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Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided
The “shocking” (The Wall Street Journal), must-read story of Charlie Chaplin’s years of exile from the United States during the postwar Red Scare, and how it ruined his film career, from bestselling biographer Scott Eyman.
Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold.
Politics aside, Chaplin had another his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US after a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland and made his last two films in London.
In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. “One of the finest surveys of the man and the artist ever written” (Leonard Maltin) this book is “a sobering account of cancel culture in action.” (The Economist).
Bestselling Hollywood biographer and film historian Scott Eyman tells the story of Charlie Chaplin’s fall from grace. In the aftermath of World War II, Chaplin was criticized for being politically liberal and internationalist in outlook. He had never become a US citizen, something that would be held against him as xenophobia set in when the postwar Red Scare took hold.
Politics aside, Chaplin had another his sexual interest in young women. He had been married three times and had had numerous affairs. In the 1940s, he was the subject of a paternity suit, which he lost, despite blood tests that proved he was not the father. His sexuality became a convenient way for those who opposed his politics to condemn him. Refused permission to return to the US after a trip abroad, he settled in Switzerland and made his last two films in London.
In Charlie Chaplin vs. America, Scott Eyman explores the life and times of the movie genius who brought us such masterpieces as City Lights and Modern Times. “One of the finest surveys of the man and the artist ever written” (Leonard Maltin) this book is “a sobering account of cancel culture in action.” (The Economist).
428 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 31, 2023
About the author
Scott Eyman
25 books107 followersScott Eyman has authored 11 books, including, with Robert Wagner, the New York Times bestseller Pieces of My Heart.
Among his other books are "Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer," "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford," "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise," and "The Speed of Sound" (all Simon & Schuster) and "John Ford: The Searcher" for Taschen.
He has lectured extensively around the world, most frequently at the National Film Theater in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moscow Film Theater. He's done the commentary tracks for many DVD's, including "Trouble in Paradise," "My Darling Clementine," and Stagecoach.
Eyman has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant.
He's the literary critic for the Palm Beach Post; he and his wife Lynn live in Palm Beach.
Among his other books are "Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer," "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford," "Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise," and "The Speed of Sound" (all Simon & Schuster) and "John Ford: The Searcher" for Taschen.
He has lectured extensively around the world, most frequently at the National Film Theater in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Moscow Film Theater. He's done the commentary tracks for many DVD's, including "Trouble in Paradise," "My Darling Clementine," and Stagecoach.
Eyman has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Chicago Tribune, as well as practically every film magazine extinct or still extant.
He's the literary critic for the Palm Beach Post; he and his wife Lynn live in Palm Beach.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
June 11, 2023
Scott Eyman is my favorite Hollywood Biographer and so I was super excited to get his new book on Charlie Chaplin. This book is a very detailed look at a certain portion of his career and what led up to his fall from grace here in America. We get a small background of his life, which remarkably is similar to that of Charles Dickens and we come to understand a lot of the motivations behind his films, Chaplin was a sexual non-entity when he arrived in the US, but can to enjoy younger women - no, not 12 of 14 year old girls but girls in their late teens or 20"s. But this proved scandalous to certain people (the FBI and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper). And so no matter what Chaplin did he was hounded. They tried him for violation of the Mann Act when a Hollywood girlfriend came to NY (crossed state lines), and when that failed they found a rather unstable woman to bring paternity charges against him (the heck that the blood tests proved he wasn't the father). Then they attacked him as a Communist without any proof, attacked his making of The Great Dictator, Modern Times and any other movie he made. Eventually Chaplin gets a re-entry permit for him to travel to Europe to promote his move Limelight, and 2 days after he boards to ship to England he is informed that his permit is effectively revoked and he will be arrested if he returns to the US.. From hero to pariah in a few short years. This book is focused on these times and we get a Who's Who of Hollywood celebrities in the book, along with legendary columnists and politicians who are all out to get Chaplin, and a few who remain friendly to him. For both fans of Chaplin, as well as those who enjoy reading about the yesteryears of Hollywood and the film industry this book is a must and is a worthy addition to Eyman's catalog of works. It keeps up a good pace and there are many memorable parts about his life that I was unaware of until I read Eyman's book.. This is a definite "must read" and will be one of my top books for 2023!
February 14, 2024
Outstanding biography of the great Chaplin by one of the best film biographers/historians in the business.
As pointed out by others, this is not a "complete" biography of Chaplin. To discuss Chaplin in full, all his movies especially the shorts and his entire personal life would no doubt increase the number of pages by at least double.
Author Eyman, a lifelong admirer of Chaplin the artist describes his mission for this biography:
"I always wanted to write about him, but bookshops groan under the weight of books about Charlie Chaplin, and I didn't have an approach. What could be said about him that hadn't already been said?
"And then it hit me. Focus on the process by which Chaplin segued from the status of beloved icon to despised ingrate; focus on him being converted from one of America's prized immigrants to a man without a country."
To this end, Scott Eyman has achieved his goal and written a masterful biography. I learned so much I didn't know about Charlie before. I grew up with a lot of the unsavory rumors about him, some no doubt planted by misinformation from gossip columnists and government agencies. His preference for young women and the false paternity charge laid against him. My elders frowned at Charlie at age 54 being married to Oona who was only 18 and as an "old" man siring so many children. One of the charming items in this book is the description of how devoted to each other they were, turning their love affair into a forever marriage - a truly magical Hollywood love story, even if it had to be lived outside of America.
And of course, all the inferences about Chaplin's so called left wing/Communist political leanings which Eyman convincingly debunks. It was revealing to me how indifferent Charlie was to politics and getting involved in nationalism of any sort. He was never a member of any political party and held mixed views on social issues in general. There were exceptions. His pro-Soviet address about opening up a second front against the Nazis in WWII and his satire on Hitler and fascism with his famous film "The Great Dictator" (when most Hollywood studios cowered at criticizing Nazi Germany) which were used against him by right wing crazies during America's subsequent years of paranoia. But in general Chaplin was more of a man of the world than of any one persuasion.
It makes you shudder when you read: "The FBI files on Chaplin extend to over 1,900 pages filled with invariably derogatory and often blatantly incorrect information based on dubious sources and hearsay. Nevertheless, the FBI leaked volumes of biased or incorrect information to friendly reporters*, who used the FBI's misinformation and added disinformation of their own - a self-perpetuating feedback loop of distortion that gave me the spine of the narrative."
Charlie - not only a genius of the cinema but a complex often difficult human being. Not always likeable but totally fascinating. He could be extremely tight with his fortune, but he almost always entirely financed his own movies, using most of the same crew, even keeping them on retainer during the lengthy gaps between movies. He supported many of his early collaborators during their lean times e.g. Edna Purviance, kept on the payroll long after she had last acted in one of his films.
I particularly liked this impression of Chaplin from one of his collaborators, the distinguished film composer David Raksin who as a fairly inexperienced 23-year-0ld jumped at the chance of working as his music assistant. It was an up and down relationship as Charlie was always very possessive regarding his own musical talents.
"Charlie was a man who was envied to a point of paranoia by people who were simply not in his league. He was also so independent that a lot of the major people who ran studios ... couldn't have his control, because he had his own studio - if he wanted to do a hundred takes, if he wanted to stop production for that day, he would do that - he was a law unto himself, and they hated him. And they .... used to say he was a communist, you know. He was about as left-wing as John Wayne's right foot. And he always had compassion for people in trouble, so they were after him. They wanted to get him, and eventually they did."
I have nothing but praise for this absorbing book. I have read many of Eyman's previous forays into Hollywood icons and film histories and have never been disappointed.
I consider this as one of his best. A superb study, very readable and more importantly, just loaded with faultlessly researched information about one of the most talked about but often misunderstood geniuses in the history of cinema.
Another marvel of this biography is the seed it has planted to go and rewatch all of Chaplin again.
Fortunately, I have all his films on DVD, all great works of art - except for his final two features which sadly showed him in decline.
But "Modern Times"/ "The Gold Rush"/ "The Kid"/ "City Lights"/ "The Circus" to mention a select few of the incredible Chaplin works - masterworks to leave one in awe of this great and innovative talent.
* Influential gossip columnists - perhaps better classified as members of the "Yellow Press" -who were vicious enemies of Chaplin: the likes of Hedda Hopper, Ed Sullivan, Walter Winchell, Westbrook Pegler et al.
As pointed out by others, this is not a "complete" biography of Chaplin. To discuss Chaplin in full, all his movies especially the shorts and his entire personal life would no doubt increase the number of pages by at least double.
Author Eyman, a lifelong admirer of Chaplin the artist describes his mission for this biography:
"I always wanted to write about him, but bookshops groan under the weight of books about Charlie Chaplin, and I didn't have an approach. What could be said about him that hadn't already been said?
"And then it hit me. Focus on the process by which Chaplin segued from the status of beloved icon to despised ingrate; focus on him being converted from one of America's prized immigrants to a man without a country."
To this end, Scott Eyman has achieved his goal and written a masterful biography. I learned so much I didn't know about Charlie before. I grew up with a lot of the unsavory rumors about him, some no doubt planted by misinformation from gossip columnists and government agencies. His preference for young women and the false paternity charge laid against him. My elders frowned at Charlie at age 54 being married to Oona who was only 18 and as an "old" man siring so many children. One of the charming items in this book is the description of how devoted to each other they were, turning their love affair into a forever marriage - a truly magical Hollywood love story, even if it had to be lived outside of America.
And of course, all the inferences about Chaplin's so called left wing/Communist political leanings which Eyman convincingly debunks. It was revealing to me how indifferent Charlie was to politics and getting involved in nationalism of any sort. He was never a member of any political party and held mixed views on social issues in general. There were exceptions. His pro-Soviet address about opening up a second front against the Nazis in WWII and his satire on Hitler and fascism with his famous film "The Great Dictator" (when most Hollywood studios cowered at criticizing Nazi Germany) which were used against him by right wing crazies during America's subsequent years of paranoia. But in general Chaplin was more of a man of the world than of any one persuasion.
It makes you shudder when you read: "The FBI files on Chaplin extend to over 1,900 pages filled with invariably derogatory and often blatantly incorrect information based on dubious sources and hearsay. Nevertheless, the FBI leaked volumes of biased or incorrect information to friendly reporters*, who used the FBI's misinformation and added disinformation of their own - a self-perpetuating feedback loop of distortion that gave me the spine of the narrative."
Charlie - not only a genius of the cinema but a complex often difficult human being. Not always likeable but totally fascinating. He could be extremely tight with his fortune, but he almost always entirely financed his own movies, using most of the same crew, even keeping them on retainer during the lengthy gaps between movies. He supported many of his early collaborators during their lean times e.g. Edna Purviance, kept on the payroll long after she had last acted in one of his films.
I particularly liked this impression of Chaplin from one of his collaborators, the distinguished film composer David Raksin who as a fairly inexperienced 23-year-0ld jumped at the chance of working as his music assistant. It was an up and down relationship as Charlie was always very possessive regarding his own musical talents.
"Charlie was a man who was envied to a point of paranoia by people who were simply not in his league. He was also so independent that a lot of the major people who ran studios ... couldn't have his control, because he had his own studio - if he wanted to do a hundred takes, if he wanted to stop production for that day, he would do that - he was a law unto himself, and they hated him. And they .... used to say he was a communist, you know. He was about as left-wing as John Wayne's right foot. And he always had compassion for people in trouble, so they were after him. They wanted to get him, and eventually they did."
I have nothing but praise for this absorbing book. I have read many of Eyman's previous forays into Hollywood icons and film histories and have never been disappointed.
I consider this as one of his best. A superb study, very readable and more importantly, just loaded with faultlessly researched information about one of the most talked about but often misunderstood geniuses in the history of cinema.
Another marvel of this biography is the seed it has planted to go and rewatch all of Chaplin again.
Fortunately, I have all his films on DVD, all great works of art - except for his final two features which sadly showed him in decline.
But "Modern Times"/ "The Gold Rush"/ "The Kid"/ "City Lights"/ "The Circus" to mention a select few of the incredible Chaplin works - masterworks to leave one in awe of this great and innovative talent.
* Influential gossip columnists - perhaps better classified as members of the "Yellow Press" -who were vicious enemies of Chaplin: the likes of Hedda Hopper, Ed Sullivan, Walter Winchell, Westbrook Pegler et al.
April 7, 2024
Charlie Chaplin is a problematic fave of mine. I've seen all his movies, I'm a huge silent film lover. The Kid is a masterpiece, despite being a silent film that's over 100 years old it still holds up. His films changed and shaped how movies were made. He called out Hitler before it was clear to the wider world the horrific crimes he was committing. He wasn't political but it was clear where his sympathies were. His work stands on its own.
But....on the other hand Charlie Chaplin was a predator in his private life. Three of his 4ish wives( was he actually married to Paulette Goddard) were teenagers. He dated a 13 year old when he was nearly 30. And you could say that things were different 100 years ago but....people thought it was weird at the time. Charlie Chaplin and R. Kelly would have gotten along very well. I can choose to still enjoy Chaplin films because he died long before I was born. Watching his films and celebrating his artistry is different for me because he's been dead for nearly 50 years. R. Kelly is still alive. Roman Polanski is still alive. Woody Allen is still alive. So I can't with a clear conscience support them. But I also understand if people can't support a predator even after death.
Charlie Chaplin's predilection for young girls would eventually be one of the reasons he was kicked out of the country. The other reason would be his precieved leftist politics. As I said before I don't think Charlie Chaplin was political but he definitely didn't support right wing policies. Charlie Chaplin was kicked out of America during the great red scare of the 1950's. He was labeled a communist and that along with his sexual crimes was enough to get him booted.
This was an interesting read. It's part biography part social study of the times in which he was famous. If you've never read anything else about him I wouldn't start with this one. It barely touches on his many problematic relationships with young girls. But it does contextualize the changing political climate in which he was working.
If you are interested in how politics affects art than I think you'll enjoy this book.
But....on the other hand Charlie Chaplin was a predator in his private life. Three of his 4ish wives( was he actually married to Paulette Goddard) were teenagers. He dated a 13 year old when he was nearly 30. And you could say that things were different 100 years ago but....people thought it was weird at the time. Charlie Chaplin and R. Kelly would have gotten along very well. I can choose to still enjoy Chaplin films because he died long before I was born. Watching his films and celebrating his artistry is different for me because he's been dead for nearly 50 years. R. Kelly is still alive. Roman Polanski is still alive. Woody Allen is still alive. So I can't with a clear conscience support them. But I also understand if people can't support a predator even after death.
Charlie Chaplin's predilection for young girls would eventually be one of the reasons he was kicked out of the country. The other reason would be his precieved leftist politics. As I said before I don't think Charlie Chaplin was political but he definitely didn't support right wing policies. Charlie Chaplin was kicked out of America during the great red scare of the 1950's. He was labeled a communist and that along with his sexual crimes was enough to get him booted.
This was an interesting read. It's part biography part social study of the times in which he was famous. If you've never read anything else about him I wouldn't start with this one. It barely touches on his many problematic relationships with young girls. But it does contextualize the changing political climate in which he was working.
If you are interested in how politics affects art than I think you'll enjoy this book.
November 7, 2023
"Patriotism is the greatest insanity the world has ever suffered," [Chaplin] told one reporter. "I have been all over Europe....Patriotism is rampant everywhere and the result is going to be another war."
One of the keys to a really good biographer lies in this quote from Aaron Sorkin's play-turned-film, A Few Good Men, "It doesn't matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove." And Eyman delivers this in spades. His clear adherence to the truth is what elevates the building blocks he uses to fashion a clearer picture of his subject.
When grappling with a way to tackle Charlie Chaplin in a way that had not been done before, Eyman states, "I always wanted to write about him, but bookshelves groan under the weight of books about Charlie Chaplin, and I didn't have an approach. What could be said about him that hadn't already been said? And then it hit me. Focus on the process by which Chaplin segued from the status of beloved icon to despised ingrate; focus on him being converted from one of America's prized immigrants to a man without a country."
Eyman's approach to biography truly stands out in a genre often filled with sensationalism and juicy gossip. While many biographers eagerly embrace scandalous secrets and craft narratives to suit their own agendas, Eyman treads a different path. He emerges as a dedicated truth-seeker, committed to offering a genuine and all-encompassing portrayal of his subjects. In the world of Hollywood biographies, where the dissection of lives is customary, Eyman's work doesn't aim to patch up fragile legacies; rather, it delves deeper into the essence of the subject. Through painstaking research and layers of information, Eyman brings Chaplin to life, offering fresh angles on his character and his life's accomplishments. He shines a spotlight on facets of Chaplin's persona that were previously veiled, often obscured simply by the passage of time. This thorough approach not only cements Chaplin's legacy but also unveils new facets of the intersection of his life and career that might have otherwise remained concealed.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
One of the keys to a really good biographer lies in this quote from Aaron Sorkin's play-turned-film, A Few Good Men, "It doesn't matter what I believe. It only matters what I can prove." And Eyman delivers this in spades. His clear adherence to the truth is what elevates the building blocks he uses to fashion a clearer picture of his subject.
When grappling with a way to tackle Charlie Chaplin in a way that had not been done before, Eyman states, "I always wanted to write about him, but bookshelves groan under the weight of books about Charlie Chaplin, and I didn't have an approach. What could be said about him that hadn't already been said? And then it hit me. Focus on the process by which Chaplin segued from the status of beloved icon to despised ingrate; focus on him being converted from one of America's prized immigrants to a man without a country."
