Fade to Black Magazine Presents:

To provide you with a better perspective on the Charlie Chaplin FBI file, Fade To Black has asked Lindsay Young Professor of Cinema Studies and American Studies at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Chuck Maland, for some assistance. Dr. Maland has published three books and many articles and reviews focusing on movies and their relationship to American culture. His book, Chaplin and American Culture, won the Theater Library Association Award for best book in the area of recorded performance (film, radio, or television) in 1989. We hope that his great expertise on the Little Tramp and American Cinema will bring great insight into the FBI File.
 

The FBI and the Little Tramp: An Introduction
Charles Maland
University of Tennessee

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fade to Black has obtained 2063 pages of FBI files on Charlie Chaplin. To help readers make sense of these documents (and perhaps to save them from large-scale eye strain from sitting in front of monitors too long!), Fade To Black has asked me to provide an introduction to Chaplin and his FBI files. After sketching an outline of Chaplin's career and suggesting why the FBI became interested in him, I'll describe what the FBI files are like and how to read them, followed by some suggestions about particularly important sections of the files. 

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