Chaplin, 1992
Director
Cast
- Robert Downey Jr
- Dan Aykroyd
- Anthony Hopkins
- Geraldine Chaplin
- Kevin Kline
- Penelope Ann Miller
- Kevin Dunn
visit the film locations
Los Angeles: Flights: Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)
Visit the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 North Grand Avenue between First and Temple Streets in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles
London: Flights: Heathrow Airport; Gatwick Airport
Visit: Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Grace’s Alley, Wellclose Square, off Cable Street, E1.
Visit: Hackney Empire, 291 Mare Street, E8 (tel: 020.8985.2424)
Sussex: ride the Bluebell Railway between Sheffield Park and Horsted Keynes
Chaplin filming location: a cuppa at the ‘Covent Garden’ market: Smithfield Meat Market between Charterhouse Street and Long Lane, London EC1
After being snubbed at a snobbish restaurant, Chaplin takes his first love, Hetty Kelly, for a cup of tea at the old ‘Covent Garden vegetable market’, where it was possible to get a cuppa at any hour of the day or night – or even get a beer at seven in the morning, due to the special license arrangements for the Garden porters.
In the 70s, the market moved to a modern site south of the Thames in Nine Elms, so the scene was actually shot at Smithfield Meat Market between Charterhouse Street and Long Lane, London EC1. You can see the real Covent Garden market, as it was in its heyday, in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 Frenzy. Smithfield was featured in Catch Us If You Can and Last Orders, and was overrun by the infected in 28 Weeks Later...
Chaplin soon takes off for the fledgling movie industry of the States. The Keystone Studio of pioneer Mack Sennett (Dan Aykroyd), where Chaplin got his first job, stood at 1712 Allessandro Street.
Chaplin’s own studio, where he made The Immigrant, The Floorwalker and Easy Street in 1916 and 1917, was located at 1025 Lillian Way, south of Santa Monica Boulevard between Eleanor and Romaine Streets. No trace of either studio remains.
Hollywood in the twenties was still a town of citrus groves, so the studios were recreated north of Los Angeles at Fillmore, Route 126 between Ventura and Valencia. The ‘Hollywoodland’ sign, where Chaplin plays with Douglas Fairbanks (Kevin Kline), was recreated too.
The mock-Tudor studio is a recreation of the one Chaplin used from 1918 onwards, though this, amazingly, has survived. It’s now the home of Jim Henson’s production company, and is currently graced with a giant Kermit the Frog, at 1416 La Brea Avenue, south of Sunset Boulevard. Chaplin’s footprints are preserved in concrete on Stage 3.
Charlie’s home was on Summit Drive in Beverly Hills, but the film utilises a house built by the same architect, Wallace Neff, in the monied Los Angeles suburb of San Marino.
Chaplin filming location: William Randolph Hearst’s party: The Ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel, 607 South Park View Street, downtown Los Angeles
William Randolph Hearst’s post-WWII party, where Chaplin upstages FBI boss J Edgar Hoover with his breadroll dance, is held in the much-used Ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel, 607 South Park View Street overlooking MacArthur Park. in downtown Los Angeles. This popular film location can also be seen in the Coen brothers’ Barton Fink, Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York, Steven Spielberg’s Hook among many others.
Returning to England, the train journey from Southampton to London was filmed on the Bluebell Railway – a five mile stretch of track between Horstead Keynes and Sheffield Park, northeast of Haywards Heath in East Sussex. The enthusiastic welcome to the capital, which actually took place at Waterloo Station, was filmed on St Pancras Station, which one of the least changed of London’s great termini until its revamp as St Pancras International.
Chaplin filming location: Charlie finds he’s no longer welcome: The Salisbury, Green Lanes, Harringay, London N15
The ‘Covent Garden’ pub, where Chaplin discovers he’s no longer just one of the lads, is the grand, but rather faded, Salisbury, Green Lanes at the corner of St Ann’s Road, Harringay, London N15, which was seen also in Brit classic The Long Good Friday and in David Cronenberg’s Spider.
The shipbound scene, of Chaplin heading back to the States, was shot aboard the Queen Mary, 1126 Queen's Highway at her dry dock on Pier J in Long Beach, Los Angeles – the ‘Manhattan’ skyline was added later.
Chaplin filming location: the glittering premiere of Limelight Los Angeles Theatre, 615 South Broadway, downtown Los Angeles
The première of Chaplin’s Limelight was filmed in the dazzling foyer of the 1931 Second Empire-style Los Angeles Theatre, 615 South Broadway in the vibrant – if a bit down at heel – Hispanic centre of downtown Los Angeles. The theatre’s gorgeous interior can also be seen in Batman Forever, Charlie’s Angels and sequel Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, New York, New York, as a raunchy casino in Armageddon, and as ‘the Vatican’, no less, in End of Days.
Anthony Hopkins’ fictional biographer interviews the elderly Chaplin at the real Chaplin estate, courtesy of his widow Oona, who had given the film her blessing. It’s in Vevey, twelve miles east of Lausanne on the north shore of Lake Leman in Switzerland.
The closing scenes, of Chaplin’s belated Lifetime Achievement Oscar award, though shot on a set at Shepperton Studios in the UK, were intercut with shots of the actual ceremony at the one-time home of the Academy Award ceremonies, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion – part of the Music Center, 135 North Grand Avenue between First and Temple Streets in the Bunker Hill district of Los Angeles.
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