The Real Charlie Chaplin (2021) - full transcript

December 1916.

The Society for
Psychical Research

whose publications include
"Phantasms of The Living"

and "Human Personality and
Its Survival Of Bodily Death"

are reporting an
extraordinary phenomenon.

Mr. Charles Chaplin,
motion picture comedian,

has been cited in
hundreds of places,

simultaneously. Subs/Sync: PTNK.

From the Atlantic
to the Pacific,

from the Canadian
boundary to the Gulf,

people wait at stations
to see Mr. Chaplin.



In the same hour,

crowds are gathering at
hotels across the country.

"Have you got the Chaplin-oia?"
asks one newspaper.

Others report the Chaplin Fever,

the Chaplin Craze,

Charlie-mania.

"Chaplin-it is,"
runs one headline,

"Has spread across America."

Bootlegs, counterfeits, and
imitators flood the market.

Lookalike contests spring
up across the globe.

It's rumored that Chaplin
himself entered such a contest

and came 20th.

People demand to know,

"Who is the Real
Charlie Chaplin?"



When we think of
Charlie Chaplin,

we picture this man.

This is the moment he first
steps on to the screen.

And he looks at us.

He reappears soon
after in other films.

Here he is again.

And here.

And he keeps looking at us.

But this is not Charlie Chaplin.

This man has no name.

He has no fixed address.

No family.

No set point in space or time.

You can't pin him down.

The only constants
are the hat, the cane,

the boots and the mustache.

Sometimes just the mustache.

So who is he?

He's been called the little man.

The little fellow.

The Tramp.

He's a character played
by Charlie Chaplin.

"The Tramp" will make
Chaplin more famous

than any king,
queen, or emperor.

More famous than any
philosopher, artist,

or religious figure.

Famous in a way that
no one has been before.

Chaplin makes "The Tramp" and
"The Tramp" makes Chaplin.

You can't see one without
looking at the other.

They tell each other's stories.

So where do we start?

Here's how Chaplin starts.

1889 begins with a total
eclipse of the sun.

This year, the Eiffel
tower opens to the public.

Adolph Hitler is born.

In Kyoto, Nintendo is founded.

They make playing cards.

Electric streetlights are
being installed in London

where Jack the Ripper
remains at large.

The pizza margarita is invented.

They're still working
on the aero plane.

This is how movies look in 1889.

89.

These are
recordings of the human voice.

Of birdsong.

Of music.

Film grows up alongside Chaplin.

It captures the London
streets he roams as a kid.

The children he plays with.

This is the
voice of Effie Wisdom.

Captured on tape
when she was 92 years old.

It takes 12
days for the Karno Company

to cross the Atlantic.

- 12 days in a rat.
- Infested cattle boat.

At first sight of land,

one young man leans
over the railing

and screams out.

They embark on a grueling
tour of the continent.

Playing three shows a day.

Fred Karno's brand
of knockabout comedy

is intensely physical.

He teaches his
comics how to trip.

How to tumble, slide and fall.

How to take a punch.

How to fall down a
flight of stairs.

They're the best
in the business.

And wherever they go,
one performer stands out.

But his tour mates
can't work him out.

Offstage, he's quiet,
moody and reclusive.

He's usually shabby
in appearance.

Then, without warning,
he'll dress to Kill.

He teaches himself the
cello, ancient Greek, yoga.

But above all he vows that
he will not return poor.

In California, a
fortune teller tells him

he will soon enter a new field

in which he will earn
a tremendous fortune.

They say that fortunes are
there to be made in America.

The oil boom has created
millionaires overnight.

Henry Ford has devised
the modern assembly line.

And Nickelodeon's opening in
cities across the country,

showing motion picture
comedies around the clock.

But Chaplin isn't
impressed by the movies.

He thinks they're a passing fad.

Mr. Chaplin got
into motion pictures purely,

in my mind, by accident.

This is the
voice of Mack Sennett,

pioneer of movie comedy,

founder of Keystone Studios,

specialists in custard pie
warfare and high-speed chases,

the Mack Sennett Bathing
Girls, the Keystone Kops.