Eyman's approach to biography truly stands out in a genre often filled with sensationalism and juicy gossip. While many biographers eagerly embrace scandalous secrets and craft narratives to suit their own agendas, Eyman treads a different path. He emerges as a dedicated truth-seeker, committed to offering a genuine and all-encompassing portrayal of his subjects. In the world of Hollywood biographies, where the dissection of lives is customary, Eyman's work doesn't aim to patch up fragile legacies; rather, it delves deeper into the essence of the subject. Through painstaking research and layers of information, Eyman brings Chaplin to life, offering fresh angles on his character and his life's accomplishments. He shines a spotlight on facets of Chaplin's persona that were previously veiled, often obscured simply by the passage of time. This thorough approach not only cements Chaplin's legacy but also unveils new facets of the intersection of his life and career that might have otherwise remained concealed.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
June 25, 2023
I’ve read and enjoyed all of Eyman’s books and this one is no exception. An interesting and unusual take on Chaplin’s life(about which so much has already been written) concentration on his exile from the United States brought on by false accusations that he was a communist( he was far from one) and claims that he had paid for a paramour’s abortion and that he had an unsavory sex life. All of these accusations were politically motivated. That is that the politicians making these claims were motivated to do so to satiate their supporters and accrete power. Sound familiar? At once a fascinating look at an ever fascinating genius and a cautionary tale-this book is a winner. Read it!
December 19, 2023
Decades before J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI connived for a pretext to deport a wealthy British ex-pat suspected of communist connections who also happened to be an influential, world-famous artist—that person was John Lennon and that attempt ultimately failed—a much younger Hoover and his then-cronies mounted a similar but far more effective crusade against an individual who in his time was even more consequential. That man was British-born Charlie Chaplin, Hollywood’s first truly global phenomenon, who while not deported was yet driven into permanent exile.
Author and film historian Scott Eyman sets out to tell that story and more in Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided [2023], an informative and entertaining if uneven portrait of a celebrated figure as devoted to his art as he was indifferent to the enemies he spawned along the way. Seizing upon Chaplin’s clash with the authorities over his politics as the focal point of the narrative, the author seeks to distinguish this work from numerous previous chroniclers of its prominent subject, with mixed results.
Chaplin, both a genius and a giant in the days when cinema was in its infancy, left an indelible mark upon the nascent motion picture industry. In the process, he attracted both critical acclaim and legions of adoring fans, as well as, with equal fervor, the scorn of moralists and the disfavor of those who viewed his brand of social consciousness as a threat to the American way of life. Like the later John Lennon, he was an outsize talent who eschewed convention, dared to take unpopular positions, flaunted a somewhat sybaritic lifestyle, accumulated enormous wealth, and was a legend in his own time—the very ingredients that stoked in alternate audiences parallel passions of adulation and abhorrence.
Anticommunism runs deep in the United States, from the “Red Scare” of the 1920’s to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)—a creature of the Depression era that was reborn with a fury in the postwar period—and the related excesses of McCarthyism, a nearly continuous stream of panic and paranoia that characterized American culture for decades that ostensibly aimed to identify enemies foreign and domestic but instead extra-constitutionally branded certain political thought as a crime. In the process, thousands of Americans and foreign nationals suffered persecution, ostracism and even imprisonment. A weaker dynamic by Lennon’s time, it nevertheless remained a force to be reckoned with for those so victimized. Something of anachronism, anticommunism yet still echoes into today’s politics. One of the faults in Eyman’s treatment is his failure to place Chaplin’s harassment for his alleged political sympathies into this wider context for the reader unfamiliar with its deeper historical roots.
Neither Chaplin nor Lennon were members of the Communist Party, but that was almost beside the point for authorities who deemed each as unwelcome, if only for their respective advocacies for a greater social and economic equality, which was seen as sympathetic to communist ideology. And there was a whiff of perceived disloyalty in their demeanors. Lennon was ardently anti-war. Chaplin, who styled himself a “peace monger,” was regarded as especially suspect because he never sought US citizenship; instead he railed against nationalism as a root cause of war, and imagined himself as a kind of citizen of the world. Alas, Chaplin had the bad fortune to find himself targeted in tumultuous times characterized by a populace both less sophisticated and more docile than in Lennon’s day. And he paid for it. Of course, as Eyman’s book underscores, objections to Chaplin’s way of life proved far more damning to him than his actual politics.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London in 1889 into abject poverty much like a character out of Dickens. Orphaned by circumstances if not literally, in his childhood he endured the dehumanizing struggle of the workhouse and for a time lived alone on the streets. His older brother Sydney was to rescue him and helped foster his budding stage presence in sketch comedy that eventually took him across the pond, first to vaudeville and later to Los Angeles, where he made his silent film debut. A master of the art of physical comedy, it was there that he invented the trademark character that would define his career and later cement his celebrity—the “Little Tramp,” a good-natured, childlike, sometime vagrant costumed in baggy pants, oversize shoes, and a tiny mustache—that would evolve into an endearing screen icon endowed with a blend of humor and pathos. The Tramp would later serve as the central protagonist for the very first dramatic comedies.
Chaplin was a wildly popular overnight sensation, which by 1915 made him, at only twenty-six years old, one of the highest paid individuals in the world. Just four years later, he joined forces with other leading lights to form United Artists, a revolutionary film distribution company that permitted him to fund and maintain complete creative control over his own productions. UA served as the critical vehicle that enabled Chaplin to write, produce, direct, star in, and even compose the music for a series of films that would make him a legend, including The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), and Modern Times (1936), all featuring the Tramp character. Favoring the subtle artistry of silent films over the “talkies” that came to dominate motion pictures, Chaplin stubbornly continued to produce silent (or mostly silent) movies long after that format had been largely abandoned by others. Eventually he moved to talkies with The Great Dictator (1940), a political satire that starred Chaplin in a dual role as a Tramp-like character and a farcical persona based upon Hitler. Later, he abandoned the Tramp in Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and comedy altogether in the semi-autobiographical Limelight (1952).
In his personal life, Chaplin was a bundle of contradictions. An extremely wealthy but socially conscious man, he was capable of great generosity towards those he favored, but like many who grew up in extreme poverty he could be stingy, as well. It was that childhood abandoned to the streets, according to Eyman and other biographers, that informed every aspect of the mature Charlie Chaplin, in his screen persona as well as his private life. A dominating perfectionist on the set who could be maddening for cast and crew alike with his demands for multiple re-takes of the same scene day after day, and productions that could go on for months or even a year, off camera he was moved by the inequalities of unbridled capitalism, and the plight of the disadvantaged. He advocated for greater economic equity and against the rise of fascism both on screen and off, which made him seem suspect to the powers-that-be, which was further exacerbated by clashes with puritanical movie censors that regarded him as openly flirting with immoral themes. That he was friendly with known communists and campaigned to open a second front to benefit the USSR in the wartime alliance against Hitler only heightened those suspicions and led to accusations that Chaplin himself was a communist or “fellow traveler.” He once received a subpoena to appear before HUAC, but he was never actually called to testify.
Physically tiny but handsome and charming, Chaplin was something of a womanizer who was frequently unfaithful and had a string of liaisons, sometimes with leading ladies, as well as a total of four marriages. He favored young women: his first two wives were each only sixteen years old when he married them, his fourth wife was eighteen and he was fifty-four when they wed. Other than his infidelities, he seems to have been kind and considerate to his various partners, and he often remained friends and sometimes a financial benefactor to former lovers. His third marriage to actress Paulette Goddard ended in divorce, but she then starred in his next film, and they got along amicably for years to come. The notable exception to that rule was his affair circa 1941-42 with the unstable and vindictive Joan Berry, which led to a career-damaging paternity suit for Chaplin. But he was a devoted and faithful husband to his final wife, Oona O’Neill, with whom he fathered eight children; they stayed together for thirty-four years until his death in Switzerland in 1977 at the age of eighty-eight. Still, the romantic scandals that dogged him—especially the poisonous courtroom drama that played out publicly in his disputes with Joan Berry—tarnished his reputation and bred a whole coterie of enemies in and out of Hollywood willing to work against him when the FBI set its sights on him as an undesirable alien.
As it was, while he championed social justice, Chaplin himself was remarkably apolitical. As the very archetype of the rags-to-riches story, he cited the inherent incongruity of accusing a man who made his fortune via American capitalism of being a communist. But already castigated for his alleged moral turpitude by the doyens of “respectable” society, as the Cold War dawned and the Soviet Union turned from former ally into existential threat, he was widely denounced by detractors and calls grew for him to be deported. Chaplin’s greatest weakness turned out to be his own naivety. When he left for London for the world premiere of Limelight, his re-entry permit was revoked. The grounds for this action were quite tenuous; had he contested it, it is likely he would have been readmitted. But he was so embittered by this affront that he remained in exile from the United States for the rest of his life, returning only once very briefly in 1972 to accept an honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century."
The problem with Charlie Chaplin vs. America is that despite what may have been his original intentions, it is not completely clear what kind of book Scott Eyman ultimately sent to press after he rested his pen. The subtitle presumes it to be a chronicle of Chaplin’s dual with the established order to avoid banishment, but that theme hardly dominates the plot. On the other hand, there is a wealth of material that hints at what could have been. Much print is devoted to Charlie’s childhood struggles on the streets of London, as well his grand success with the production of The Kid, but there is little connective tissue of points in between, leaving the formative Chaplin mostly conspicuous in its absence. So it cannot be termed an authoritative biography. Likewise, there are sometimes lengthy excursions to focus on a particular movie or a specific film technique, while others are glossed over or ignored. So it cannot be a critical study of Chaplin’s filmmaking. It is as if Eyman bit off far more than he wanted to chew and ended up uncertain what should be spit out, with some chunks of the account too fat and others too lean.
