Chaplin (1992)

Robert Downey Jr.: Charles Spencer Chaplin

Photos 

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Quotes 

• German Diplomat : [offering his hand]  Mr. Chaplin! I am a great admirer of yours.

  Charlie Chaplin : I'm sorry, I prefer not to shake hands with Nazis.

  German Diplomat : [laughs nervously]  What have you got against us, Mr. Chaplin, hm?

  Charlie Chaplin : What have you got against everybody else?

• Charlie Chaplin : The tramp can't talk. The minute he talks, he's dead.

• Charlie Chaplin : Syd, I love this country. I owe it everything. That's why I *can* make fun of it!

• Douglas Fairbanks : Charles, you're a foreigner; you're still an outsider. You've never understood this country.

  Charlie Chaplin : It's a good country underneath, Doug.

  Douglas Fairbanks : No, it's a good country on *top*. Underneath, that's what starts showing when we're scared.

• Fred Karno : [on the train; remembering Charlie's early days in the theatre]  You took a tail suit out of the wardrobe, tryin' to be a gent. Trying to impress that young dancer... Hetty, wasn't that 'er name?

  Charlie Chaplin : Hetty Kelly.

  Fred Karno : Yeah, I could see in your eyes you fancied her.

  [chuckles to himself] 

  Fred Karno : Hmm. Sad.

  Charlie Chaplin : Yes, I know all about it, Fred. She got married. Sent me a lovely note. I brought it with me; it's in my baggage.

  Fred Karno : [looking worried]  Oh, Charlie, Charlie. Charlie, don't you know? Has nobody told you? She's gone. The flu epidemic after the war carried her away.

  [Charlie reels, unable to speak] 

  Fred Karno : I thought someone must have told you, must have written. Didn't nobody?

  [Charlie leaves the compartment and goes into the corridor, leaning against the wall and trying to collect himself] 

  Stan Laurel : [following him and fixing his tie]  What do we do, Charlie?

  Charlie Chaplin : [sadly]  Smile.

  [they exit the train and are immediately swarmed by a crowd of fans] 

• Charlie Chaplin : The truth is I'd have been a total disaster if I hadn't invented The Tramp.

  George Hayden : Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about the way you've written that.

  Charlie Chaplin : I mean, the words just poured out. It practically wrote itself. Remember, I'd only been with Sennett for a month. Oh, that magical moment as I walked through the wardrobe door. I felt possessed. I could feel *him* calling out to me. The Tramp.

  George Hayden : Bullshit! And you know it.

  Charlie Chaplin : But the truth is so boring, George!

• Charlie Chaplin : If you want to understand me, watch my movies.

• Charlie Chaplin : [noticing a pretty girl at the opposite side of a restaurant aisle]  Excuse me Miss, do you always eat alone?

  Edna Purviance : Only when I'm trying to make a new acquaintance. Actually I'm waiting for my girlfriend.

  Charlie Chaplin : Actually I'm a motion picture director, and I'm forming a new company with Bronco Billy over there.

  Edna Purviance : And you're looking for a new leading lady. Lucky me.

  Charlie Chaplin : Obviously you are an actress, Miss...

  Edna Purviance : Purviance. Sorry, just a secretary.

  Charlie Chaplin : Don't be sorry. I'm auditioning for actresses who aren't actresses.

  Edna Purviance : Well, if you're on the lookout for untalented actresses who aren't actresses, then you couldn't do better than me.

  [correcting] 

  Edna Purviance : Worse than me.

  Charlie Chaplin : [getting up after being called over by Sydney]  Don't you want to know who I am?

  Edna Purviance : I've no interest whatsoever in who you are

  [pauses, Chaplin starts moving away] 

  Edna Purviance : Mr. Chaplin.

• Paulette : Did you lose your other wives this way?

  Charlie Chaplin : I think so. But you'd have to ask them.

• Charlie Chaplin : What's the matter, Syd? For 10 years, you've been on at me to make me a talkie. Now I'm making a talkie.

  Sydney Chaplin : Yeah, but not this.

  Charlie Chaplin : I know this man. We're born the same year, four days apart. He's like me, capable of anything.

  Sydney Chaplin : Nobody - wants to see a movie about Adolf fucking Hitler!

  Charlie Chaplin : [shouts]  I do!

  [with one hand throws a chair down the aisle] 

• [Chaplin tells Sennett he intends to leave Sennett's employ and open his own studio] 

  Mack Sennett : Charlie, I've been so rotten to you. I don't know if you can forgive me. I forced you to leave Butte, Montana. I made you accept a hundred and fifty per. You mentioned directing and I stuffed that down your throat too. Now tell me how else Uncle Mack can make it up to you!

  Charlie Chaplin : I want to run my own show, Mack.

  Mack Sennett : Don't kid yourself, Chaplin. You're not that big.

  [spits on the floor, missing the spitoon] 

  Charlie Chaplin : That's the first time I've ever seen you miss, Mack.

