For two hours I paced around in the lobby, in the street, around the theatre, then back to look at the film. It seemed to go on interminably. At last it was over. Earl Wilson, the columnist, a very decent chap, was one of the first I met in the lobby. ‘I liked it,’ he said, emphasizing the ‘I’. Then up came Arthur Kelly, my representative. ‘Of course, it’s not going to gross any twelve million,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll settle for half,’ I said jokingly.
We gave a supper party afterwards for about a hundred and fifty people – a few were old friends. That evening there were many cross-currents, and despite the champagne it was depressing. Oona stole home to bed, but I stayed half an hour longer.
Bayard Swope, a man whom I liked and thought astute, was arguing with my friend Don Stewart about the film. Swope hated it. That night only a few complimented me. Don Stewart, a little drunk like myself, said: ‘Charlie, they’re all a lot of bastards trying to make politics out of your picture, but it’s great and the audience loved it.’
By this time I did not care what anyone thought, I had no more resistance. Don Stewart saw me back to the hotel. Oona was already asleep when we arrived.
‘What floor is this?’ Don asked.
‘The seventeenth.’
‘Jesus! Do you realize what room this is? The one where the boy stepped out on the ledge and stood for twelve hours before plunging off and killing himself!’
This news was a fitting climax to the evening. However, I believe Monsieur Verdoux is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made.
To my surprise Monsieur Verdoux had a run of six weeks in New York and did very good business. But it suddenly fell off. When I asked Grad Seers of United Artists about it he said: ‘Any picture you make will always do big business the first three or four weeks, because you have the following of your old fans. But after that comes the general public, and frankly the Press have been continually hammering at you for more than ten years and it’s bound to have penetration; that’s why the business fell off.’
‘But surely the general public has a sense of humour?’ I said.
‘Here!’ He showed me the Daily News and the Hearst papers. ‘And that goes all over the country.’
One had a picture of the New Jersey Catholic Legion picketing outside the theatre showing Monsieur Verdoux in that state. They were carrying signs that read:
‘Chaplin’s a fellow traveller.’
‘Kick the alien out of the country.’
‘Chaplin’s been a paying guest too long.’
‘Chaplin, the ingrate and communist sympathizer.’
‘Send Chaplin to Russia…’
When a world of disappointment and trouble descends on one, if one doesn’t turn to despair one resorts to either philosophy or humour. And when Grad showed me the picture of the picketers, with not a customer outside the theatre, I said jokingly: ‘Evidently taken at five o’clock in the morning.’ However, where Monsieur Verdoux played without interference, it did more than ordinary good business.
The picture was booked by all the big circuits round the country. But after receiving threatening letters from the American Legion and other pressure groups they cancelled the showings. The Legion had an effective way of frightening the exhibitors by threatening to boycott a theatre for a year if they showed a Chaplin picture or other films of which they disapproved. In Denver the film opened one night to big business and closed the following night due to this threatening procedure.
Our New York sojourn was the unhappiest we have ever spent there. Each day we would receive news of cancellations of the film. Besides this, I was embroiled in a plagiarism suit over The Great Dictator; and at the height of the intense hate and antagonism of both the Press and the public, and while four senators were denouncing me on the floor of the Senate, the case was tried with a jury, in spite of my wanting to postpone it.
Before going further, I want to set the record straight by saying that I have always solely conceived and written my own scripts. The case had hardly started when the judge announced that his father was dying, and could we come to a settlement so that he could get away and be with him? The opposing side saw the technical advantage and readily jumped at the opportunity for a settlement. Under normal circumstances I would have insisted on continuing the case. But because of my unpopularity in the States at that moment and being under such court pressure, I was terrified, not knowing what to expect next, so we came to a settlement.
All hopes of a $12,000,000 gross for Verdoux had vanished. It would hardly pay its own cost, so now the United Artists company was in a desperate crisis. To economize, Mary insisted on firing my representative, Arthur Kelly, and was indignant when I reminded her that I was also half-owner of the company. ‘If my representatives go, Mary, then so must yours,’ I said. This brought about an impasse which terminated in my saying:
