‘How do you do, ladies and gentlemen. I am here to impart any facts that might interest you in connexion with my picture and my future plans.’
They remained silent. ‘Don’t all speak at once,’ I said, smiling.
Eventually a woman reporter sitting near the front said: ‘Are you a Communist?’
‘No,’ I answered definitely. ‘The next question please.’
Then a voice began mumbling. I thought it might be my friend from the Daily News, but he was conspicuous by his absence. Instead the speaker was a begrimed-looking object with his overcoat on, bent closely over a manuscript from which he was reading.
‘Pardon me,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to read that again, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’
He started: ‘We of the Catholic War Veterans…’
I interrupted: ‘I’m not here to answer any Catholic War Veterans; this is a meeting of the Press.’
‘Why haven’t you become a citizen?’ said another voice.
‘I see no reason to change my nationality. I consider myself a citizen of the world,’ I answered.
There was quite a stir. Two or three people wanted to talk at once. One voice dominated, however: ‘But you earn your money in America.’
‘Well,’ I said smilingly, ‘if you’re putting it on a mercenary basis, we’ll have the record straight. My business is an international one; seventy per cent of all my income is earned abroad, and the United States enjoys one hundred per cent taxation on it, so you see I am a very good paying guest.’
Again the Catholic Legion piped up: ‘Whether you earn your money here or not, we who landed on those beaches in France resent your not being a citizen of this country.’
‘You’re not the only guy who landed on those beaches,’ I said. ‘My two sons were also there in Patton’s army, right up in the front line, and they’re not beefing or exploiting the fact as you’re doing.’
‘Do you know Hanns Eisler?’ said another reporter.
‘Yes, he’s a very dear friend of mine, and a great musician.’
‘Do you know that he’s a Communist?’
‘I don’t care what he is; my friendship is not based on politics.’
‘You seem to like the Communists, though,’ said another.
‘Nobody is going to tell me whom to like or dislike. We haven’t come to that yet.’
Then a voice out of the belligerence said: ‘How does it feel to be an artist who has enriched the world with so much happiness and understanding of the little people, and to be derided and held up to hate and scorn by the so-called representatives of the American Press?’
I was so deaf to any expression of sympathy that I answered abruptly: ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t follow you, you’ll have to repeat that question again.’
My publicity man nudged me and whispered: ‘This fellow’s for you, he said a very fine thing.’ It was Jim Agee, the American poet and novelist, at that time working as a special feature writer and critic for Time magazine. I was thrown off my guard and confused.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘ I didn’t hear you – Would you kindly repeat that again?’
‘I don’t know if I can,’ he said, slightly embarrassed, then he repeated approximately the same words.
I could think of no answer, so I shook my head and said: ‘No comment… but thank you.’
I was no good after that. His kind words had left me without any more fight. ‘I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I thought this conference was to be an interview about my film; instead it has turned into a political brawl, so I have nothing further to say.’ After the interview I was inwardly sick at heart, for I knew that a virulent hostility was against me.
Still I could not quite believe it. I had had wonderful mail congratulating me on The Great Dictator, which had grossed more money than any picture I had ever made, and before that picture I had gone through plenty of adverse publicity. Besides, I had great confidence in the success of Monsieur Verdoux, and the staff of United Artists felt the same.
Mary Pickford telephoned to say that she would like to go with Oona and me to the opening, so we invited here to dine with us at the ‘21’ restaurant. Mary was quite late for dinner. She said she had been detained at a cocktail party and had had difficulty in tearing herself away.
When we arrived at the theatre crowds were milling outside. As we pressed our way through into the lobby, we discovered a man broadcasting over the radio: ‘And now Charlie Chaplin and his wife have arrived. Ah, and with them as their guest that wonderful little actress of the silent days who is still America’s sweetheart, Miss Mary Pickford. Mary, won’t you say a few words about this wonderful opening?’
The lobby was packed, and Mary propelled her way over to the microphone, still holding on to my hand.
‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, here is Miss Mary Pickford.’
In the midst of the shoving and pushing, said Mary: ‘Two thousand years ago Christ was born, and tonight…’ She got no further, for, still holding on to my hand, she was yanked away from the mike by a sudden push from the crowd –I have often wondered since what was coming next.
There was an uneasy atmosphere in the theatre that night, a feeling that the audience had come to prove something. The moment the film started, instead of the eager anticipation and the happy stir of the past that had greeted my films, there was nervous applause scattered with a few hisses. I loathe to admit it but those few hisses hurt more than all the antagonism of the Press.
As the picture progressed I began to get worried. The laughter was there, but divided. It was not the laughter of old, of
