Posted on 01/21/2019 5:10:53 PM PST by Ozguy1945
Charlie Chaplin was one of the pioneering film making greats in Hollywood but could no longer live in America in the time of Joe McCarthy.
The scale of things in America as opposed tp Chaplin's country of birth, England, may have helped him to get the star power that enabled him to do things like establish United Artists and thereby be independent.
Not possible now? (Some bid stars can become producers but only as part of a team of producers not as sole producer/director.)
To some people in America Chaplin was a communist. When forced to leave America he went to Switzerland not Russia. That sounds like a guy who has money going somewhere where he likes the banks not like a communist. I am guessing.
Jackie Coogan's superb performance as the child is from the same actor who went on to be Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. Does anyone else see the eyes of Uncle Fester in young Coogan’s unique gaze? (See video on associated link)
What grade were you hoping for on this paper? I think it may need a re-write.
It is a blog post hoping for comments.
Do you have more time for Buster Keaton?
Why not? What did Joe McCarthy have to do with Hollywood?
Sometimes, you come up with a thought you don’t wish to think about, but there it is.
Meaning...I have always thought Charlie Chaplin’s face and countenance reminded me of John McCain. Yes. THAT John McCain. If you’ve drawn a lot of quick portraits, as I used to do, you will see that these men have very similar features and mannerisms.
I greatly admired Chaplin, for his creativity, and his willingness to work hard in order to achieve. It takes a lot of work and organization to write, direct and produce a movie. It takes skill to learn how to reproduce that lightening in a bottle effect over and over and over again, if you are on contract.
I know there has always been chatter that Charlie was a commie. Any such connection is unfortunate, but right here, I am focusing only on his accomplishments. I’m not examining his real motivation.
This compartmentalizing of famous people happens all the time. Separating Wheat from Chaff.
I mean, think about it, here we are ‘observing’ Martin Luther King Day. I’ve heard many sources say that he too had communist associations. Sometimes, it’s okay to take somebody at Face Value, and leave it at that.
Be aware, but don’t always be afraid.
Joe McCarthy was right
In 1952, Harry Truman’s attorney general James P McGranery revoked the re-entry permit of Charlie Chaplin, when he was accused of Communist sympathies. This happened the day after Chaplin had sailed for Europe.
Joe McCarthy’s national profile for calling out alleged communists began on Lincoln Day in 1950. So while I have no evidence of McCarthy being directly involved in Chaplin’s case in 1952, the senator was a part of the zeitgeist of fierce anti-communism. Agreed?
As human beings when we care deeply about stuff, then we have to deal both with our emotions and our desire for solid truth.
We need Donald Trump to say things others dont.
And we equally need the more circumspect Mike Pence.
Getting the emotion/thinking balance is something your response here does very very well, Lee.
Thanks.
I didnt know he was in that movie. Thanks.
About everything? And everyone?
I prefer to reserve omniscience for God.
Yes, of course. Communists are champions of the working class, so there are no wealthy Communists.
Although he was barred from the US, not everything went sour for Charlie. After all, two years into his exile, he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the World Peace Council, a non-governmental organization founded in Warsaw, Poland in 1950 to promote peace and resist monopoly capitalism and imperialism.
Geoff Fox re “I was guessing” re Chaplin. Well, guess again. He was a Communist and let people know it, though I have some personal doubts as to him really understanding what true “Marxism, Soviet Communism” was since the key media covered it up during his key years (20’s and Walter Duranty/NY Times 30’s).
As late as April 1949, Chaplin was still supporting some key Soviet/Communist Party USA assisted fronts including the “World Peace Congress”, April, 20-23, 1949, p. 110, “Appendix III (Part 1) “American Sponsoring the World peace Congress held in Paris, April, 1949” as reproduced in “”Report on The Communist “Peace” Offensive: A Campaign to Disarm and Defeat the United States”, April 1, 1951, House Committee on Un-American Activities, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, Union Calendar No. 98, House Report No. 378.
The book “Tender Comrades” A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist” by Patrick McGilligan and openly Marxist historian Paul Buhle, 1997, St. Martin’s Press, has a couple interesting references re events that the CPUSA or the CP/France sponsored where Chaplain was a speaker or mingled with other communists.
This book is written from the Marxist/liberal? viewpoint but is extremely useful into reading admissions by CPUSA members who were “blacklisted” in the 40’s and 50’s. Some of these admissions are devastating to the CP and its leftist defenders in that it reveals that the CPUSA members in Hollywood were hard core reds and very supportive of Stalin’s vast gulag/slaughterhouses from the Iron Curtain countries of Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan/Bering Straits.
Unfortunately I cannot find a couple govt publications that have more information on Chaplin and his Communist Party ties, including any formal membership, but that information is out there.
However, I did find one great quote by Chaplin in Prof. Paul Kengor’s very informative book “Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century”, ISI Books, 2010, p. 196.
“Cagney learned a lesson. For whatever reasons, whether public relations or sincerity, he backed away (from the Communist Party). One who did not was Charlie Chaplin.
“Thank God for Communism!” Chaplin told the appreciative atheists in the Daily Workers (the CP’s paper). “The say Communism may spread all over the world. I say, so what?” THe comedian wasn’t joking”.
Footnote 59, Chapter 10 - “The Hollywood Front”. Billingsley, “Hollywood Party”, p. 86. Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley, “Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s”, Rocklin, Ca; Prima Forum, 1998,
I’m sure Alan Ryskind has something about Chaplin in his book “Hollywood Reds” esp. since his father led the fight in the Screen Writers Guild (SWG) against the CPUSA faction trying to takeover Hollywood. (It is buried under about 5 feet of books and files right now).
Hope this gives you a little insight into Chaplin (you should see the letter I have from Ward Bond to a friend about abut how he views him, and it ain’t friendly).
Chaplin was a great actor but not necessarily the kind of guy you would want your daughter to go out with or marry, regardless of his communist affinities.
You have to sometimes separate the “work” from the “man”, and that can be hard to do. However, some studying does help to clear away some of the fog about ideologues.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