The result is a narrative that is sometimes choppy, with a tendency at times to clumsily slip in and out of chronology, and a penchant in places to fall into extended digressions—including an awkward multipage interview excerpt with a Chaplin associate that might better have been relegated to the back matter of notes or appendix. Still, warts and all, the book never grows dull. The reader may be left unsatisfied, but ever remains engaged. And, to his credit, Eyman succeeds superbly in capturing Chaplin’s personality, by far the most significant challenge for any biographer. That is in itself a notable achievement, especially with a subject as nuanced as this one.
J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, some twenty years after Chaplin’s re-entry permit was denied. John Lennon was ordered out of the country in 1973, but a New York judge reversed the deportation order in 1975. Earlier that same year, HUAC was formally terminated. After some quiet years, Lennon was making a musical comeback when he was murdered by a deranged fan in 1980. He was only forty years old. By then Chaplin had been dead for three years, at a ripe old age, but his creative juices had never really flowed the same way in exile. He made two additional films abroad, but neither lived up to his earlier triumphs.
Charlie Chaplin could be the most famous movie star in history whose films most Americans alive today have never seen, largely because even in my 1960s boyhood, when Chaplin still walked the earth, and when most broadcasts outside of prime time were devoted to old movies, silent films were already long passé, and most of his greatest films were silents. With that in mind, along with reading Eyman’s book I screened several Chaplin films: The Kid, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator. I am neither film critic nor film historian, but I consider myself something of a film geek, and I confess that I was blown away by Chaplin’s brilliance in both The Kid and City Lights. While I can understand and appreciate its message and its impact upon release, I found The Great Dictator dated, overly long, and less entertaining. But I would judge Modern Times as not only magnificent, but so extraordinarily timely with its themes of technological oppression, automation, corporate capitalism, threats to individuality, and loss of privacy that it belongs as much to 2023 as it did to 1936. If there is a fault to be found in any of these efforts, it is that Chaplin’s absolute creative control denied him the editorial input that was warranted on occasion. There are slapstick bits, for instance, that while hilarious yet go on interminably. Someone needed to yell “Cut!” Even a genius, as Chaplin indubitably was, needs an editor.
So too, in my opinion, does Scott Eyman. A talented and prolific writer who has authored numerous biographies of stars who once peopled the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, Eyman’s prior accolades could very well be the reason that someone with a sharp red pen did not have the authority to carve out the potentially great book that lay within that sheaf of pages that went to print.
[Note: This ARC edition came to me through an early reviewers’ program.]
Review of: Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided, by Scott Eyman – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2023/12/19/charlie...
Author and film historian Scott Eyman sets out to tell that story and more in Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided [2023], an informative and entertaining if uneven portrait of a celebrated figure as devoted to his art as he was indifferent to the enemies he spawned along the way. Seizing upon Chaplin’s clash with the authorities over his politics as the focal point of the narrative, the author seeks to distinguish this work from numerous previous chroniclers of its prominent subject, with mixed results.
Chaplin, both a genius and a giant in the days when cinema was in its infancy, left an indelible mark upon the nascent motion picture industry. In the process, he attracted both critical acclaim and legions of adoring fans, as well as, with equal fervor, the scorn of moralists and the disfavor of those who viewed his brand of social consciousness as a threat to the American way of life. Like the later John Lennon, he was an outsize talent who eschewed convention, dared to take unpopular positions, flaunted a somewhat sybaritic lifestyle, accumulated enormous wealth, and was a legend in his own time—the very ingredients that stoked in alternate audiences parallel passions of adulation and abhorrence.
Anticommunism runs deep in the United States, from the “Red Scare” of the 1920’s to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)—a creature of the Depression era that was reborn with a fury in the postwar period—and the related excesses of McCarthyism, a nearly continuous stream of panic and paranoia that characterized American culture for decades that ostensibly aimed to identify enemies foreign and domestic but instead extra-constitutionally branded certain political thought as a crime. In the process, thousands of Americans and foreign nationals suffered persecution, ostracism and even imprisonment. A weaker dynamic by Lennon’s time, it nevertheless remained a force to be reckoned with for those so victimized. Something of anachronism, anticommunism yet still echoes into today’s politics. One of the faults in Eyman’s treatment is his failure to place Chaplin’s harassment for his alleged political sympathies into this wider context for the reader unfamiliar with its deeper historical roots.
Neither Chaplin nor Lennon were members of the Communist Party, but that was almost beside the point for authorities who deemed each as unwelcome, if only for their respective advocacies for a greater social and economic equality, which was seen as sympathetic to communist ideology. And there was a whiff of perceived disloyalty in their demeanors. Lennon was ardently anti-war. Chaplin, who styled himself a “peace monger,” was regarded as especially suspect because he never sought US citizenship; instead he railed against nationalism as a root cause of war, and imagined himself as a kind of citizen of the world. Alas, Chaplin had the bad fortune to find himself targeted in tumultuous times characterized by a populace both less sophisticated and more docile than in Lennon’s day. And he paid for it. Of course, as Eyman’s book underscores, objections to Chaplin’s way of life proved far more damning to him than his actual politics.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London in 1889 into abject poverty much like a character out of Dickens. Orphaned by circumstances if not literally, in his childhood he endured the dehumanizing struggle of the workhouse and for a time lived alone on the streets. His older brother Sydney was to rescue him and helped foster his budding stage presence in sketch comedy that eventually took him across the pond, first to vaudeville and later to Los Angeles, where he made his silent film debut. A master of the art of physical comedy, it was there that he invented the trademark character that would define his career and later cement his celebrity—the “Little Tramp,” a good-natured, childlike, sometime vagrant costumed in baggy pants, oversize shoes, and a tiny mustache—that would evolve into an endearing screen icon endowed with a blend of humor and pathos. The Tramp would later serve as the central protagonist for the very first dramatic comedies.
Chaplin was a wildly popular overnight sensation, which by 1915 made him, at only twenty-six years old, one of the highest paid individuals in the world. Just four years later, he joined forces with other leading lights to form United Artists, a revolutionary film distribution company that permitted him to fund and maintain complete creative control over his own productions. UA served as the critical vehicle that enabled Chaplin to write, produce, direct, star in, and even compose the music for a series of films that would make him a legend, including The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), and Modern Times (1936), all featuring the Tramp character. Favoring the subtle artistry of silent films over the “talkies” that came to dominate motion pictures, Chaplin stubbornly continued to produce silent (or mostly silent) movies long after that format had been largely abandoned by others. Eventually he moved to talkies with The Great Dictator (1940), a political satire that starred Chaplin in a dual role as a Tramp-like character and a farcical persona based upon Hitler. Later, he abandoned the Tramp in Monsieur Verdoux (1947), and comedy altogether in the semi-autobiographical Limelight (1952).
In his personal life, Chaplin was a bundle of contradictions. An extremely wealthy but socially conscious man, he was capable of great generosity towards those he favored, but like many who grew up in extreme poverty he could be stingy, as well. It was that childhood abandoned to the streets, according to Eyman and other biographers, that informed every aspect of the mature Charlie Chaplin, in his screen persona as well as his private life. A dominating perfectionist on the set who could be maddening for cast and crew alike with his demands for multiple re-takes of the same scene day after day, and productions that could go on for months or even a year, off camera he was moved by the inequalities of unbridled capitalism, and the plight of the disadvantaged. He advocated for greater economic equity and against the rise of fascism both on screen and off, which made him seem suspect to the powers-that-be, which was further exacerbated by clashes with puritanical movie censors that regarded him as openly flirting with immoral themes. That he was friendly with known communists and campaigned to open a second front to benefit the USSR in the wartime alliance against Hitler only heightened those suspicions and led to accusations that Chaplin himself was a communist or “fellow traveler.” He once received a subpoena to appear before HUAC, but he was never actually called to testify.
Physically tiny but handsome and charming, Chaplin was something of a womanizer who was frequently unfaithful and had a string of liaisons, sometimes with leading ladies, as well as a total of four marriages. He favored young women: his first two wives were each only sixteen years old when he married them, his fourth wife was eighteen and he was fifty-four when they wed. Other than his infidelities, he seems to have been kind and considerate to his various partners, and he often remained friends and sometimes a financial benefactor to former lovers. His third marriage to actress Paulette Goddard ended in divorce, but she then starred in his next film, and they got along amicably for years to come. The notable exception to that rule was his affair circa 1941-42 with the unstable and vindictive Joan Berry, which led to a career-damaging paternity suit for Chaplin. But he was a devoted and faithful husband to his final wife, Oona O’Neill, with whom he fathered eight children; they stayed together for thirty-four years until his death in Switzerland in 1977 at the age of eighty-eight. Still, the romantic scandals that dogged him—especially the poisonous courtroom drama that played out publicly in his disputes with Joan Berry—tarnished his reputation and bred a whole coterie of enemies in and out of Hollywood willing to work against him when the FBI set its sights on him as an undesirable alien.
As it was, while he championed social justice, Chaplin himself was remarkably apolitical. As the very archetype of the rags-to-riches story, he cited the inherent incongruity of accusing a man who made his fortune via American capitalism of being a communist. But already castigated for his alleged moral turpitude by the doyens of “respectable” society, as the Cold War dawned and the Soviet Union turned from former ally into existential threat, he was widely denounced by detractors and calls grew for him to be deported. Chaplin’s greatest weakness turned out to be his own naivety. When he left for London for the world premiere of Limelight, his re-entry permit was revoked. The grounds for this action were quite tenuous; had he contested it, it is likely he would have been readmitted. But he was so embittered by this affront that he remained in exile from the United States for the rest of his life, returning only once very briefly in 1972 to accept an honorary Academy Award for "the incalculable effect he has had in making motion pictures the art form of this century."
The problem with Charlie Chaplin vs. America is that despite what may have been his original intentions, it is not completely clear what kind of book Scott Eyman ultimately sent to press after he rested his pen. The subtitle presumes it to be a chronicle of Chaplin’s dual with the established order to avoid banishment, but that theme hardly dominates the plot. On the other hand, there is a wealth of material that hints at what could have been. Much print is devoted to Charlie’s childhood struggles on the streets of London, as well his grand success with the production of The Kid, but there is little connective tissue of points in between, leaving the formative Chaplin mostly conspicuous in its absence. So it cannot be termed an authoritative biography. Likewise, there are sometimes lengthy excursions to focus on a particular movie or a specific film technique, while others are glossed over or ignored. So it cannot be a critical study of Chaplin’s filmmaking. It is as if Eyman bit off far more than he wanted to chew and ended up uncertain what should be spit out, with some chunks of the account too fat and others too lean.
The result is a narrative that is sometimes choppy, with a tendency at times to clumsily slip in and out of chronology, and a penchant in places to fall into extended digressions—including an awkward multipage interview excerpt with a Chaplin associate that might better have been relegated to the back matter of notes or appendix. Still, warts and all, the book never grows dull. The reader may be left unsatisfied, but ever remains engaged. And, to his credit, Eyman succeeds superbly in capturing Chaplin’s personality, by far the most significant challenge for any biographer. That is in itself a notable achievement, especially with a subject as nuanced as this one.
J. Edgar Hoover died in 1972, some twenty years after Chaplin’s re-entry permit was denied. John Lennon was ordered out of the country in 1973, but a New York judge reversed the deportation order in 1975. Earlier that same year, HUAC was formally terminated. After some quiet years, Lennon was making a musical comeback when he was murdered by a deranged fan in 1980. He was only forty years old. By then Chaplin had been dead for three years, at a ripe old age, but his creative juices had never really flowed the same way in exile. He made two additional films abroad, but neither lived up to his earlier triumphs.
Charlie Chaplin could be the most famous movie star in history whose films most Americans alive today have never seen, largely because even in my 1960s boyhood, when Chaplin still walked the earth, and when most broadcasts outside of prime time were devoted to old movies, silent films were already long passé, and most of his greatest films were silents. With that in mind, along with reading Eyman’s book I screened several Chaplin films: The Kid, City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator. I am neither film critic nor film historian, but I consider myself something of a film geek, and I confess that I was blown away by Chaplin’s brilliance in both The Kid and City Lights. While I can understand and appreciate its message and its impact upon release, I found The Great Dictator dated, overly long, and less entertaining. But I would judge Modern Times as not only magnificent, but so extraordinarily timely with its themes of technological oppression, automation, corporate capitalism, threats to individuality, and loss of privacy that it belongs as much to 2023 as it did to 1936. If there is a fault to be found in any of these efforts, it is that Chaplin’s absolute creative control denied him the editorial input that was warranted on occasion. There are slapstick bits, for instance, that while hilarious yet go on interminably. Someone needed to yell “Cut!” Even a genius, as Chaplin indubitably was, needs an editor.
So too, in my opinion, does Scott Eyman. A talented and prolific writer who has authored numerous biographies of stars who once peopled the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, Eyman’s prior accolades could very well be the reason that someone with a sharp red pen did not have the authority to carve out the potentially great book that lay within that sheaf of pages that went to print.
[Note: This ARC edition came to me through an early reviewers’ program.]
Review of: Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided, by Scott Eyman – Regarp Book Blog https://regarp.com/2023/12/19/charlie...
May 21, 2024
An infuriating tale of a creative person hounded out of the country by moralizing conservative hypocrites. One fun thing about learning about history is when a character from another narrative shows up in a different context. For instance: Ed Sullivan, who mostly lives on as the guy who introduced the Beatles. Here (pre-Beatles) he’s a newspaper columnist conspiring to kick Chaplin out of the country. History!
January 6, 2024
The book I finished reading Charlie Chaplin vs America was a very good book. Upon reading this book. I understand now why he was banned from recentering the united states. Apparently it all started with false accusations and revenge plotted against him by hedda hopper.
July 31, 2023
For once, I have a read a book on a "complicated" actor and didn't hate them by the end of it. The author of this miracle is Scott Eyman and his book is Charlie Chaplin vs. America.
Eyman takes a look at the life of Chaplin mainly around the time when the U.S. decided he was a communist and needed to be kept as far away from America as possible. This is still very much a biography of Chaplin and anyone who only knows the Little Tramp will learn a lot about Charlie Chaplin and his process. He was a genius. He was a perfectionist. He was also kind of a jerk and could cut people off at a moments notice. He was warm except when he was cold. Eyman makes an excellent case that Chaplin was everything in the dictionary expect a communist.
Eyman has written many books on celebrities and he is clearly comfortable in this genre. He knows when to focus on the little things which make someone tick. He also knows when to name drop someone to add a little spice to the narrative. If you gave me 1,000 guesses, I never would have suspected Walter Matthau would show up in this book. It's a great book and reading it is a breeze. Pardon me while I go watch The Kid.
(This book was provided an advance copy by Netgalley and Simon & Schuster.)
Eyman takes a look at the life of Chaplin mainly around the time when the U.S. decided he was a communist and needed to be kept as far away from America as possible. This is still very much a biography of Chaplin and anyone who only knows the Little Tramp will learn a lot about Charlie Chaplin and his process. He was a genius. He was a perfectionist. He was also kind of a jerk and could cut people off at a moments notice. He was warm except when he was cold. Eyman makes an excellent case that Chaplin was everything in the dictionary expect a communist.
Eyman has written many books on celebrities and he is clearly comfortable in this genre. He knows when to focus on the little things which make someone tick. He also knows when to name drop someone to add a little spice to the narrative. If you gave me 1,000 guesses, I never would have suspected Walter Matthau would show up in this book. It's a great book and reading it is a breeze. Pardon me while I go watch The Kid.
(This book was provided an advance copy by Netgalley and Simon & Schuster.)
October 22, 2023
More in-depth and trustworthy than even Chaplin's autobiography, which even his family has admitted on occasion might be his novelized version of events. It's clear that Eyman spent years and years researching, interviewing, and digging into everything to do with Chaplin's life, his art, his relationships, and the persecution he faced throughout most of it.
I'm perfectly aware that this is only one side of a very complex individual and all that surrounds his actions and what is known and shared, so I'm trying to judge this book with that in mind. But even if he had been a miscreant, it was never proven in court and he was never convicted. The persecution of Chaplin mostly on the fact that some individuals with voice and power didn't like him is shameful any way you look at it. There are clear signs of abuse of power and Chaplin being used as a scapegoat to appease the loud voices.
It's also a very interesting angle from which to approach the radicalization of the ideals and morals of a few and how they can affect how the masses view things. I don't think it's what Eyman was going for, but it does make for a very interesting read in present times.
Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the excellent read!
I'm perfectly aware that this is only one side of a very complex individual and all that surrounds his actions and what is known and shared, so I'm trying to judge this book with that in mind. But even if he had been a miscreant, it was never proven in court and he was never convicted. The persecution of Chaplin mostly on the fact that some individuals with voice and power didn't like him is shameful any way you look at it. There are clear signs of abuse of power and Chaplin being used as a scapegoat to appease the loud voices.
It's also a very interesting angle from which to approach the radicalization of the ideals and morals of a few and how they can affect how the masses view things. I don't think it's what Eyman was going for, but it does make for a very interesting read in present times.
Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the excellent read!
January 4, 2024
What a fascinating and wonderfully accessible biography of Chaplin and his years spent in America.
With a basic yet still Indepth look at his early and much later years the bulk of this biography covers his time post WW2 in the US and the circumstances of his deportation.
I'm a HUGE Chaplin fan and I find any content regarding Chaplin to be very interesting but Scott Eyman does an excellent job compiling the information in a logical and accessible way for anyone who might not know as much about our beloved tramp. Eyman includes a lot of relevant history points during the time period for overall context. "Charlie Caplin vs. America" is a biographical nonfiction told through letters, documented conversations and photographs that make this read like a narrative piece of literature. This is one of my most favorite reads of 2023.
