No doubt about it, Chaplin was a leftist of a devoted and radical kind.
In fact, the first time we ran the picture together...
...I was so taken with it that I about fell off the chair.
He told me later that he wondered about that...
...whether I was putting it on, and he said, "I soon discovered it was not so."
Attention, foreman. Trouble on bench five.
Check on the nut-tighteners. Nuts coming through loose on bench five.
Attention foreman.
Charlie did not know how to notate music...
...and he didn't know how to extend musical ideas.
And they needed somebody to work with him.
The fellows who were in charge, Alfred Newman and Eddie Powell...
...knew my work from New York, and they brought me out here.
And I went to work for Charlie.
And he really had a wonderful instinct for music.
They were simple little tunes, and my job was to take them down...
...to alter them when I thought they needed altering. And that's what I did.
We worked five days a week, sometimes six...
...and it was altogether quite wonderful, you know.
He became this sort of a surrogate father for me.
What you feel sometimes with a thing like the eating machine...
...you see an investment in a prop, in a shot, in an idea.
So we have to let this really play and we have to do it.
And it's about twice too long, maybe, the eating machine.
There's nothing in film like the feeding machine.
It was just absolutely wonderful.
The man is reduced to something less than the sum of the parts, you see.
He's just an animal, which is being fed by a machine.
Few people know that table, which goes around...
...Charlie was manipulating that himself. It wasn't somebody else doing it.
He was the guy with gadgets underneath the table...
...and he would make it turn around and all that sort of stuff.
The man was simply incredible.
And he also manipulated that mouth-wiper...
...that comes and hits him in the face and hurt him...
...and just made his face puff up and his mouth puff up. He was amazing.
Sometimes you feel something akin to pretension...
...in the agenda of Modern Times, and it's a little off... It's distancing.
At the same time, when I watch Modern Times, I'll sit there...
...and feel slightly superior, which with a great master...
...part of you is urging, "How can I get a leg-up on this guy...
...and feel at least even with him?"
But then there'll be a sequence and you'll think:
"That was so smart and so efficient."
Nothing was smarter or more efficient than this sequence.
The ever-helpful Tramp picks up a red flag...
...and before he knows it, he's innocently leading a Communist demonstration.
There's something prescient in the sequence.
Within a decade, Chaplin himself would be cruelly red-baited.
In a strange way, Modern Times is a bit of a throwback.
Because if you look at it, it's really a collection of four two-reelers.
The film was certainly not all politics, all the time.
Goddard was cast as the waif opposite the Tramp...
...and much of the comedy was as innocent as any Chaplin had ever done.
In Modern Times, it is brilliant...
...and you're following the story, and it kind of peters out.
It doesn't go anywhere. It's just a brilliant trip...
...and each skit is very funny and brilliantly executed.
And it goes along on the momentum of his genius...
...the fact that he's funny and the bits are funny.
We talked politics, we talked just about everything...
...because he had a real knowledge of these things.
He had a mind like a super attic.
We went to Musso & Frank's for lunch every day...
...five days a week. We were driven there in Charlie's car.
And we had a table...
...which was reserved for us, and we'd sing.
There was a thing called "I Want a Lassie."
And it was a tune Charlie knew and I knew, and we'd sing to that tune.
And the people in the place would look and say, "What's that?"
And then they'd suddenly see it was Chaplin...
...and they had great prospects for their evening conversation...
...so they listened.
I think people sometimes don't understand about the fact...
...that a man like Charlie, who was a millionaire...
...can do this poverty-stricken Tramp.
Yet he did it, and there was never anything more convincing in films...
...I think, than the way he did it. And that's a great tribute to him.
Despite the film 's casual construction, some critics thought Chaplin...
...was beginning to take himself and the world too seriously.
But still, in the end, he was able for the last time in movie history...
...to find an open road into a better future.
This time with a pretty girl on his arm.
I really still love Charlie.
He was not just like a father to me, which he was in some ways...
...but I admired him very much for the constancy of his point of view.
He really had a feeling for those who lead ordinary lives...
...and are sometimes shortchanged by circumstances.
After Modern Times' release in 1936...
...Charlie and Paulette took a vacation cruise.
Charlie never saw a newsreel camera he wouldn 't play to.
What was supposed to be a short Hawaiian vacation...
...would soon stretch into a three-month tour of Asia.
Back home, people began to wonder...
...if Charlie and Paulette were actually married.
They later claimed that they were married...
...though there's no record of the nuptials, somewhere in Asia.
Still later, when their relationship began to come apart...
...they found themselves denying rumors of divorce.
For the moment, though...
...they were obviously delighted with one another's company.
And Chaplin was beginning to plan his biggest...
...and most problematic movie to date.
The Great Dictator opens on the Western Front during World War I.
It is Chaplin 's first all-talking production.
In it, he would play two characters.
One of them would be a Tramp variation...
...an innocent Jewish barber serving bravely, if ineffectually...
...in Tomania 's army.
- Breech secured! - Stand clear!
Ready! Fire!
