My Autobiography (65 page)

The following morning we reserved a large room in the hotel and I met the American Press. After cocktails were served I made my appearance, but I could smell mischief. I spoke from a rostrum at the back of a small table, and with as much charm as I could pin on, I said:

‘How do you do, ladies and gentlemen. I am here to impart any facts that might interest you in connexion with my picture and my future plans.’

They remained silent. ‘Don’t all speak at once,’ I said, smiling.

Eventually a woman reporter sitting near the front said: ‘Are you a Communist?’

‘No,’ I answered definitely. ‘The next question please.’

Then a voice began mumbling. I thought it might be my friend from the
Daily News
, but he was conspicuous by his absence. Instead the speaker was a begrimed-looking object with his overcoat on, bent closely over a manuscript from which he was reading.

‘Pardon me,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to read that again, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’

He started: ‘We of the Catholic War Veterans…’

I interrupted: ‘I’m not here to answer any Catholic War Veterans; this is a meeting of the Press.’

‘Why haven’t you become a citizen?’ said another voice.

‘I see no reason to change my nationality. I consider myself a citizen of the world,’ I answered.

There was quite a stir. Two or three people wanted to talk at once. One voice dominated, however: ‘But you earn your money in America.’

‘Well,’ I said smilingly, ‘if you’re putting it on a mercenary basis, we’ll have the record straight. My business is an international one; seventy per cent of all my income is earned abroad,
and the United States enjoys one hundred per cent taxation on it, so you see I am a very good paying guest.’

Again the Catholic Legion piped up: ‘Whether you earn your money here or not, we who landed on those beaches in France resent your not being a citizen of this country.’

‘You’re not the only guy who landed on those beaches,’ I said. ‘My two sons were also there in Patton’s army, right up in the front line, and they’re not beefing or exploiting the fact as you’re doing.’

‘Do you know Hanns Eisler?’ said another reporter.

‘Yes, he’s a very dear friend of mine, and a great musician.’

‘Do you know that he’s a Communist?’

‘I don’t care what he is; my friendship is not based on politics.’

‘You seem to like the Communists, though,’ said another.

‘Nobody is going to tell me whom to like or dislike. We haven’t come to that yet.’

Then a voice out of the belligerence said: ‘How does it feel to be an artist who has enriched the world with so much happiness and understanding of the little people, and to be derided and held up to hate and scorn by the so-called representatives of the American Press?’

I was so deaf to any expression of sympathy that I answered abruptly: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t follow you, you’ll have to repeat that question again.’

My publicity man nudged me and whispered: ‘This fellow’s for you, he said a very fine thing.’ It was Jim Agee, the American poet and novelist, at that time working as a special feature writer and critic for
Time
magazine. I was thrown off my guard and confused.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘ I didn’t hear you – Would you kindly repeat that again?’

‘I don’t know if I can,’ he said, slightly embarrassed, then he repeated approximately the same words.

I could think of no answer, so I shook my head and said: ‘No comment… but thank you.’

I was no good after that. His kind words had left me without any more fight. ‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I thought this conference was to be an interview about my film; instead it has turned into a political brawl, so I have nothing further to say.’
After the interview I was inwardly sick at heart, for I knew that a virulent hostility was against me.

Still I could not quite believe it. I had had wonderful mail congratulating me on
The Great Dictator
, which had grossed more money than any picture I had ever made, and before that picture I had gone through plenty of adverse publicity. Besides, I had great confidence in the success of
Monsieur Verdoux
, and the staff of United Artists felt the same.

Mary Pickford telephoned to say that she would like to go with Oona and me to the opening, so we invited here to dine with us at the ‘21’ restaurant. Mary was quite late for dinner. She said she had been detained at a cocktail party and had had difficulty in tearing herself away.

When we arrived at the theatre crowds were milling outside. As we pressed our way through into the lobby, we discovered a man broadcasting over the radio: ‘And now Charlie Chaplin and his wife have arrived. Ah, and with them as their guest that wonderful little actress of the silent days who is still America’s sweetheart, Miss Mary Pickford. Mary, won’t you say a few words about this wonderful opening?’

