Rags and Riches

THE MOVIE: “Chaplin”

THE SETUP: Biography of comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin (Robert Downey Jr., pictured) starting in Victorian England, segueing to Hollywood, Switzerland and back to Hollywood, with all the women in his life--major, minor and supporting players--included.

THE COSTUME DESIGNERS: John Mollo (Academy Award winner for “Gandhi” and “Star Wars”) and Ellen Mirojnick (“Fatal Attraction,” “Wall Street,” “Basic Instinct”).

THE EXPECTED: The tattered and too-tight tail coat, the floppy trousers, the hugely oversized lace-up shoes all topped with a gentlemanly derby. The “Little Tramp” look is as familiar as Mickey’s ears and no more affecting, even though its pathos once must have ignited audiences’ emotions. Here it is faithfully re-created, but slightly differently than in all those IBM commercials. Over the years, Chaplin subtly altered the bottom-heavy concoction. At different times it included plaid and brocade vests.

THE DETAILS: Much of the telling of this tale, spanning Chaplin’s 80 odd years, required Mollo and Mirojnick to simply keep the period details in order. Watch for subtleties, however, as the palette for each period changes and as different characters assume different costume shadings. For instance, as the film opens in dark, sooty Victorian England when Chaplin is desperately poor, he and his family are dressed in oppressively dark grays and blacks. Throughout his palmy Hollywood years, he dons warm browns, creams, tennis whites and tans that blend in with the mahogany paneling lining his plush homes and offices.

Along those lines, the tumultuous affair with Joan Barry (Nancy Travis) is signaled by her frenetic prints and stripes in shades of purple, red, acid green and magenta.

There’s no mistaking fourth wife Oona O’Neill (Moira Kelly) as the calming influence on Chaplin’s life and as the youthful innocent, dressed in shades of butter yellow, white and powder blue. She wears only one “cold” color--navy blue--in the movie, and that’s during the couple’s emotional transatlantic boat trip when Chaplin is exiled.

THE SCENE STEALERS: The glamour queens Mary Pickford (Mary Patillo)--in beaded gowns and pearl-encrusted head ornament--and Paulette Goddard (Diane Lane)--whose changes include fox, marabou and rhinestone--walk off with the film’s most smashing garb.

But equally affecting is Chaplin’s pathetic mother, Hannah (Geraldine Chaplin), whose clothing actually transmits the misery that once must have been generated by the Little Tramp costumes, such as her droopy velvet coat with a ratty fur collar worn with a little hat sprouting fragile spring flowers.

QUOTED: “Period films usually look so overdone. I’m so concerned about making things too costumey. Sometimes you have to take a hat off, take the gloves off, use fewer accessories than more, in order to present the illusion of the time period but let the characters come through,” says Mirojnick, explaining why, in one scene, Chaplin is fully dressed in trousers, shirt, suspenders and socks, but no shoes.

THE RESEARCH: Books on Chaplin and filmmakers of the period plus hundreds of photographs of Chaplin were consulted. “We had pictures of Chaplin at the beach, Chaplin at home, (Douglas) Fairbanks and Chaplin at home--you name a place, we had pictures of it,” says Mirojnick. The designers also found Chaplin’s original uniform from “The Great Dictator” at Western Costume.