Corrected entry: The scene with Douglas Fairbanks (Kevin Kline) climbing the Hollywood sign is historically incorrect. The sign at the time was still "Hollywoodland". The "Land" portion wasn't taken down until 1949.
Chaplin (1992)
1 corrected entry
Directed by: Richard Attenborough
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., John Thaw, Geraldine Chaplin, Paul Rhys
Factual error: In the scene where Chaplin and his wife are traveling to Europe by ship (when they find out Hoover has expelled him from the U.S.), the film shows the French Liner "Normandie" as it is leaving New York. The date shown on the film says September 1952. The "Normandie" however, was destroyed by fire in New York Harbor on February 9, 1942 as it was being converted into a U.S. troop ship for World War II. Incidentally, they filmed the scene on the R.M.S. Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, which in reality is probably the ship that the Chaplins actually took to Europe.
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.
Trivia: Anthony Hopkins played George Hayden, Charlie Chaplin's biographer (throughout the film's many flashbacks). However, biographer George Hayden was a completely fictional character created only for this movie. In real life, Charlie Chaplin alone wrote his autobiography.
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Correction: The full "Hollywoodland" sign is, in fact, correctly depicted in this scene.
Charles Austin Miller