Memorable quotes for
Chaplin (1992) More at IMDbPro »

[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.
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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.
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Charlie Chaplin: If you want to understand me, watch my movies.
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[Sennett is explaining the film industry to Chaplin as Rollie edits a film]
Mack Sennett: Now I know this is all new to ya, but remember something, we're all new. This is not an ancient industry. This whole place here is built around speed. Start the story, start the chase. I get bored easy.
Rollie Totheroh: How much you reckon Mack? Couple yards of Mabel?
Mack Sennett: Hmm, yeah. Nah, make it three. But don't go thinking we sacrifice quality. I never make more than two motion pictures a week, but I'll spend up to a thousand dollars on each of 'em if I have to.
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Charlie Chaplin: Nothing quite like it. The feeling of film.
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Charlie Chaplin: I'm sorry, I prefer not to shake hands with Nazis.
German Diplomat: What have you got against us, Mr. Chaplin?
Charlie Chaplin: What have you got against everybody else?
Man at party: You'll have to forgive him. He's a Jew!
German Diplomat: Really.
Charlie Chaplin: I'm afraid I DON'T have that honor! Excuse me.
Woman at party: [to Chaplin as he leaves] Shame on you!
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Paulette: Did you lose your other wives this way?
Charlie Chaplin: I think so. But you'd have to ask them.
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Charlie Chaplin: Syd, I love this country. I owe it everything. That's why I *can* make fun of it!
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[about Hetty Kelly]
George Hayden: But you didn't even kiss her!
Charlie Chaplin: Don't you think I know that?
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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.
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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, again fiercely shouts]
Charlie Chaplin: I do!
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Charlie Chaplin: Actress?
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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.
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J. Edgar Hoover: I have to wonder if you people realize the level of responsibility you carry. From my way of thinking, Motion Pictures are potentially the most influential form of communication ever invented. And there's no control over it. 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 call that a message.
Charlie Chaplin: Yes, well, uh, 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; gives them pleasure to see an official from 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.
[in a better pronounced, less cockney voice]
Charlie Chaplin: Bet-ter.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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[after telling an obviously made-up story of how he created the Little Tramp characters]
George Hayden: That's bullshit, and you know it.
Charlie Chaplin: But the truth is so boring, George!
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[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 loose control? We need to know those facts.
Charlie Chaplin: It's hard to say. She could be so wonderful, on good days...
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J. Edgar Hoover: We're too generous. We're too open. Now if we don't watch out, if we don't take steps now, impose some new discipline, some decency, then we're in trouble, deep trouble. And I know it's not fashionable to say this. We're celebrating, everyone thinks it's okay. But democracy carries a price tag. And I just happen to think that one of the most misguided promises we ever made was inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. One that I predict will lead this country into all kinds of trouble: Give us your poor, your huddled masses... Now we have to stop this before it goes too far. Our conception of America does not include, was never meant to include, this kind of scum.
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Sydney Chaplin: Charlie, you got your pants on back-to-front.
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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.
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Charlie Chaplin: The tramp can't talk. The minute he talks, he's dead.
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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.
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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]
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