• [about Hetty Kelly] 

  George Hayden : But you didn't even kiss her!

  Charlie Chaplin : Don't you think I know that?

• Charlie Chaplin : [after watching newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler to study Hitler's mannerisms and patterns of speech, in preparation for "The Great Dictator"]  I know you... you bastard!

• George Hayden : My Charlie, you weren't even thirty. You was the most famous man in the world, with your own studio, named after you. Couldn't you just enjoy it?

  Charlie Chaplin : I can now, but couldn't then. It meant too much.

• Sydney Chaplin : [Charlie is playing the violin]  Alright Sonny boy, tell your poor little brother today's problem.

  Charlie Chaplin : Same as the day before, and the day before that and the day before that.

  Sydney Chaplin : And the day before that, and the day before that.

  Charlie Chaplin : Alright you're so creative, you work it out! The tramp buys a flower from the girl, in order for the plot to work, she has to think he's rich. That's all, except if you're aware of it, the flower girl is blind. I don't know how to make the girl mistake the tramp for a millionaire.

• Charlie Chaplin : That's not what dogged me, George. It wasn't that.

  Charlie Chaplin : It was... it was the knowledge that if you did what I did for a living-if you were a clown-and you had a passion to tell a particular kind of story... something... beyond... but you only had the one chance to get it right. And I never did.

  Charlie Chaplin : One never does, but, uh, you know that. That's not... the problem. It's when you feel you're getting really close... but you can't make it the rest of the way. You're not good enough. You're not complete enough. And despite all your fantasies you're second rate.

  George Hayden : Charlie.

  Charlie Chaplin : Human. That's very hard.

• Douglas Fairbanks : Say, are you two still married or what? I find it all very confusing.

  Charlie Chaplin : Mmm... it's not at all confusing. You see, when everyone thought we were having an affair, we were married. Now that everyone realizes we're married, we're getting divorced.

  Douglas Fairbanks : Man's a wizard with women. No question about it.

• J. Edgar Hoover : I sometimes wonder if you people realize the responsibility you carry. To my way of thinking, motion pictures are potentially the most influential form of communication ever invented. And there's no control over them. Your message reaches everyone, everywhere.

  Mary Pickford : Message?

  J. Edgar Hoover : Of course. Mr. Chaplin here reaches millions who only have to see. And when they see a mockery being made of our immigration services, I'd call that a message.

  Charlie Chaplin : Yes, well, as you've already said, Mr. Hoover, motion pictures are for the people. Most of the people work for a living, and they don't make much money doing it. It gives them pleasure to see officialdom and the upper classes getting a kick up the backside. Always has, and it always will. And if that can change things, so much the better.

  [to Mary Pickford, in a better pronounced, less cockney voice] 

  Charlie Chaplin : Bet-ter.

  Mary Pickford : He's improving.

• Charlie Chaplin : [leaving a screening of one of his movies during the Depression, Chaplin and his wife are surrounded by homeless people. They ask for his autograph and he obliges them. As they leave, he sighes]  I wish they'd asked me for my money.

• Charlie Chaplin : Nothing quite like it. The feeling of film.

• [first lines] 

  George Hayden : Ha ha ha ha ha. Come on Charlie stop messing about, we really have to get down to it now. I just hope our friendship survives the day, that's all.

  Charlie Chaplin : Ha George, don't be so melodramatic.

  George Hayden : Well, it's your autobiography Charlie. And as your editor I have to tell you that parts of the manuscript are pretty vague, to say the least. I mean for instance, your mother. Now when did she first lose control? We need to know those facts.

  Charlie Chaplin : It's hard to say. She could be so wonderful, on good days...

• Paulette : You know what?

  Charlie Chaplin : hum?

  Paulette : I've always had that gift. After a man makes love to me, he just goes wild from happiness.

  Charlie Chaplin : I am happy.

  Paulette : Well, then tell me when you get sad; because, I don't want to be around.

  Charlie Chaplin : Terrible things have been happening out there since the crash. Millions of decent Americans have been robbed of their right to work. Machinery is replacing manpower. And I've said nothing. Shame on me. Shame on me.

• Charlie Chaplin : What is it?

  Oona O'Neill Chaplin : They've thrown you out.

  Charlie Chaplin : Thrown me out? Thrown me out of what?

  Oona O'Neill Chaplin : Of America.

• Charlie Chaplin : Actress?

• [Chaplin enters a London pub. Immediately, he is recognised] 

  Ted the Drunk : Well! Here's someone who's had a good war!

  Working Man : Yeah, didn't see him in the bleedin' army!

  Ted the Drunk : Come to stare at the animals, Charlie?

  Working Man : Oh, go and sit down, Ted, and give your mouth a rest!

  Charlie Chaplin : I just came in for a quiet drink. Here, have one on me.

  Ted the Drunk : You have one on me, Mr. Charlie fucking Chaplin!