I have a comedian
working for me at the time.

His name was Ford Sterling.

He was a chief of
the Keystone Kops.

One day Sterling quits.

I said, " shucks".

Suddenly
Sennett needs a new lead.

Right away, I
thought of a comedian

that I'd seen in an
English act called,

"A Night in the
London Music Hall."

I couldn't remember
the name at the time,

but I wired to New York to
associates to find this man.

And I said, his name is
Champion, Chaprin, or Chambers,

or something like that.

So they traced him in

and they found him in a
small town in Pennsylvania.

Sennett offers him $150 a week,

three times the money
he's getting now.

He decides he'll stick
it out for a year.

And if Ford Sterling
had continued with me,

the chances are that Chaplin
would have returned to England

and we'd have probably
missed the greatest comedian

we've ever seen.

This is
Chaplin telling the story

in a 1966 interview
for "Life Magazine."

It's one of the
only times Chaplin has allowed

a tape recorder
within these walls.

The million dollar question.

He's been asked this countless
times by journalists.

And also by lawyers.

This man looks familiar.

The hat, the mustache.

But this is not Charlie Chaplin.

In the 1920s, this
man releases a series

of knockoff Chaplin films
under the name Charles Aplin.

Chaplin sues Aplin
and the trial delves

into the origins of the Tramp.

Firstly, Aplin claims he
wasn't imitating Chaplin.

He was imitating Billy West,

the famous Chaplin impersonator.

"Aplin's Chaplin isn't
Chaplin," says Aplin.

Aplin's Chaplin is an imitation
of an imitation of Chaplin.

"Besides, if anyone should
be on trial for imitation,"

says Aplin, "It's Chaplin."

Two of Chaplin's
Karno colleagues,

Fred Kitchen and Billy Ritchie,

both claim that Chaplin's Tramp
is an imitation of theirs.

"I was the first says," Ritchie,

who goes on to make a living

producing knockoff
Chaplin films.

But Aplin and Chaplin, Ritchie
and Kitchen are all following

in the wake of a great
wave of tramp comedians

who have been touring
the vaudeville circuit

since the late 19th century.

These comedians are
themselves inspired

by real tramps.

The drifters who crisscross
America in search of work.

The homeless Chaplin grew up
with on the streets of London.

These men are more
likely to see the inside

of a police cell
than a movie studio.

But in Chapman's
telling the creation

of his Tramp is spontaneous.

He's just made his screen debut,

a clear knockoff of his
predecessor Ford Sterling.

And the reviews aren't good.

In fact, the
shoes were Sterling's,

the trousers, Fatty Arbuckle's

and the hat belonged
to somebody's father.

The costume isn't stolen,

but it's assembled, magpie-like,

from bits of other costumes.

And so, we're
back here, February, 1914.

The moment he first
steps onto the screen

and looks at us.

And this time the
reviews aren't half bad.

And it's not just New York.

Why is Chaplin fever
spreading across the world?

What is it about
this little Tramp?

Well, he's funny.

He can take any situation

and make it silly.

But it's more than that.

In a society sharply
defined by class,

the Tramp not only
stands up to the man.

He gives them a kick up
the arse for good measure.

To the millions of migrants,
dreaming of a new life,

the Tramp is someone
without a nation.

Someone who has no language,

but who speaks to everyone.

And in a world divided
by bitter conflict,

the Tramp can make you laugh,

whichever side you're on.

The Tramp defies the
boundaries of identity.

He blurs gender and sexuality.

He upends authority and class.

He's a nobody

and he belongs to everybody.

In the work house.

Chaplin dreamed
of becoming rich,

famous and beloved.

He's now the highest
paid actor in the world.

The most famous man alive.

So all the
adulation, it's not for me.

It's for the little man.

First impression was the eyes.

They could be so warm and so
cold in a flash of a second.

Because he was a
charmer, you know.

Charlie
was a great exhibitionist.