I would recommend this to anyone who interested in the early years of Hollywood, Chaplin, the development of the film industry, and US history during the blacklist witch-hunt years of 1930-50's America.
With a basic yet still Indepth look at his early and much later years the bulk of this biography covers his time post WW2 in the US and the circumstances of his deportation.
I'm a HUGE Chaplin fan and I find any content regarding Chaplin to be very interesting but Scott Eyman does an excellent job compiling the information in a logical and accessible way for anyone who might not know as much about our beloved tramp. Eyman includes a lot of relevant history points during the time period for overall context. "Charlie Caplin vs. America" is a biographical nonfiction told through letters, documented conversations and photographs that make this read like a narrative piece of literature. This is one of my most favorite reads of 2023.
I would recommend this to anyone who interested in the early years of Hollywood, Chaplin, the development of the film industry, and US history during the blacklist witch-hunt years of 1930-50's America.
November 24, 2023
Terry: What a sad business, being funny.
Calvero: Very sad, if they won’t laugh. But its a thrill when they do. To look out there, see them all laughing. To hear that roar go up, waves of laughter coming at you.
from Limelight by Charlie Chaplin
Back in the 70s we discovered a theater that showed classic movies. It was just a trolley ride away and we went often. So it came about that my first viewing of Charlie Chaplin’s films was on the big screen! It was a revelation.
Previously, the only thing I had known about Chaplin was the image of Little Tramp which had a cameo appearance in some old cartoons. I discovered that one of my favorite 45 records in my mother’s collection was the theme from Limelight, “Eternally,” written by Chaplin. The movie had come out the year I was born.
Scott Eyman ‘s Charlie Chaplin vs. America presents Chaplin’s life and art, especially his later work, focusing on the “cultural cold war” that attacked him artistically and personally.
America was staunchly isolationist when The Great Dictator came out, mocking Hitler and showing the horror of Fascism, the concluding speech extolling universal brotherhood. People concluded that Chaplin had to be a communist, even if no one could trace any link between Chaplin and the communist party. He was suspect of being a Russian sympathizer because he attended a concert by Dmitri Shostakovich or socialized with known communists.
He had lived in America for decades without becoming a citizen so had to be unpatriotic. (It didn’t matter that two of his sons were in the service, or that he bought war bonds.) Also disturbing was his penchant for teenage girls, making him morally suspect, and he had lived with Paulette Goddard as if married. When he was accused of fathering a child, a DNA test cleared Chaplin of being the father, but they were not yet accepted as evidence and he was ordered to pay support. He was attacked by newspaper columnists who shared every unsavory rumor.
Chaplin’s FBI file was nearly 2,000 pages and included unfounded accusations and disgruntled fan letters, with no clear evidence that Chaplin was anti-American, anti-capitalist, or connected to the communist party. Hoover was determined to nail him and finally several professional informants included him on their “communist sympathizer” lists. When Chaplin left the US for the European premier of Limelight, he was denied reentry to the States.
Eyman quotes Chaplin throughout the book, explaining himself as an anarchist, a progressive, a citizen of the world, and apolitical.
Chaplin found love and peace with Oona O’Neill, another teenager wife, who fell for him hard at first meeting. His last films were imperfect. But when his earlier films were reissued he was rediscovered, to great success. In 1972 he returned to the US and was given an honorary Oscar.
The perennial problems of fake news and muckraking, attacking well known figures, is still relevant today. Chaplin was a victim of the times. And he was also the victim of his own artistic vision that didn’t change with the times.
Chaplin emerges as a gifted artist whose personality was marked by his early poverty. He was demanding of perfection from others and himself. And he was generous, putting people on the payroll for life, and sharing his knowledge with his son’s fledgling theater group. He was brilliant, with an instinctual comic understanding. He was not perfect, and made some bad life and artistic decisions along the way. But what genius!
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC through LibraryThing.
Calvero: Very sad, if they won’t laugh. But its a thrill when they do. To look out there, see them all laughing. To hear that roar go up, waves of laughter coming at you.
from Limelight by Charlie Chaplin
Back in the 70s we discovered a theater that showed classic movies. It was just a trolley ride away and we went often. So it came about that my first viewing of Charlie Chaplin’s films was on the big screen! It was a revelation.
Previously, the only thing I had known about Chaplin was the image of Little Tramp which had a cameo appearance in some old cartoons. I discovered that one of my favorite 45 records in my mother’s collection was the theme from Limelight, “Eternally,” written by Chaplin. The movie had come out the year I was born.
Scott Eyman ‘s Charlie Chaplin vs. America presents Chaplin’s life and art, especially his later work, focusing on the “cultural cold war” that attacked him artistically and personally.
America was staunchly isolationist when The Great Dictator came out, mocking Hitler and showing the horror of Fascism, the concluding speech extolling universal brotherhood. People concluded that Chaplin had to be a communist, even if no one could trace any link between Chaplin and the communist party. He was suspect of being a Russian sympathizer because he attended a concert by Dmitri Shostakovich or socialized with known communists.
He had lived in America for decades without becoming a citizen so had to be unpatriotic. (It didn’t matter that two of his sons were in the service, or that he bought war bonds.) Also disturbing was his penchant for teenage girls, making him morally suspect, and he had lived with Paulette Goddard as if married. When he was accused of fathering a child, a DNA test cleared Chaplin of being the father, but they were not yet accepted as evidence and he was ordered to pay support. He was attacked by newspaper columnists who shared every unsavory rumor.
Chaplin’s FBI file was nearly 2,000 pages and included unfounded accusations and disgruntled fan letters, with no clear evidence that Chaplin was anti-American, anti-capitalist, or connected to the communist party. Hoover was determined to nail him and finally several professional informants included him on their “communist sympathizer” lists. When Chaplin left the US for the European premier of Limelight, he was denied reentry to the States.
Eyman quotes Chaplin throughout the book, explaining himself as an anarchist, a progressive, a citizen of the world, and apolitical.
Chaplin found love and peace with Oona O’Neill, another teenager wife, who fell for him hard at first meeting. His last films were imperfect. But when his earlier films were reissued he was rediscovered, to great success. In 1972 he returned to the US and was given an honorary Oscar.
The perennial problems of fake news and muckraking, attacking well known figures, is still relevant today. Chaplin was a victim of the times. And he was also the victim of his own artistic vision that didn’t change with the times.
Chaplin emerges as a gifted artist whose personality was marked by his early poverty. He was demanding of perfection from others and himself. And he was generous, putting people on the payroll for life, and sharing his knowledge with his son’s fledgling theater group. He was brilliant, with an instinctual comic understanding. He was not perfect, and made some bad life and artistic decisions along the way. But what genius!
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC through LibraryThing.
April 27, 2024
I knew virtually nothing of Chaplin going in, and he was clearly a complicated and interesting person. My problem with this book was the writing. The book just didn't seem to flow in the kind of narrative that kept me engaged. There were a few sections where I couldn't put the book down, but unfortunately, such sections were few and far between.
June 5, 2023
A very fine biography/history of the early film industry, Chaplin's place in it and his subsequent 'troubles' with the U.S. government which resulted in him not being allowed back into the U.S. when he left for a vacation to Europe. This is a sympathetic portrayal, but does not gloss over Chaplin's failures and foibles (his penchant for young girls, his several marriages, doomed love affairs and his stubborn inability to keep his mouth shut when it came to his politics). It did not help that he was subject to the whole Senator McCarthy hearing debacle in the 50's but based on the extensive research done by the author, his indiscretions never came near to the level that would characterize him as a Communist or an 'enemy' of the government. It is a fascinating story which covers a lot of ground (not just Chaplin's life) and an engrossing read. Highly recommended, esp for film buffs and those interested in the 'Red Scare' era. Thank you to Byrd's Books for this ARC.
May 2, 2023
Incredibly well researched and written.
February 5, 2024
While the title made me think this just covers a particular period in Chaplin's life, it also includes pivotal moments starting with his poverty stricken beginnings to that Christmas Day in 1977 when he left us. But this book does go into greater detail about the conservative led witch hunts of the 40s and 50s and the impact it had on Charlie, both creatively and personally.
Blacklisted actor Paul Robeson summed it up best in a letter he wrote to Charlie: "...fascists everywhere hated you for your anti-Nazi film, The Great Dictator. Well, Hitler and his gang are gone, but Chaplin and his art lives on! And your name will be honored --yes, here in America, too --long after McCarthy and his kind are buried in oblivion.". Indeed.
Blacklisted actor Paul Robeson summed it up best in a letter he wrote to Charlie: "...fascists everywhere hated you for your anti-Nazi film, The Great Dictator. Well, Hitler and his gang are gone, but Chaplin and his art lives on! And your name will be honored --yes, here in America, too --long after McCarthy and his kind are buried in oblivion.". Indeed.
December 26, 2023
I love all books by Scott Eyman and was so excited when this one came out. Charlie Chaplin has always been fascinating to me, and his speech in the Great Dictator is one of my top favorite cinematic moments. He was brave and unafraid to speak his truth at a time it was not popular to do so. He was also incredibly problematic, and Eyman does an excellent job at moving between these two ideas in his book.