The lobby was packed, and Mary propelled her way over to the microphone, still holding on to my hand.

‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is Miss Mary Pickford.’

In the midst of the shoving and pushing, said Mary: ‘Two thousand years ago Christ was born, and tonight…’ She got no further, for, still holding on to my hand, she was yanked away from the mike by a sudden push from the crowd –I have often wondered since what was coming next.

There was an uneasy atmosphere in the theatre that night, a feeling that the audience had come to prove something. The moment the film started, instead of the eager anticipation and the happy stir of the past that had greeted my films, there was nervous applause scattered with a few hisses. I loathe to admit it but those few hisses hurt more than all the antagonism of the Press.

As the picture progressed I began to get worried. The laughter was there, but divided. It was not the laughter of old, of
The Gold Rush
, of
City Lights
, or
Shoulder Arms
. It was challenging laughter against the hissing faction in the theatre. My heart began to sink. I could not sit in my seat any longer. I whispered to
Oona: ‘I’m going out in the lobby, I can’t take it.’ She squeezed my hand. My crumpled programme, which I had twisted beyond repair, smarted the palms of my hands, so I discarded it under my seat. I crept up the aisle and walked about the lobby. I was torn between listening for laughs and getting away from it all. Then I crept up into the circle to see what it was like there. One man was laughing more than the rest, undoubtedly a friend, but it was convulsive and nervous laughter, as though he wanted to prove something. It was the same thing in the gallery and the circle.

For two hours I paced around in the lobby, in the street, around the theatre, then back to look at the film. It seemed to go on interminably. At last it was over. Earl Wilson, the columnist, a very decent chap, was one of the first I met in the lobby. ‘I liked it,’ he said, emphasizing the ‘I’. Then up came Arthur Kelly, my representative. ‘Of course, it’s not going to gross any twelve million,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll settle for half,’ I said jokingly.

We gave a supper party afterwards for about a hundred and fifty people – a few were old friends. That evening there were many cross-currents, and despite the champagne it was depressing. Oona stole home to bed, but I stayed half an hour longer.

Bayard Swope, a man whom I liked and thought astute, was arguing with my friend Don Stewart about the film. Swope hated it. That night only a few complimented me. Don Stewart, a little drunk like myself, said: ‘Charlie, they’re all a lot of bastards trying to make politics out of your picture, but it’s great and the audience loved it.’

By this time I did not care what anyone thought, I had no more resistance. Don Stewart saw me back to the hotel. Oona was already asleep when we arrived.

‘What floor is this?’ Don asked.

‘The seventeenth.’

‘Jesus! Do you realize what room this is? The one where the boy stepped out on the ledge and stood for twelve hours before plunging off and killing himself!’

This news was a fitting climax to the evening. However, I believe
Monsieur Verdoux
is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made.

To my surprise
Monsieur Verdoux
had a run of six weeks in New York and did very good business. But it suddenly fell off.
When I asked Grad Seers of United Artists about it he said: ‘Any picture you make will always do big business the first three or four weeks, because you have the following of your old fans. But after that comes the general public, and frankly the Press have been continually hammering at you for more than ten years and it’s bound to have penetration; that’s why the business fell off.’

‘But surely the general public has a sense of humour?’ I said.

‘Here!’ He showed me the
Daily News
and the Hearst papers. ‘And that goes all over the country.’

One had a picture of the New Jersey Catholic Legion picketing outside the theatre showing
Monsieur Verdoux
in that state. They were carrying signs that read:

‘Chaplin’s a fellow traveller.’

‘Kick the alien out of the country.’

‘Chaplin’s been a paying guest too long.’

‘Chaplin, the ingrate and communist sympathizer.’

‘Send Chaplin to Russia…’

When a world of disappointment and trouble descends on one, if one doesn’t turn to despair one resorts to either philosophy or humour. And when Grad showed me the picture of the picketers, with not a customer outside the theatre, I said jokingly: ‘Evidently taken at five o’clock in the morning.’ However, where
Monsieur Verdoux
played without interference, it did more than ordinary good business.

The picture was booked by all the big circuits round the country. But after receiving threatening letters from the American Legion and other pressure groups they cancelled the showings. The Legion had an effective way of frightening the exhibitors by threatening to boycott a theatre for a year if they showed a Chaplin picture or other films of which they disapproved. In Denver the film opened one night to big business and closed the following night due to this threatening procedure.

Our New York sojourn was the unhappiest we have ever spent there. Each day we would receive news of cancellations of the film. Besides this, I was embroiled in a plagiarism suit over
The Great Dictator;
and at the height of the intense hate and antagonism of both the Press and the public, and while four senators were denouncing me on the floor of the Senate, the case was tried with a jury, in spite of my wanting to postpone it.

Before going further, I want to set the record straight by saying that I have always solely conceived and written my own scripts. The case had hardly started when the judge announced that his father was dying, and could we come to a settlement so that he could get away and be with him? The opposing side saw the technical advantage and readily jumped at the opportunity for a settlement. Under normal circumstances I would have insisted on continuing the case. But because of my unpopularity in the States at that moment and being under such court pressure, I was terrified, not knowing what to expect next, so we came to a settlement.

All hopes of a $12,000,000 gross for
Verdoux
had vanished. It would hardly pay its own cost, so now the United Artists company was in a desperate crisis. To economize, Mary insisted on firing my representative, Arthur Kelly, and was indignant when I reminded her that I was also half-owner of the company. ‘If my representatives go, Mary, then so must yours,’ I said. This brought about an impasse which terminated in my saying: ‘It’s up to one of us to buy or sell, name your own price.’ But Mary would not name a price; neither would I.

Eventually, a firm of lawyers representing an Eastern circuit of theatres came to the rescue. They wanted control of the company and were willing to pay us $12,000,000 – $7,000,000 in cash and $5,000,000 in stock. This was a godsend.

‘Look,’ I said to Mary, ‘give me five million in cash now and I’ll get out and you can have the rest.’ She agreed and so did the company.

After weeks of negotiating, documents were drawn up to that effect. Eventually my lawyer called up and said: ‘Charlie, in ten minutes you will be worth five million.’

But ten minutes later he telephoned: ‘Charlie, the deal’s off. Mary had the pen in her hand and was about to sign, then suddenly said: “No! Why should he get the five million dollars now, and I have to wait two years for mine?” We argued that she was getting seven million dollars – two million dollars more than you. But her excuse was that it would create problems with her income tax.’ That had been our golden opportunity; later we were forced to sell for a considerable amount less.

*

We returned to California and I completely recovered from the ordeal of
Monsieur Verdoux
, so I began ruminating ideas again. For I was optimistic and still not convinced that I had completely lost the affection of the American people, that they could be so politically conscious or so humourless as to boycott anyone that could amuse them. I had an idea and under its compulsion I did not give a damn what the outcome would be; the film had to be made.

The world, no matter what modern veneer it may assume, always loves a love story. As Hazlitt says, sentiment is more appealing than intellect and is also the greater contribution to a work of art. And my idea was a love story; besides, it was something completely opposite to the cynical pessimism of
Monsieur Verdoux
. But, what was more important, the idea stimulated me.

Limelight
required eighteen months’ preparation. There were twelve minutes of ballet music to compose, which presented an almost insuperable task because I had to imagine the action of the ballet. In the past I had composed music only when my film was completed and I could see its action. Nevertheless, by imagining the dancing I composed all the music. But when it was completed I wondered whether it was suitable for ballet, for the choreography would more or less have to be invented by the dancers themselves.

Being a great admirer of André Eglevsky, I thought of him in the ballet. He was in New York, so I phoned him and asked him if he would be willing to do his ‘Bluebird’ dance to different music and if he could suggest a ballerina to dance with him. He said he would have to hear the music first. The ‘Bluebird’ dance is to the music of Tchaikovsky and lasts forty-five seconds. I had therefore composed something for that length of time.