Very flamboyant.

He put on a great show.

He loved to talk on any subject,

pretend that he was a rebel
and a radical politically.

And he had the means
of making people think

that he was a very
profound reader,

when actually I think
he read the first page

of a number of books

and made people think
he read the whole thing.

Charlie was always acting.

Always on show, always
the entertainer.

He didn't want people to
know the real Charlie.

One's bound to be insecure
with a childhood like his.

He never felt anybody loved him.

He never believed it.

He said, "Why would
anybody love me?"

I am no psychiatrist,

but it's easy to see that
still has a fear of poverty.

Don't care how
much money he has.

He still has fear of poverty.

Within a few years,

Chaplin has built
his own studio,

founded a distribution company,

liberated himself from
dependence on financial backers.

He follows no schedule.

He doesn't even follow a script.

He starts with a vague idea

and replays it again
and again and again,

until it becomes funny.

The actors are instructed
to perform each gesture

exactly as he does

as though they are mere
extensions of his body.

Every nuance, every
glance, he makes first.

His assistant says that if
he could have done every job

on set himself, he would have.

As it is, he writes,
directs, produces,

edits, scores, and stars.

He even tries his hand
at hair and makeup.

Finally, when he
has total control,

he begins his most
ambitious project yet.

It's the story of
an abandoned child.

Of a single mother too
poor to care for him.

In another life, the boy is
headed for the workhouse.

But in this version, when
the authorities arrive

to take him away,

he's not going without a fight.

It's been eight years
since he left London.

And when he finally gets back,

he hears a familiar voice.

He finds himself
back in the attic room

of No. 3 Pownall Terrace.

Four walls that the
Chaplin family called home.

Where Chaplin's mother, Hannah,

delighted him with her
costumes and impressions.

Where she struggled to make
ends meet after her voice

and then her stage
career failed.

She sat at this window

and told Charlie she
could see ghosts outside

before she was dragged
off to the asylum.

And Charlie's mother
hasn't left London.

She's living in a nursing home.

So when Chaplin
returns to America,

he brings her with him.

But she teeters between worlds.

Present and past seem to blur.

When she sees her son
dressed as a tramp, she says,

"Charlie, I have to
get you a new suit."

Meanwhile, her son is
making a Hollywood epic.

One that takes the Tramp
to the ends of the earth.

But it's themes
are closer to home.

This is a test

to see how my voice
records on the film.

You are now listening to
a talking, moving picture.

We believe an entirely
new art will be created.

The beginning of a new
era in motion pictures.

Suddenly the Tramp's strength

becomes his weakness.

He can't talk.

What language would he speak?

What dialect?

1928 Warner axes all
its silent projects.

1929 Fox follows.

By 1930,

all the major
studios are talking.

One by one Chaplin's
contemporaries start to talk.

First, Laurel and Hardy.

My trunk is packed

and I am leaving for
South America, tonight.

Then Harold Lloyd.

I don't know what to say.

Well, that's nothing new, dear.

Then, Buster Keaton.

Well, I got a lot of
serious talking to do

and you got a lot of
serious listening to do.

The talky revolution is here.

It's alive! It's alive!

The public is going crazy

for anything that talks.

Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

You ain't heard nothin'.

But Chaplin
decides to do the unthinkable.

He'll make a silent film.

Like most romantic comedies,

"City Lights"
turns on a misunderstanding.

A blind flower girl mistakes
the Tramp for a millionaire.

Simple enough on paper,
but there is no paper.

Chaplin works without a script.

And this scene is
to drive Chaplin

and everyone around him

to the edge of madness.

Can you tell us

about the shooting
of that sequence?

Dear.

He'd take it over and over
and over again.

I often thought
that if he couldn't think

what he was going to do next,

he simply went on doing
the same shot over again

until he thought of it.

Chaplain agonizes

over this mistaken
identity scene.

It's the heart of the film.

It has to feel right.

He was a perfectionist.

And to us it often seem
to be exactly the same.