January 26, 2024
In retrospect, a look at a genuinely targeted witch-hunt and hypocrisy in contrast to tolerance of our current breed of politicians and movie moguls. Well written and detailed. Good narration. Very enjoyable.
January 27, 2024
Fascinating and well documented, tying in a lot of threads of history I’ve known bits about. Well organized and paced. A generally good read from someone who has not been a Chaplin movie fan.
December 13, 2023
How did Charlie Chaplin go from being America’s most beloved comedian to a pariah who was told he could not re-enter the United States after taking his family for a trip to Europe? In this book, Scott Eyman dives into the fascinating story of how American politics and mores of the World War II and Cold War eras collided to destroy the reputation and damage the legacy of one of the great pioneers of cinema, much to the detriment of our culture.
Charlie Chaplin, born to actor parents in England, grew up in poverty, with a mother suffering from mental illness and a father who mostly abandoned his family. He began work in vaudeville as a teenager and, by 18, was already establishing his own pathway to success. (Later in life, he recalled that his ultimate dream at this time was to become a leading solo act in the vaudeville world.) But his breakthrough came in America, where his talent quickly sent him to the top through his work at Mack Sennett’s studio, after which he branched out on his own. He went on to become the biggest comedy star of the era and a brilliantly innovative filmmaker in such historic movies as “The Gold Rush,” “City Lights,” “Modern Times,” and, later, “The Great Dictator” and “Limelight.” These movies are still moving audiences today, and although Chaplin’s reputation has risen and fallen over the decades, his place in film history is assured.
His personal life is another matter. For decades, he was known to be a seducer of his young leading ladies. He married injudiciously, and seemed indifferent to the idea of fidelity until his last and very happy marriage. (Even today many consider him a pedophile, which was definitely not the case.) Around the time of “The Great Dictator,” he was accused of violating the Mann Act in a trumped-up case involving an adult woman who had multiple lovers and later accused of a paternity suit involving the same woman (even though the child was proved not to be his). Chaplin never understood the censoriousness of the gossip columnists who salivated over every detail of his case. (One of the reactionary writers who hounded Chaplin in his columns was Ed Sullivan.) Nor did he concern himself with politics or joining in the jingoistic patriotism that Americans seemed to expect from their screen idols at the time. Chaplin never became an American citizen, a fact that undermined him and opened up the possibility of banishing him from our shores. By extension, his sympathy for opening up a second front in Russia during World War II aroused suspicions that he was a communist—another accusation that held no merit. That didn’t stop the FBI for contriving a way to punish him for his nonconformity by signaling he would be prosecuting for returning to his home in Los Angeles, leading to decades of exile in Switzerland and stunting his creativity forever.
Eyman does a really good job of explaining who Chaplin was and what made him tick. He was clearly formed by the trauma of poverty and the mental illness of his mother; he was incredibly loyal to many people in his life, including his older brother Sydney, and kept several former actors on his payroll for decades long after they stopped contributing anything to him. Yet he was also a penny pinchee except when it came to making his films. He was an artist through and through, and his art reflected his essential optimism about life.
Chaplin’s sentimentality, which occasionally veered into the mawkish, was in line with attitudes of moviegoers of his era, but might explain why contemporary audiences prefer the more cerebral pleasures of Buster Keaton or the hijinks of Harold Lloyd. Yet Chaplin’s greatest films still touch the heart in ways other comedians can’t. This book helps us see, in ways that feel eerily prescient of the times we’re in today, how politics and moralistic judgments can destroy what’s best in us. Let it be a warning to us.
Charlie Chaplin, born to actor parents in England, grew up in poverty, with a mother suffering from mental illness and a father who mostly abandoned his family. He began work in vaudeville as a teenager and, by 18, was already establishing his own pathway to success. (Later in life, he recalled that his ultimate dream at this time was to become a leading solo act in the vaudeville world.) But his breakthrough came in America, where his talent quickly sent him to the top through his work at Mack Sennett’s studio, after which he branched out on his own. He went on to become the biggest comedy star of the era and a brilliantly innovative filmmaker in such historic movies as “The Gold Rush,” “City Lights,” “Modern Times,” and, later, “The Great Dictator” and “Limelight.” These movies are still moving audiences today, and although Chaplin’s reputation has risen and fallen over the decades, his place in film history is assured.
His personal life is another matter. For decades, he was known to be a seducer of his young leading ladies. He married injudiciously, and seemed indifferent to the idea of fidelity until his last and very happy marriage. (Even today many consider him a pedophile, which was definitely not the case.) Around the time of “The Great Dictator,” he was accused of violating the Mann Act in a trumped-up case involving an adult woman who had multiple lovers and later accused of a paternity suit involving the same woman (even though the child was proved not to be his). Chaplin never understood the censoriousness of the gossip columnists who salivated over every detail of his case. (One of the reactionary writers who hounded Chaplin in his columns was Ed Sullivan.) Nor did he concern himself with politics or joining in the jingoistic patriotism that Americans seemed to expect from their screen idols at the time. Chaplin never became an American citizen, a fact that undermined him and opened up the possibility of banishing him from our shores. By extension, his sympathy for opening up a second front in Russia during World War II aroused suspicions that he was a communist—another accusation that held no merit. That didn’t stop the FBI for contriving a way to punish him for his nonconformity by signaling he would be prosecuting for returning to his home in Los Angeles, leading to decades of exile in Switzerland and stunting his creativity forever.
Eyman does a really good job of explaining who Chaplin was and what made him tick. He was clearly formed by the trauma of poverty and the mental illness of his mother; he was incredibly loyal to many people in his life, including his older brother Sydney, and kept several former actors on his payroll for decades long after they stopped contributing anything to him. Yet he was also a penny pinchee except when it came to making his films. He was an artist through and through, and his art reflected his essential optimism about life.
Chaplin’s sentimentality, which occasionally veered into the mawkish, was in line with attitudes of moviegoers of his era, but might explain why contemporary audiences prefer the more cerebral pleasures of Buster Keaton or the hijinks of Harold Lloyd. Yet Chaplin’s greatest films still touch the heart in ways other comedians can’t. This book helps us see, in ways that feel eerily prescient of the times we’re in today, how politics and moralistic judgments can destroy what’s best in us. Let it be a warning to us.
January 15, 2024
I have always loved watching the old comedians like Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton. This was a fascinating history of how sections of America rejected Chaplin due to their mistaken beliefs concerning his politics. Very good!
January 15, 2024
This is my first book completed and reviewed in 2024 - off to a great start! 👍
As a fan of old movies and cinema history, I am surprised how much I didn't know about the life of Charlie Chaplin. This alone was very interesting, but there is so much more. This is a book that explores how freedom of speech and freedom of press rub up against each other to influence public and political sentiment, with a particular focus on post- WW2 America and McCarthyism. Chaplin, through his films, his speeches, and yes, even his sex life, found himself in the center of all this, and through his story, we learn about a dark time in 20th -century history.
Although there are times when the narrative gets redundant (which is why this is a 4-star rating rather than a 5-star rating), I enjoyed Scott Eyman's well-researched writing. He showed Chaplin from all angles - the good, the bad, and the ugly - while honoring his art as a motion picture legend.
I think it will be interesting to read Eyman's bio about John Wayne, too.
As a fan of old movies and cinema history, I am surprised how much I didn't know about the life of Charlie Chaplin. This alone was very interesting, but there is so much more. This is a book that explores how freedom of speech and freedom of press rub up against each other to influence public and political sentiment, with a particular focus on post- WW2 America and McCarthyism. Chaplin, through his films, his speeches, and yes, even his sex life, found himself in the center of all this, and through his story, we learn about a dark time in 20th -century history.
Although there are times when the narrative gets redundant (which is why this is a 4-star rating rather than a 5-star rating), I enjoyed Scott Eyman's well-researched writing. He showed Chaplin from all angles - the good, the bad, and the ugly - while honoring his art as a motion picture legend.
I think it will be interesting to read Eyman's bio about John Wayne, too.
January 1, 2024
Excellent writing about one of the finest comedians, directors, producers, actors - Charlie Chaplin. A story of a guy that went from the slums of London to being a very rich actor/producer that was also generally hated by the USA press and its gossip columnist. Why...because he was a non-conformist, opinionated when it came to politics of his era 1920s-1960s. Because of his opinions/attitudes he was labeled as being Jewish where he was not Jewish. He considered himself a citizen of the world so he saw no need to apply for citizenship in the USA. Interesting lines in the book about how his public opinions also affected the results of his sexual escapades that ended up in court. The no-it-all attitude of J. Edgar Hoover, and an attorney general of the time, and the McCarthy Hearings fiasco finally ran him out of the country.
January 3, 2024
This is the most definitive book on Chaplin I've read. And I've read many. While most of the others write in detail of his impoverished childhood and his rise to stardom, Scott Eyman takes the reader there and beyond, focusing more on the artist's life from adored to despised. Nothing is sugar coated here. Charlie Chaplin is on full display, giving equal time to his talents, and his flaws, in a time period of American history where the government was paranoid, and the public gullible. A timely and important read.