  [he throws his drink at him, Chaplin dodges it] 

• Mary Pickford : Her name is Mildred Harris.

  Charlie Chaplin : An actress?

  Mary Pickford : Oh, yeah. A child actress. You ever hear the word "jailbait," Charlie? That's the definition. I'd watch it if I was you.

• Charlie Chaplin : This is America, Mum. This is where your dreams come true.

• Charlie Chaplin : Of course everything changed when America's sweetheart came on the scene.

  George Hayden : You mean Mary Pickford?

  Charlie Chaplin : Yes, I always found her to be something of an undersized bitch, but Doug fell for her like a ton of bricks.

• Douglas Fairbanks : I haven't a care in the world! I'm the oldest action star in the business and talkies are coming. What the hell have I got to be worried about? That's talkies, Charles. Talkies! Talkies!

  Charlie Chaplin : Can you imagine The Tramp talking?

  Douglas Fairbanks : It's the future, Charlie.

  Charlie Chaplin : Not in my lifetime.

  Douglas Fairbanks : Talkies!

  Charlie Chaplin : It'll never catch on.

  Douglas Fairbanks : Talkies! Talkies! Talkies! Talkies!

• Sydney Chaplin : Who the hell is gonna pay to see you, when everybody else has gone over to sound?

  Charlie Chaplin : Who? I'll tell you who. The Japanese, for one thing, and the Russkies for another. And anyone else who doesn't happen to speak English. Or have you forgotten about the other nine-tenths of the globe?

• George Hayden : Upper regional domes...

  Charlie Chaplin , George Hayden : Immensely expansive.

  George Hayden : That's how you describe Joan Barry in your book. She was very - she was well-endowed, is that what you mean?

  Charlie Chaplin : Yes

• George Hayden : Ah yes, tell me, when did you start to work on "The Great Dictator"?

  Charlie Chaplin : '38.

  George Hayden : '38. Everyone thought you were crazy then. Then, when the second World War broke out, you became a genius overnight.

  Charlie Chaplin : Well, not to those who thought I was a Communist.

• Sydney Chaplin : Don't let me down.

  Charlie Chaplin : I'll be great, Syd.

  Sydney Chaplin : You don't have to be great. Just shut up and be funny.

• Charlie Chaplin : [at the flickers]  The one with the fire engine. You'll love this one, Stanley.

  Stan Laurel : If any of them could really act, they'd be on stage. Charlie, look. You must listen. It's a telegram. That can only mean somebody's died.

  Charlie Chaplin : [reads the telegram]  Some bloke offering me a job in California. In the flickers.

  Stan Laurel : It's not legit in the flickers.

  Charlie Chaplin : $150 a week.

  Stan Laurel : At $150 a week?

• Charlie Chaplin : I'm sure he really did believe I was a communist. I wasn't, of course. I was simply a humanist.

• Douglas Fairbanks : A man came to see me the other day.

  Charlie Chaplin : Oh? A corset salesman?

  Douglas Fairbanks : I sent him. Your paunch is in need of help. He was the FBI, old darling. Said he knew what a loyal American I was. He wondered if everyone else felt the same way. I just sat there and let him work his way around to you, which he did. He asked were you a member of the Communist Party. I said that was an absolute impossibility.

  Charlie Chaplin : Because I love America.

  Douglas Fairbanks : Because you're too cheap to pay the dues.

• George Hayden : You know what it was, don't you?

  Charlie Chaplin : What?

  George Hayden : Sex.

  Charlie Chaplin : Sex.

  George Hayden : Yes. Sex.

  Charlie Chaplin : It's odd, you know, but I don't think I've ever looked at a woman without measuring that - possibility between us. At the same time, I'm not all that interested. Never during work. I suppose it was only when I wasn't working, that I was - vulnerable.

• George Hayden : Lita was your second wife, okay? She gave you two sons, whom you adored. This book is over 500 pages long. Yet, you only devote five lines to her. Why?

  Charlie Chaplin : I hated the bitch.

• Paulette : It can't be as bad as all that, Mr. Chaplin.

  Charlie Chaplin : Do I know you? And why don't I?

• Charlie Chaplin : Actress?

  Paulette : If you watch the B-movies and don't blink. Don't get any ideas, though.

  Charlie Chaplin : You're taken, then.

  Paulette : No, but I'm 21. *Way* too old for you.

• Charlie Chaplin : How does a blind girl mistake The Tramp for a millionaire? When she hears the door slam on a rich man's car. She thinks The Tramp's the owner. Easy. When you know how.

• Charlie Chaplin : Paulette. She was wonderful.

  George Hayden : Her personality, you mean?

  Charlie Chaplin : No.

  George Hayden : You mean in bed?

  Charlie Chaplin : No. Well, that was good. No, she's the only one who didn't take me for a fortune.

• Charlie Chaplin : End of the day, you're not judged by what you didn't do, but by what you did. And I didn't change things, I just - he just - cheered people up.