Charlie Chaplin ( b16/4/1889 - 25/12/77) - Citizen of the World

Charlie Chaplin in the news recently because M.I.5  failed to determine where the silent film star was born,  does it really matter? He himself in his autobiography said 'he was born on 16th April 1889, at eight o'clock at night, in East Lane, Walworth, London but was also a self proclaimed 'citizen of the world' who did not pledge his allegiance to any specific Country or cause. The fact that nobody knows for certain where he was born certainly adds to his mystique.
He subsequently became the most well-known actor of the early 2oth century, becomming an iconic figure in his Little Tramp costume, which consisted of baggy pants, bamboo cane, bowler hat, and oversized shoes. His acting credits numbered 87 , starting of in 1914 in Making a Living  and ending with Countess from Hong Kong in 1967.

By 1914 when war is declared Charlie Chaplin is a global film star but  is ridiculed in the UK for failing to enlist. The smear campaign directed at shaming Chaplin for his failure to enlist was spearheaded by British press mogul Lord Northcliffe, the founder of the Daily Mail. Northcliffe reprimanded the actor numerous times in his publications, often demanding his immediate return to Britain.

His films  however,, treated no less than a miraculous medication, were regularly shown to the injured soldiers of the First World War.  The projectors were fitted in such a way as to project their images onto the ceilings of the hospitals, allowing bedridden soldiers to enjoy Chaplin’s films without having to sit up. The soldiers used to forget their emotional and physical trauma once they started watching the Tramp and his gags.  Laughing helped reduce the sufferings of the war-wounded soldiers. As Chaplin puts it, “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.” 

Chaplin’s universal medicine of laughter entertained and cured a worldwide audience since it transcended the barriers of language. Eventually he does don khaki - in  his anti-war comedyShoulder Arms released in 1918, after the Armistice., the film presented a sarcastic but funny overview of the war. It featured the Tramp in an army camp as an awkward rooky who has to face several challenges in order to survive the deadly trenches.

He is seen battling the dirty mud, the flooding, the persistent fear, and the grossly bad food. The Tramp eventually captures the Kaiser after he disguises himself as a tree trunk and crosses no man’s land in his hilarious camouflage. 

His many other  classic films include  The tramp, (1915) The Kid (1916) A Days pleasure (1919)  The Idle Class (1920) and The Gold Rush (1925).

It is known that had socialist ideas, informed by being bought up in extreme poverty, his younger days were spent living in workhouses, and he numbered many left wing friends as his friends and acquaintances. He generally held his tongue, but after the 1930' with the film City Lights (1931)

City Lights - intro monument

 and Modern Times (1936)  which was seen by many as an overt attack on the capitalist system,  his films began carrying messages with explicit political statements, with the characters he played often taking sides with the downtrodden working class.

Chaplin's critique of Industrialization
first segmet in Modern Times.

Clip from Modern Times.



Chaplins father had died of drink by the time he was 10, and his mother unable to bear the poverty she endured,  suffered from bouts of insanity, deep experiences that never left him. He himself was an voracious reader on economic theory and philosophical treatise.A strong humanitarian he was disturbed by the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation, and hatred of the mechanisation of the world and even devised his own Economic Solution, based on a more equitable not just of wealth but of work.

 Chaplin’s anti-war sentiments only increased with time as his political clout strengthened later in his career. “Though he might make comedy from it,” Robinson writes, “the folly and tragedy and waste of war were always to bewilder and torment Chaplin.”
On 15 October 1940 Charlie Chaplin's  classic film The Great Dictator debuted in New York and saw him taking on the nazis.  In his first all-talking picture, he plays both a Jewish barber and his double, Adenoid Hynkel, the absolute ruler of Tomainia. As Hynkel and his henchmen Herring and Garbitsch engineer the persecution of Jews and the invasion of neighboring Osterlich.

