Guy Lodge Film CriticThe 1978 theft of Charlie Chaplin’s coffin from its rural Swiss resting place was the kind of bizarre case — equal parts absurd caper and poignant story of human desperation, escalating wildly and ending with peace restored — that you’d expect to have been the subject of at least one hefty true-crime movie. Instead, it seems to keep inspiring curious sideways riffs on history.In 2014, French auteur Xavier Beauvois heavily fictionalized the identities and motives of the grave-robbers for his sweetly mournful “The Price of Fame,” attempting to channel some of Chaplin’s sentimental underdog spirit in lieu of factual fidelity.