When he'd finally
say "It's a take,"

we'd breathe a sigh of relief.

And then he'd say, "Well,
perhaps just one more time."

It's not
working. Why isn't it working?

What if the rich man
buys a flower first?

Then, no.

Maybe it's Virginia Cherrill.

270 days into the shoot.

Charlie fired me.

It's Cherrill. She's not right.

He needs a new
flower girl and fast.

The whole thing is going to
cost a fortune to reshoot.

He hires Georgia Hale,

his leading lady
from "The Gold Rush."

He said, "I'm going to redo all

of 'City Lights' with you."

I'm gonna redo
the whole thing with you.

- But, no.
- Hale's not right either.

He tests other actresses.

They're just not, maybe
Cherrill was the one.

He begs Cherrill to come back.

It's 534 days into the shoot,

but they still haven't
got the flower scene.

He shot an entire film
around the fulcrum

of this mistaken identity

and it just isn't working.

Then it comes to him.

A slamming door.

The key to Chaplin's
defiantly silent opus

iS a sound.

At the premiere,
50,000 people turn out,

hoping to see the Tramp
and the flower girl.

And some speculate the romance

may not be confined
to the screen.

Many people
thought I was his girlfriend,

but I wasn't.

- I was much too old.
- I was 20.

All four of Chaplin's wives

were young actresses.

Three were teenagers.

I've asked the author
of this book to visit us.

Her name is Lita Grey Chaplin.

The title is "My
life With Chaplin."

We only have one
of Chaplin's wives on tape.

Second wife
of Charlie Chaplin and

1966 she
releases her tell-all memoir.

It is a controversial
sensational book.

And here is Lita Grey Chaplin.

I'm curious, Lita,

to find out why
you would write this book.

I had a compulsion to write it.

I felt that the story
just had to be told

or rather I had
to tell the story.

I had lived so many years
with the untrue story.

You starred in one of his movies

or you appeared in
one of his movies.

"The Kid" when
I was 12 years old.

Can I ask how old you
were when you married him

or is that a secret?

Sixteen.

And were you then heading
for a motion picture career?

Yes, I had begun in
"The Gold Rush," but

couldn't finish the picture.

Charlie takes two years to
make a picture, you know,

and we became involved in
the meantime in such a way

that I couldn't have
completed the picture.

A teenage girl
pregnant with Chaplin's child.

His first wife, Mildred Harris,

went through something similar.

She divorced Chaplin,
citing mental cruelty.

And things don't start
any better for Lita.

We were married in Mexico

because Charlie didn't want
much said about the marriage.

He was pretty bitter
in the beginning.

On the way back on the
train, he was quite nasty.

We were standing out on the
platform between the cars

while the train was traveling.

And he said, we could just
end this whole situation

if you'd just jump.

Two years
later, Lita sues for divorce

and full custody of
their two children.

It is, up to this point,

the most expensive divorce
in Hollywood's history.

The petition is so sensational

that copies of it start
selling on the street.

Lita describes him
as a serial adulterer

who cheats openly
and compulsively.

She claims he's
paranoid and jealous.

That he flies into rages,

bugs her room,
pulls a gun on her.

She says he tried
to pressure her

into getting a
backstreet abortion.

Chaplin calls Lita a
blackmailer, a gold digger,

a little whore.

The papers label her
Chaplin's child bride,

his school girl wife.

And in a letter of support
for the genius Chaplin,

30 European
intellectuals brand her

an idiot woman, cow,

slut, vermin, parasite.

A part of the public
thought that I was wrong

in my divorce case.

That he was the poor little
mistreated, pathetic little man

with so much pathos and all.

That me and my family
were gold diggers

and all this kind of talk.

And that was, that
made me feel bad

because I knew that a
portion of the public

believed a lot because
they idolized Charlie.

For many years afterwards,

Lita struggles with
depression and alcohol.

She tries to set the story
straight in interviews,

but the topic
frequently strays back

to the matter of
Chaplin's genius.

Even after her death,

biographies of Chaplin
continue to characterize her

as a manipulative and
seductive teenage girl.

Chaplin, in his autobiography,

dedicates just three
sentences to Lita.

He never mentions her by name.

Lita's story is a shocking one.

But for Chaplin it
changes nothing.

Plenty has changed though.

The optimism of the Roaring
Twenties has come crashing down

and at every stop
on Chaplin's world tour,

he sees the ravages of
the Great Depression.

Communists and fascists are
fighting in the streets.

Queues outside screenings
of "City Lights,"

are mistaken for bread lines.

In London with Mahatma Gandhi,

he discusses
poverty, exploitation

and the misuse of the machine.

A film is taking shape
in Chaplin's head.

It's number one
at the British Box Office,

a smash in The States.

Acclaimed in the Soviet Union.

But in one country,
the film is banned outright.

Munich, 15 years earlier.

A little man marches
down the street,

swishing at the air
with some sort of cane.

His comical appearance
attracts attention,

particularly his conspicuous
toothbrush mustache.

He looks very familiar.

"Who is this funny little
fellow?" someone asks.

He's the leader of some
fringe political group.

"Just think," remarks
Chaplin a few years later,

"He's the madman,
I'm the comic."

But it could have been
the other way around.

Chaplin and Hitler are born
within four days of each other.

They both grow up
adoring their mothers

and resenting their
drunken fathers.

Both have known poverty.

One plays a tramp on screen

while the other is homeless
on the streets of Vienna.

Both are driven by a passionate
intensity and ambition,

laced with self-pity.

Sound threatens Chaplin's art,
but is the making of Hitler.

They are
both mesmeric performers.

They know how to command a crowd

through exaggerated gestures

and heightened
emotional appeals.

Both elicit intense,
almost physical reactions

from their audiences.

Chaplin makes them laugh.

Hitler drives them
into a frenzy.

And then of course
there's the mustache.

But when Chaplin and
Hitler look at each other,

what do they see?

The Nazis hate Chaplin.

They label him a Jew

and use him in their
antisemitic propaganda.

Neither can escape
comparisons with the other.

And so, as Hitler
celebrates his 50th birthday

with a military
parade through Berlin,

Chaplin is working on a
script for his latest film.

He begins filming the week
Britain declares war on Germany.

In it, Chaplin collapses
the distinctions

between himself and Hitler

as the dictator Adenoid Hynkel.

But it's also a story
of doppelgangers.

He simultaneously plays
the Jewish barber.

Before we take you down,
you'll finish this. Here!

Come on. Paint that.

Why you!

Hey, come here!

Chaplin, who wasn't Jewish,

has finally aligned the
Tramp with one identity.

A persecuted minority
facing extermination.

At the film's end,

the Tramp is mistaken
for the dictator

and forced to address the world.

When the greatest
comedy character

of all time finally speaks,

it's not to tell a joke.

I'm sorry, but I don't
want to be an emperor.

That's not my business.

I don't want to rule
or conquer anyone.

I should like to help
everyone, if possible.

Jew, Gentile, black men, white,

we all want to help one another.

Human beings are like that.

We want to live
by each other's happiness,

not by each other's misery.

We don't want to hate
and despise one another.

In this world
there's room for everyone

and the good earth is rich
and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be
free and beautiful,

but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls,

has barricaded the
world with hate,

has goose-stepped us into
misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed,
but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives
abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge has
made us cynical,

our cleverness hard and unkind.

We think too much
and feel too little.

You, the people have the power

to make this life
free and beautiful,

to make this life
a wonderful adventure.

Then in the name of democracy,
let us use that power.

Let us all unite!

Let us fight for a new
world, a decent world,

that will give men
a chance to work,

that will give you the future
and old age a security.

By the promise of these things,
brutes have risen to power.

But they lie. They do
not fulfill that promise.

They never will!

Dictators free themselves,
but they enslave the people.

Now let us fight
to fulfill that promise.