In  the film he pitted his celebrity and humour against Hitlers own celebrity and evil. He played a dual role as a jewish barber who has lost his memory in a plane accident in the First World War, and spends time in hospital before being discharged into an anti-semitic country that he does not understand, and Hynkel (Hitler) the dictator leader of Ptomainia, whose armies are the forces of the Double Cross, and will do anything along the lines to increase his possibilitis for supreme power.Throughout the anti-fascist film Chaplin powerfully exploits the deflating power of parody, while in the finale he abandons both character and comedy to deliver one of the most inspirational speeches in recorded history with an impassioned plea to the audience for human tolerance, encouraging us in opposing all forms of oppression,Many years later, the  world still needs to stand still and listen and stand against the forces of fascism.https://

Charlie Chaplin's inspirational final speech  in  "The Great Dictator "

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- jewish, Gentile, black men, white…

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is 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. More than machinery ,we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! 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 youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their 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!

A Message to  humanity

However  despite his anti-war efforts, Chaplin uncritically supported the war effort, especially the Soviet Front, he was targetted by J Edgar Hoovers F.B.I who apparently saw him  as a dangerous radical and subversive, and put it about that he was a communist.

His 1947 film Monsier Verdour saw him showing mass murder and the abuse of workers in an attempt to increase business profits. He was not afraid and for the times was quite daring. In the early 1950s, the United States was suffering from a chronic condition known as Communist-phobia, also referred to as McCarthyism, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led a vicious campaign against numerous prominent Hollywood stars, academics, scientists, writers, activists, and others.

Though he atttended Communist Party meetings, he never actually admitted actual membership of the party. He was a principled man however because at the height of the McCarthy witchhunts he never betrayed any of his friends who he knew were, and continued to support and defend them, as they were forced to testify before the House of Un-American Activities Committe ( HUAC), the tide of his popularity was turning against him mainly due to the propoganda aimed at him at the time. It is possible that his independent wealth saved him, being part owner of the United Artist Movie studio, and he himself never got an invitation to testify, the witchhunters possibly afraid of the damage a brilliant comedian like Chaplin could inflict.

HUAC in action

Humanitarian, Yes . Communist??

After this he was effectively hounded out of the U.S.A, by political persecution and paranoia, being accused of 'moral depravity', he was known for his fondness of women, and had numerous affairs. His imprints were removed from the Hollywood walk of fame, such were the authorities disdain for him and were subsequently lost to the mists of time. Because  of being pilloried by the right-wing press and reactionary institutions like the American legion and all the subsequent propoganda unleashed against him he began to lose favour with the American public. Ironically in 1952 saw the release of Limelight , which could be seen as a semi-autobiographical story concerning a story about a once famous comedian who has lost his ability to command his audience, basing his performance on Frank Tinney (1877-1940) an American Black film comedian and the Spanish clown Marceline (1873 - 1927) for me personally a film of great pathos.

Charlie Chaplin in Limelight

In 1952, the United States Attorney General told him that his re-entry to the U.S would be challenged on charges of turpitude and political unreliabilty. He had never actually attained American citizenship, in the first place, he'd actually refused it, so he destoyed all his American possesions and escaped to Europe.
In 1957 he starred in The king of New York where he was the first film-maker to dare to expose, through satire and ridicule, the paranoia and political intolerance which overtook the United States in the Cold War period. It would be another 16 years until it was actually screened in America, such was its daring. He starred as the deposed king of  Estovia who flees to America where he is tormented by a McCarthy style investigation.

Exiled, he settled at the Manir de Bar in Corsier Svr Vevey, Switzerland where he was to spend the rest of his days. He did return once more to the U.S.A in 1972.Charlie Chaplin didn't get any Oscar Awards as he was labelled a communist. He was, at last, given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Oscar Academy. He was allowed to talk only for five minutes. He didn't talk a single word but was applauded for 12 minutes with standing ovation from the spectators. 

As well as acting, and being a father to many children his versatility  extended to writing, composing music and sports. He was also a self-taught violinist and celloist which he played left handed.He died in his sleep on Christmas day 1977, in his home in Switzerland.
His legacy lives on, as much for his  great intellectual vision, but as  a brilliant comic who has bought me much laughter over the years with the combination of his acrobatic agility and his ability to express through the medium of film, great depths of emotion and feeling and remind  me of  what truly matters. A little man, but big in my eyes.

" Like everyone else I am what I am: an individual,
unique and different,
with a lineal history of ancestral promptings
and urgings; a history of dreams,
desires, and of special experiences,
all of which I am the sum total."-- Charlie Chaplin

“I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.”- Charlie Chaplin