body of work yet still touched by unmistakable Chaplinesque elements, this publication offers a rare glimpse into one of the most remarkable projects of his 63-year creative life in cinema."
