Edinburgh Napier University

  Short experimental documentary built around archival footage shot by Bill Douglas during the demolition of Charlie Chaplin's house in 1969, London.

Bill Douglas was a lifelong Chaplin fan and major collector of Chaplin memorabilia. His collection is now housed in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, University of Exeter. Charlie Chaplin described in his autobiography (1922) his memories of the places where he grew up, as he revisited them on a trip to London in 1921. Douglas was engaged in making a documentary about Chaplin's London when he came across the Chaplin house as it was being demolished in 1969 and was allowed to film its destruction. Using this footage, interviews with Peter Jewell, who was there as it was being filmed, and excerpts from the Chaplin autobiography as voiceover, this film presents layers of memory tied to place. The materials bring together Chaplin's original childhood in the 1890s, his recreation of these memories walking around London in 1921, Bill Douglas' documentation of these places (and the destruction of Chaplin's childhood home), with our contemporary footage of the same places in 2015.