Behind-the-scenes footage, shot by brother Sydney...
...has recently been discovered.
On The Dictator, I remember, he had a thing where he pulled the gun.
He fired this Big Bertha sort of a cannon.
And I was out there, and I let out a big, "Ha, ha, ha!"
And he said, "Cut, cut!" I thought he was gonna be sore as hell.
He was absolutely thrilled that somebody laughed at it.
Chaplin threw their famous resemblance right in Der Fuhrer's face.
His pictures were now banned in Germany...
...but that's not what motivated his portrayal of the dictator Hynkel.
For his comic German accent, he drew on his vaudeville training.
Most comedians of his era could talk "Dutch."
You know, I really started to see movies when I was 13...
...after the World War II.
I lived in Czechoslovakia, which was occupied by the Nazis.
Suddenly comes The Great Dictator...
...and there was a liberation, because single-handedly...
...Chaplin reduced this monster into a pathetic...
...ridiculous, venomous clown.
You can say that, you know, the Allies liberated Europe physically...
...but The Great Dictator, Chaplin, liberated us spiritually...
...and made you think also, because suddenly you realized watching:
"How is it possible that this pathetic creature...
...had such a power over good German people?"
Millions of people followed him...
...died for him, for this insane lunatic.
It's almost as if he made that film because he felt...
...that Hitler had become his rival in reaching out for everybody.
The Hitler character, he had a strong relationship...
...to the early Tramp, who's a troublemaker, who's primitive.
And the other person, the barber, is more his human side.
It's interesting, the relationship between the two and how they get confused.
I think it was a very brave film to make.
I don't think that many people were being openly critical...
...of what was going on at the time, and he was one of the...
Maybe not the only one, but he was one of the few.
Come here, you! Attacking a storm trooper, huh?
- Grab him! - You'll hear from my lawyer.
Come on!
Why, you...
He bit my finger!
The barber and Hynkel will eventually exchange roles.
The Jewish barber pays a comic, balletic price for the accident of his birth.
His creator, asked once if he was Jewish...
...made this superb reply, "I do not have that honor."
I love the whole film, and I think that this scene when he plays...
...with the globe...
...and it's just perfect metaphor for the sick dreams of every dictator.
Out, Caesar of Nuris, emperor of the world.
My world.
That scene was written. Every single movement was written down.
Whereas all the scenes where he does that pretend German were improvised.
I would have thought that that would be written to make it sound like German...
...but he just apparently said to the camera, "Roll." And then went on...
...and just rambled on in this almost perfect German.
It's an idea he'd had for a long time.
Some smart guy said, "Oh, that was my idea."
But then there's actually footage of him way back in home movies doing it.
In the home movie, he was dressed in a Grecian outfit.
It just was so perfect for Hitler.
The globe dance, I could watch it for hours and hours. Rewind, once again.
It's absolutely incredible.
Literally, I could watch it for weeks and never get bored.
I mean, just the metaphor. It's just endlessly, endlessly brilliant.
People just fall down dead over an alleged metaphor...
...but I don't find it funny or a brilliant metaphor.
Some would agree with Woody Allen. Some would not.
But at a time when 90% of America opposed war...
...and half the country was to some degree anti-Semitic...
...this admittedly preachy film was undeniably courageous.
It was Hitler who seemed to be imitating Chaplin, not Chaplin imitating Hitler.
Chaplin came first. Chaplin was famous long before Hitler was famous.
There's a little bit of Hitler in all of us. That's the whole idea...
...that Hitler is not some creature who came from outer space. He's one of us.
I think the genius of the film is that Chaplin realizes a lot of Hitler in him...
...that there's a lot of Hitler...
...in anyone who dominates audiences and rouses the rabble.
There is no doubt in The Great Dictator that he felt he had to say...
...something about this phenomenon, this issue of fascism...
...and where the world was headed.
And when he does blatantly speak, he's the voice of a generation.
He's the voice of several generations. What is he going to say?
It's an imposing of a kind of self- importance. It's very dangerous.
I happen to like the tone of his voice. I liked being with him.
You must speak.
- I can't. - You must. It's our only hope.
You have a situation, World War II, and he speaks very clearly.
He makes statements on the world and the nature of government...
...the nature of fascism.
It does sound like preaching.
It sounds like, " They expect me to make a comment, and I'm gonna do it."
The people at the time said, " He's too self-important. He's got above himself."
I don't think it was quite that. He did take life terribly seriously.
He thought a lot about things.
He would get terribly troubled by things that were going on in the world.
He was deeply distressed by the Spanish Civil War, for instance.
He genuinely felt he got an audience, he's got to say something.
It's not Hitler/Hynkel, it's not the Jewish barber.
Suddenly, Charles Chaplin's face comes through.
I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor.
That's not my business.
I don't want to rule or conquer anyone.
I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white.
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We don't want to hate and despise one another.
In this world, there's room for everyone. The good Earth is rich...
...and can provide for everyone.
Not one word has lost its significance. It's as true now as it was then.