Let us fight to free the world,

to do away with
national barriers,

to do away with greed,
with hate and intolerance.

Let us fight for
a world of reason,

a world where science
and progress will lead

to all men's happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of
democracy, let us all unite!

Chaplin knows
the Tramp can't survive this.

By breaking his silence,

he's putting his
creation on the alter.

But after a quarter of a
century in the Tramp costume,

can Chaplin be sure

that he will re-emerge whole?

Can there be one

without the other?

It's 1947.

Charlie Chaplin is
holding a press conference

at the Gotham Hotel in New York.

He's about to release
his new motion picture.

His first without the Tramp.

But as he knows, no one's
here to talk about the film.

Chaplin.

So, how did we get here?

"The Great Dictator" has
been an enormous success

and its closing speech
has made such a splash

that Chaplin is
invited to repeat it

at the inauguration of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

You, the people, have the power

to make this life
free and beautiful,

to make this life a
wonderful adventure

that in the name of democracy,
let us use that power.

Let us all unite!

At a fundraiser for
the Russian war relief,

he's invited to speak
for four minutes.

We must have a unity.

He speaks for 40.

And only by
the strength of unity

can we win this war.

He gets carried
away, goes off script.

I certainly
think if that's communism,

there's a lot of people
in the United States

that'll vote for it.

Having waited
so long to break his silence,

Chaplin can't stop talking.

I just made a speech in Chicago

and I happened to say that
while people are anticommunist,

I am going to be communistic.

We must have the full strength

from the capitalist
to the communist,

in order that we
shall achieve victory.

And people
are starting to listen.

Under the orders of its
notorious director,

J. Edgar Hoover,

the FBI is engaged in
wide ranging investigation

into Chaplin's possible ties

to the international
communist movement.

The Red Scare is underway,

from Capitol hill to Hollywood.

Communism in
reality is akin to disease

that's spread like an epidemic.

And like an epidemic,

a quarantine is necessary to
keep from infecting the state.

Actors, writers and filmmakers

are dragged
in front of the House

un-American
Activities Committee.

Are you or
have you ever been a member

of the communist party?

What is your
opinion regarding communism?

I feel that they really
ought to be smoked out.

If I had my way about it,

they'd all be sent
back to Russia

or some other unpleasant place.

10 Are imprisoned
for refusing to testify.

Hundreds are blacklisted.

Taking down a big star would
be a major coup for Hoover

and they don't come much
bigger than Charlie Chaplin.

Are you a
member of the communist party?

But this response
doesn't satisfy Hoover.

Through the FBI's lens,

Chaplin becomes not
only a communist,

but a foreign subversive,

a homosexual, a Jew.

It tells us a lot
more about the FBI

than it does about Chaplin.

They're looking for dirt.

And in this department,
they have a powerful ally.

Hello everybody.

This is Hedda Hopper reporting
to you from Hollywood.

That fabulous place where
everyone wants to live,

but seldom does.

"Hedda Hopper's
Hollywood Gossip Column"

is read by 32 million Americans.

Work in Culver City and play.

She has the power

to make or break careers.

Palm Springs, the other
day I decided to get away,

and she hates communists.

Saw a little bit of sunshine.

She tells Hoover,

I'd like to run every one of
those rats out of the country

and start with Charlie Chaplin.

The file shows that Hopper
and Hoover's relationship

iS more or less circular.

Hopper fills her columns
with gossip about Chaplin

that's been fed
to her by the FBI.

Charlie Chaplin dividing

his dancing attention night
before last at the Persian Room.

The FBI
then quotes those columns

and its file against Chaplin.

In the minds of

Charlie Chaplin is called
the debutante's delight.

The machine feeds itself.

Regarding
communists in Hollywood.

I found much.

The evidence,
however, remains circumstantial.

Until one day.

You know, there's one
man in particular.

Hopper finds a
young woman called Joan Barry.

In 1941, Joan
arrived in Hollywood

as an aspiring young actress.

Charlie Chaplin
took an interest in her.

He said he could
make her a star.

