Stealing Charlie Chaplin

In March 1978, three months after silent comedy legend Charlie Chaplin died, his body was exhumed by robbers from his grave in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. The local police found no clues at the crime scene and, initially, no suspects for this highly bizarre event. Philip Boatswain's documentary traces the story of this unlikely crime and the events that transpired before Chaplin's remains were recovered. After an initial flurry of false leads and prank calls, the grave robbers contacted the Chaplin family and demanded half a million Swiss francs in exchange for the body, making detailed threats against Chaplin's widow, Oona, and her children if their demands were not fulfilled. The Swiss police worked diligently on the case—at one point, they had all 200 of the telephone booths in the area around the Chaplin estate monitored. Eventually, the culprits—a pair of Eastern European mechanics who came to Switzerland as refugees—were arrested and Chaplin's body was recovered from a shallow grave in a nearby cornfield. Boatswain combines news footage connected to the crime with interviews of the investigators who solved the case. An entertaining and compelling true-crime documentary, this is highly recommended. Aud: P. (P. Hall)