Chaplin theme - BBC TV 1970

[markandresen]

Does anyone who, like me, saw the BBC's Charlie Chaplin series of silent shorts, broadcast on Sunday afternoons in the early 70s', recall the name of his beautiful, if sentimental, waltz theme, played on violin, that opened and closed each programme?

I'm trying to locate a recording on CD and don't know which - if any - of his film score releases might hold it.

If someone at least knows the title, I'd be very grateful. (I thought it might have been his 'Park Avenue Waltz' but hearing it has cancelled this out).

[Ewan Montague]

1970 BBC ‘Charlie Chaplin’ by Tommy Steele, is that the one? or was it actual Chaplin films?

[markandresen]

Hi Ewan - forgive the delay in responding. Via Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay Productions, I've been put in touch with a sound bloke named Glenn Mitchell; a specialist author on early film who'd actually video recorded BBC repeats of said progs back in the mid-70s'. Turns out the theme (untitled, far as we know) wasn't written by Chaplin at all, but by BBC in-house composer, Dennis Wilson, for the 'Chaplin Superclown' series of Essanay shorts that debuted in April 1973. Never available commercially, though, sadly.

[Ewan Montague]

ok
sounds interesting I'll have to track down the track and have a listen