Now she's pregnant
and she needs help.

Hopper and Hoover
sense an opportunity.

Chaplin is taken to court to
prove that he's the father.

And Hopper ensures the
whole case plays out,

week-by-week in
the tabloid press.

The prosecutor
tears into Chaplin.

He reveals that
Chaplin forced Barry

to have two backstreet abortions

and accuses him of decades
of predatory behavior.

Three grueling trials later,

a blood test suggests he
may not be the father.

But it's too late.

The tide has finally turned.

It's a great victory for the
right wing press and the FBI.

But what about Joan Barry?

Where does this leave her?

A few years later,

she is committed to a
psychiatric hospital.

There's no further trace of her.

And now it's open season
on Charlie Chaplin.

Now that it's ended.

The romance is over.

The passion gone.

Like the wind and the rain.

Gone are the joys.

Of our madness.

When I dream of you.

In the midst
of all these scandals,

he's married again.

Oona O'Neill.

My mother was
so young when she met him.

She was 17 and he
was 52, I think.

They fell in love

and then as soon as she
turned 18, they married.

Everyone thought
that she was just a bimbo

and that she'd be gone soon.

They were mad about each other.

The only opinion he
listened to was my mother's.

Just couldn't do nothing
without her approval.

She was the sunshine.

She gave warmth.

But his next film, "Limelight,"

betrays an underlying anxiety.

In it, he's an aging comedian.

Once renowned for playing
a beloved Tramp character

whose public

has now abandoned him.

On September 17th, 1952,

the Chaplin family
depart the United States

to attend the European premiere.

Two days into the voyage.

The story which
makes the most sensational news

is the departure of
Charlie Chaplin for London.

Immigration officials
are prompt to suggest

that the great comic may have
difficulty getting back here

if he wants to come.

The United
States Attorney General,

James P. McGranery,

heard that Chaplin had been...

Charged with making statements

that would indicate a
leering, sneering attitude

toward a country whose
gracious hospitality

has enriched him.

And then at
the Justice Department

decided that Chaplin could
not re-enter the country,

unless he could prove
quote "His moral worth."

This has
been years in the making.

His enemies have
tried everything.

But in the end,

they just wait until he leaves.

Chaplin sells his
Hollywood studio

and retreats to Switzerland.

He moves the family
into a grand estate

ringed by the Alps.

The sentence
I remember most, him saying.

"I'm not bitter about America."

I'm not bitter about America.

- Bitter about America?
- "I'm not bitter about America."

He said it so many times
one begins to wonder.

And Chaplin is
forced to adapt to his new role

as a father.

My father
wasn't Charlie Chaplin.

I knew they were
the same person,

but they looked nothing alike.

Except when he had an audience,

then he would become
Charlie Chaplin,

that other man, the man
that was on the screen.

This is the
Charlie Chaplin we find

in the family's home movies.

A cheerful clown who appears

the moment the camera
starts rolling.

My one wish growing up

was to have one conversation
alone with my father.

Just the two of us.

He was inaccessible
in SO many ways.

Your father's working.

Don't disturb him.

He'll lose his inspiration.

Our world revolved around
my father's well being.

I was kind of
frightened of my father.

He was so powerful
in a certain way.

You couldn't argue with him
because he couldn't be wrong.

Everyone who gets
too close to him,

he'll end up suffocating.

He couldn't help it.

That's why I left home
at an early age.

And I think my sisters did too,
you know.

Chaplin
makes two films in exile.

But neither is the comeback
he hopes for.

He said to me,

"I was very famous."

"I used to be very famous."

It did matter to him.

Of course it mattered to him.

He needed an audience.

He was a comedian.

You need an audience.

Correction.

It strikes me that happiness
is becoming more difficult.

New paragraph.

To write a book.

A great controversy was
going on in the press, comma...

- In this day and age we...
- comma.

Paragraph... of unconsciousness.

In the pages of his memoir,

Chaplin revisits, once more,

the streets he
wandered as a boy.

The streets he
haunts as an old man.

The streets he returned to
time and again,

as the Tramp.

His old Lambeth neighborhood,

he rebuilt it in his
Hollywood studio.

The gates of Killing ton Park,

here Chaplin met for a
date with his first love.

It's where the Tramp
meets the flower girl.

And the attic
of No. 3 Pownall Terrace.

Where young Charlie watched
his mother's health ebb away.

It's the attic
room in "The Kid."

And if Chaplin isn't
finished with the past,

the past certainly
isn't finished with him.

When Hollywood stages a grand
reconciliation at the Oscars,

it seems like a bid to
turn back the clock.

When he's knighted in 1975,

people are still searching for
traces of the little fellow.

Sir Charles left the palace,

not with his famous cane,

but now leaning on
a thick walking stick.

He's 86 next month and
he sat in a wheelchair

as the queen dubbed him.

Is there anyone left

who can look at one
without seeing the other?

When you ask
for the real Charlie Chaplin,

a thousand voices reply.

Take care.

Some are louder than others.

Some are hidden.

Some struggle to be heard.

And others

remain silent.

I think if anyone
could pin my father down,

could understand him

it was my mother.

My mother's voice doesn't exist.

There's nothing with her.

No recorded interviews.

Certainly she kept
journals. She kept diaries.

Writing was, I think,
her way of escaping.

Writing furiously,
writing continuously.

In her last years,

she spent a lot of
time destroying,

destroying what she had written.

She was probably very lonely.

I could imagine
it would be quite lonely

being the wife of
Charlie Chaplin.

That big wish that I had,

to have conversation
alone with my father.

I forgot about it.

I thought, " you
know, this is ridiculous."

It's just never gonna happen.”

And when I dropped it,
that's when it happened.

Conversation alone with my dad.

I had grown up with the icon.

But the man, I had no
idea who the man was.

He spoke about having
huge amounts of doubt.

He said that he had had
doubts all his life.

He accomplished
his life's dream,

but I don't think he ever
really got over his doubts.

Does one ever really get
over where you come from?

I don't think it
ever leaves you.

If you only shut your trap

I will tell you about a chap.

That was broken up
against it and threadbare.

He was not the kind that shirked.

He was looking hard for work.

But he heard the same
old story everywhere.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
keep on a-trampin'

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

"Nothin" doing here for you.

If I catch you round again.

You will wear the ball and chain.

Keep on tramping.

That's the best thing you can do.

He walked up and down the street.

Til the shoes fell off his feet.

In the house he spied
a lady cooking stew.

And he said, how do you do.

May I chop some wood for you.

What the lady told him
made him feel so blue.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
keep on a-trampin'

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

"Nothin" doing here for you.

If I catch you round again.

You will wear the ball and chain.

Keep on trampin'

That's the best thing you can do.

Cross the street
the sign he read.

Work for Jesus, so it said.

And he said, here is my chance

I'll surely try.

And he knee led upon the floor.

Til his knees got rather sore.

But at eating time he
heard the preacher cry.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
keep on a-trampin'

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

"Nothin" doing here for you.

If I catch you round again.

You will wear the ball and chain.

Keep on trampin'

That's the best thing you can do.

Down the street he met a cop.

And the copper made him stop.

And he asked him, when
did you blow into town.

Come with me up to the judge

the judge, he said, fudge.

Bums that have no money
needn't come around.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
keep on a-trampin'

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

"Nothin" doing here for you.

If I catch you round again.

You will wear the ball and chain.

Keep on trampin'

That's the best thing you can do.

Finally came the happy day.

When his life did pass away.

He was sure he'd go
to heaven when he died.

When did he reached
the pearly gates

Saint Peter, mean old saint.

Slammed the gate right in
his face and loudly cried.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp,
keep on a-trampin'

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp.

"Nothin" doing here for you.

If I catch you round again.

You will wear the ball and chain.

Keep on trampin'

That's the best thing you can do.

Keep on trampin'

That's the best
thing you can do ©