November 6, 2023
Besides seeing Robert Downey, Jr.’ s portrayal of Charlie Chaplin on the big screen (brilliant performance!), I’ve never watched a whole Chaplin film and have only watched clips of his movies in several history of the movies retrospectives. I knew about his exile but beyond that, I didn’t know the reasons why.
Scott Eyman is a master at research and has put together the penultimate biography of the master of silent films. As he did with Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise, he does a deep dive and provides a compelling re-examination one of Hollywood’s biggest names in the context of today’s world.
Born into poverty with an older brother, a mentally ill mother, and an absent father, early life was rough for Chaplin. Through hard work and determination, Chaplin made his way to the United States. “Charlie Chaplin was an arrogant, combative, narcissistic, over-sexed and unreliable human being; he was also arguably the most brilliant cinematic genius of the 20th century.” — Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. That about sums up Chaplin in a nutshell, but there was so much more.
Yes, Chaplin had a thing for younger ladies, sometimes teens. He went through a succession of wives and lovers during his years as a filmmaker, and was even the subject of a paternity suit, which proved he wasn’t the father of the baby in question, but that didn’t matter to conservatives in the government. Eventually, he settled down. He met his last wife when she was 18, and they had 8 children and by all accounts, Charlie was a good husband and father.
Chaplin was very vocal about his politics, and that got him into a lot of trouble. It was the late 1940s and early 1950s in America, and the Red Scare was in full force. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, California Senator Richard Nixon, and a host of other government officials openly attacked artists of all walks of life: authors, filmmakers, performers of all types. They wanted to get rid of all the “Communists”. Chaplin was very high on their list because he was so outspoken, never became a U.S. citizen, and because of his sexual proclivities. And let’s not forget the morally bankrupt head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Because of this, when Chaplin left America one particular time, the government revoked his visa to return. He ended up living in exile with his family for more than 20 years.
If you love movies and the history of filmmaking, you’d probably like this well-researched and detailed biography of Charlie Chaplin, who, despite his personal faults (as is the case with many celebrities), was one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century. You’ll also want to find out how and why Chaplin was allowed to return to the United States.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Books; I am leaving this review voluntarily.
For more reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com
Scott Eyman is a master at research and has put together the penultimate biography of the master of silent films. As he did with Cary Grant: A Brilliant Disguise, he does a deep dive and provides a compelling re-examination one of Hollywood’s biggest names in the context of today’s world.
Born into poverty with an older brother, a mentally ill mother, and an absent father, early life was rough for Chaplin. Through hard work and determination, Chaplin made his way to the United States. “Charlie Chaplin was an arrogant, combative, narcissistic, over-sexed and unreliable human being; he was also arguably the most brilliant cinematic genius of the 20th century.” — Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. That about sums up Chaplin in a nutshell, but there was so much more.
Yes, Chaplin had a thing for younger ladies, sometimes teens. He went through a succession of wives and lovers during his years as a filmmaker, and was even the subject of a paternity suit, which proved he wasn’t the father of the baby in question, but that didn’t matter to conservatives in the government. Eventually, he settled down. He met his last wife when she was 18, and they had 8 children and by all accounts, Charlie was a good husband and father.
Chaplin was very vocal about his politics, and that got him into a lot of trouble. It was the late 1940s and early 1950s in America, and the Red Scare was in full force. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, California Senator Richard Nixon, and a host of other government officials openly attacked artists of all walks of life: authors, filmmakers, performers of all types. They wanted to get rid of all the “Communists”. Chaplin was very high on their list because he was so outspoken, never became a U.S. citizen, and because of his sexual proclivities. And let’s not forget the morally bankrupt head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Because of this, when Chaplin left America one particular time, the government revoked his visa to return. He ended up living in exile with his family for more than 20 years.
If you love movies and the history of filmmaking, you’d probably like this well-researched and detailed biography of Charlie Chaplin, who, despite his personal faults (as is the case with many celebrities), was one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century. You’ll also want to find out how and why Chaplin was allowed to return to the United States.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Books; I am leaving this review voluntarily.
For more reviews, visit www.bargain-sleuth.com
December 14, 2023
I’ve read several of Scott Eyman’s movie books and enjoyed all of them. He certainly is prolific and this latest one, featuring Charlie Chaplin and his exile from America is one of his best. I am not a huge Chaplin fan; I find the man much more fascinating than his movies, which I feel are dated and maudlin (at least at times). I much prefer Buster Keaton (who has his own massive backstory) when it comes to silent film comedians. Eyman’s book is more of a biography that centers on the 1950s moment that Chaplin left the US to promote his film, Limelight, overseas and was denied re-entry. He had lived and worked in America for 40 years, but never became a citizen and that—especially in the 1950s—rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. A conspiracy (of dunces, one might say) locked him out of the country, essentially calling him a Communist (he wasn’t) and a pederast (he admittedly did have a thing for teenage girls; he married the love of his life, Oona, when he was 52 and she was 18, and he had dalliances with other young women, one of which—Joan Berry—resulted in a couple of headline-grabbing court cases). Certain Americans—official (J. Edgar Hoover) and not (the sob sister gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, a self-appointed guardian of Hollywood society)—viewed him as a menace to the American way of life and conspired to keep him out of the country. Eyman’s tale is one that has deep resonance in today’s polarized political America. You can argue that Chaplin was the greatest casualty of the Red Scare in Hollywood and the nation in the 1950s, even though he’s seldom mentioned in that particular context. He was certainly one of the earliest and most famous examples of cancel culture. Chaplin eventually had a triumphant return in 1972 to accept an honorary Academy Award (for which he received the ceremony’s longest standing ovation), but he lived the rest of his days—from around 1952 through his death in 1977—in Switzerland with his beloved wife, Oona and his eight (!) children.
December 30, 2023
Way to much info.I almost felt like the author was just cramming things into this book.I was interested in knowing about the cause of the government problems and why Chaplin left the U.S.It was unnecessary to know about every woman he slept with and every human being he had a conversation with. It was overkill.
December 27, 2023
This was an interesting read. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
October 8, 2023
I was given an advance reading copy (arc) of this book from NetGalley.com and the publisher in return for a fair review. Charlie Chaplin and The Little Tramp are both icons of cinema history. A pioneer in the film business, Chaplin helped create the Hollywood we know today. Born in poverty to a mentally ill mother and absent father, Chaplin and his brother, Syd, often lived on the streets in England as children. Charlie's rise to fame came in America where he created The Little Tramp--a silent screen character beloved the world over. Author Scot Eyman focuses on the years after World War II during the Cold War when government officials, who believed they saw Red, decided they no longer wanted him living in America. He never applied for citizenship feeling it was unnecessary to claim any specific country as his own. He loved America, made his fortune here, as well as his home. No specific charges were ever proved against him, but when he left the country in the early 1950s to attend his own movie premiere in London, these same officials banned him from returning. He spent the rest of his life in exile in Switzerland. In 1972, he was invited back to Los Angeles to accept an honorary Oscar for his contribution to film. He was warmly welcomed and graciously accepted the award but did not stay. Eyman brings a troubling part of Hollywood history front and center. It was a bit dry, but overall the story of Charlie Chaplin's banishment from U.S. soil was thoroughly researched and explained. The injustice done to The Little Tramp was nothing less than a travesty.
November 20, 2023
Like the author, I got my first exposure to Charlie Chaplin through Super 8 film from the Blackhawk movie catalog. My first film was The Pawnshop (1916). I think it cost me about $16.95. I also had the Chaplin book the author references during that time "My Life in Pictures." (I still have it). In addition, I remember on television the Robert Youngson silent film anthology pictures the author references.
That was a good starting point for me and I know from other books Eyman does his research and has a great eye for details to give to the reader plenty of documented information. I've read a lot of books that discuss the red scare in post WWII Hollywood and the McCarthyites have yet to seem like the good guys in any of them. Chaplin comes across as sympathetic here despite having many faults. Hedda Hopper plays like the most obvious villain in this piece.
Anyway, it's another strong work from Eyman on motion picture history and it's also inspired me to catch a couple of Chaplin films I've missed over the years: "A Dog's Life," "The Kid" and "The Circus." I'm also going to revisit "Limelight" after many years because of the love people have for what most consider Chaplin's last great film. By the way, none of these movies am I planning to watch on Super 8 (Not that there's anything wrong with it if I did!)
That was a good starting point for me and I know from other books Eyman does his research and has a great eye for details to give to the reader plenty of documented information. I've read a lot of books that discuss the red scare in post WWII Hollywood and the McCarthyites have yet to seem like the good guys in any of them. Chaplin comes across as sympathetic here despite having many faults. Hedda Hopper plays like the most obvious villain in this piece.
Anyway, it's another strong work from Eyman on motion picture history and it's also inspired me to catch a couple of Chaplin films I've missed over the years: "A Dog's Life," "The Kid" and "The Circus." I'm also going to revisit "Limelight" after many years because of the love people have for what most consider Chaplin's last great film. By the way, none of these movies am I planning to watch on Super 8 (Not that there's anything wrong with it if I did!)
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