Charlie, the Perfect Lady

A Woman
R: Charles Chaplin. B: Charles Chaplin. K: Harry Ensign. D: Charles Chaplin, Charles Insley, Marta Golden, Edna Purviance, Billy Armstrong, Leo White, Margie Reiger. P: Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. USA 1915
Print: Cineteca di Bologna / Lobster

“A Woman — the last of a trio of Charlie Chaplin comedies in which he cross-dresses — was clearly the most successful. His previous comedic turns in a dress included both A Busy Day and The Masquerader, but it is only in this film that he seriously attempts to convince the viewer as a bonafide female impersonator. (…)
Despite the growing acceptance of female impersonations (something Laurel and Hardy would make a great play of in their later films), such was the concern in 1915 about Chaplin’s taboo busting in A Woman, the film was banned in Scandinavia until the 1930s. In Britain, the country’s censor the BBFC initially rejected the film for release when first submitted for approval in March 1915. Shortly thereafter, the British censor relented and A Woman was approved for British distribution under the title Charlie, the Perfect Lady.
(…)
In terms of cinematic technique, Chaplin developed the use of the close-up in A Woman, something he’d sparingly but notably dabbled with before. Ironically, the significant close-up here is reserved not for Chaplin in his Tramp guise, but when he has discarded his male persona and adopted female clothing. It as if he was challenging his viewers to look at him afresh, without his distinctive and trademark moustache, but yet not as himself as he appeared off-screen (when he was largely unrecognisable to most as the ‘Charlie Chaplin’ from the films). The point being, perhaps, that there was more to this little fellow than a knockabout clown, as he would go on to prove in his future filmmaking endeavours.”
Brian J. Robb
Chaplin: Film by Film