I'm John Batchel, with Scott. I'm in the new book is Charlie Chaplin versus America when

art, sex, and politics collided. Charlie's now living in Switzerland and at a house called

Manoir. His children are growing. Una is a heroine of heroine's very stable life. She found

Charlie the stability that she needed because of her unacceptable father, Eugene O'Neill.

But at the same time, Charlie was, as Scott tells us, not fully engaged the way he had been in Los Angeles or New York.

He has one more movie to make.

It's about a script that could have been a comedy and could have been successful back in the 1930s, could have been.

But for reasons that I cannot recover, Marlon Brando shows up as a hero.

How did that happen, Scott?

The film was financed by Universal, and they had Brando in a contract.

And Chaplin originally had written the script in the 1930s for Gary Cooper and Paul at Goddard.

And if you recast the picture with Gary Cooper and Paul had Goddard in the 1930s, it might have

worked. But it's 1966, and Universal has agreed to finance the picture generously, I might say.

And they got Brando under contract.

Chaplin wanted Sean Connery to play the part, because he liked the way Connery played James Bond.

But Universal didn't see any reason why they should

pay Sean Connery when they were already paying Marlon Brando. So Brando agreed, because he liked

Chaplin's films, Brando agreed to blow off one of his films he had to make for Universal

with the Chaplin picture.

Well, they didn't,

Chaplin was a hands-on director, literally a hands-on director.

He would grab an actor and move them into position.

...