Pacifist public opinion, critical hesitation, counted for little.
In its initial release, The Great Dictator was Chaplin 's biggest-grossing film.
In World War II, he vocally...
...controversially supported our Russian allies...
...notably, at a Carnegie Hall rally, where he followed a waffling Orson Welles.
The next speaker was Charlie. He came out, this natty figure...
...walked to the center of the stage...
...raised his hand...
...said, "Comrades!"
Well, the place came down.
He remained what he had always been, a restless, driven man.
But at 53, he began to find a measure of happiness when he met Oona O 'Neill.
She was 16, the daughter of the playwright Eugene O 'Neill.
A New York debutante, she was now both shyly and eagerly...
...seeking a career as an actress.
For Chaplin, it was love at first sight, the last and greatest love of his life.
Within a couple of months, she was living with him.
This screen test for an unmade film called The Girl from Leningrad...
...gives us a unique glimpse of her spirit in 1942.
Don't turn around so quick. Hey, stop. Not so quick.
But he had recently had and broken off an affair with Joan Berry...
...a very disturbed would-be actress...
...who desperately broke into his home one night.
I came home, he was very strange. He said, "Go to bed."
I went into bed, and what had happened is, she had broken in with a gun.
He talked her out of this nonsense, and she put the gun down and left.
He said, one day, he did the greatest piece of acting he's ever done in his life.
She pulled a gun on him, and she was going to shoot him.
He acted his way out of the situation till he got that gun out of her hand.
He could not act his way out of the law's clutches.
Here, he is humiliatingly fingerprinted.
The FBI had been keeping a file on him since 1922.
For some reason, J. Edgar Hoover held an implacable hatred for him.
The FBI conspired to charge him with a Mann Act violation.
The law ludicrously forbade the transportation of women...
...across state lines for immoral purposes.
Chaplin, here shaking hands with the jury, eventually won that case.
Simultaneously, Joan Berry brought a paternity suit against him.
There were two trials and countless scandalous headlines.
Berry's lawyer had a field day.
"Lecherous hound, Cockney cad, a reptile"...
...were just some of the names he called Chaplin.
Blood tests proved Chaplin could not be the father...
...but they were inadmissible under California law.
Chaplin lost the case...
...also lost was much of America 's affection for its beloved Tramp.
You know, he supported that child. He didn't make an issue of it.
He said, "Okay." Paid for the kid, but it was not his.
Monsieur Verdoux would deepen the nation 's alienation...
...despite this hilariously failed attempt at murder.
No, he won't...
- What are you gonna do with that? - Lasso him.
Don't be silly, you can't lasso a fish. Any fool knows that.
Oh, yes, you can.
All you have to do is to place it over his head like that.
Then you pull it tight, like this.
What's that?
A yodeler.
- Oh, that ruins everything. - Certainly does.
Too bad we couldn't find a place all to ourselves.
Certainly is.
Orson Welles proposed the idea to Chaplin.
Based on the true case of Henri Landru, a notorious French wife-murderer.
Chaplin vastly expanded it into an indictment of bourgeois society.
Making Verdoux at that moment in his life...
...when his own morality was so much in question, was great provocation.
It was the final pin that broke the camel's back.
It got him into deep trouble with all sorts of war veterans...
And everyone, I think, came down on him for making that film.
Monsieur Verdoux is a bank official who gets fired after decades of service.
To support his wife and child, he takes to marrying rich widows...
...and then killing them for their money.
It's a black comedy by a man who actually had no blackness in him.
I wonder how long he's going to keep that incinerator burning.
- It's been going for the last three days. - I know.
I haven't had a chance to put my washing out.
It's almost a mea culpa. It's a statement about capitalism.
It's a statement...
...that murder's the logical extension of business.
That when you're out to make a living, anything goes.
Verdoux expertly counting his money was a chilling...
...but well-remembered comic motif in the film.
The Lydia scene is unique, though.
I think that's the first murder you see.
And going up the stairs and him talking about the moon.
The elegance of the shot. And, oh, "Yes, my dear."
The way he says, "Yes, my dear," is like a snake.
He's just coiling around her.
Yes, my dear.
And you know it's going to come down, he's going to kill somebody.
That extraordinary moment, going up the steps...
...and looking at the moon outside and reciting...
I forget exactly the words, but about the moon.
She says, "What are you doing?" "Oh, nothing."
- What a night. - Yes, a full moon.
How beautiful, this pale Endymion hour.
What are you talking about?
Endymion, my dear.
A beautiful youth possessed by the moon.
Well, forget about him and get to bed.
Yes, my dear.
And then he turns into a silhouette, goes out of frame, the music rises...
Her feet were soft in flowers.
The night changes to day, and you know it's been done.
The vulgarity of his victims is often contrasted...
...perhaps misogynistically so, with Verdoux's dandyish elegance.
The next thing is followed by the comic refrain of the counting of the money.
But it takes you by surprise because what seems simple with this man...
...is suddenly translated into something so eloquent and elegant...