Did Chaplin & Goddard visit Indochina?
David Biggs biggsbiggs at gmail.com
Tue Oct 20 10:35:18 PDT 2015
Dear List-
I have read about protests as Godard visited Indochine, esp. his visit to
Hue in 1936. Then, in a few isolated places, I've found references to
Paulette Goddard.
Does anyone have any substantive evidence that Chaplin & Goddard visited
Indochina? If so, did they remark on the trip?
Thanks-
David
--
David Biggs
Department of History
1212 Humanities & Social Sciences Building
University of California - Riverside
Riverside CA 92521
ph: 951-827-1877 | fx: 951-827-5299
Dan Tsang dtsang at uci.edu
Tue Oct 20 11:13:21 PDT 2015
David: The archived Google news site has this when I input as search terms Chaplin and IndoChina
To search it directly, go to the Archived News Sites section of the UCI news and newspapers guide:
http://guides.lib.uci.edu/news/archived
And click on the link for Google News Archive
* Google News Archive<http://news.google.com/newspapers>
Enter search term and click on: Search Archive.
You can also browse lists of archived newspapers here.
dan
Bill Hayton bill.hayton at bbc.co.uk
Tue Oct 20 12:57:52 PDT 2015
The Metropole in Hanoi is claiming that they stayed there on their 1936 honeymoon…
http://www.insiderjourneys.co.uk/blog/hanoi-sofitel-metropole-hotel
Bill
David Biggs biggsbiggs at gmail.com
Tue Oct 20 13:13:02 PDT 2015
Thanks everyone!
My confusion stems in part because of protests organized by the ICP in Hue
in anticipation of Justin Godard (Socialist Minister of Colonies) who
toured Indochina in 1936. Several Party histories discuss the Godard visit.
Then in other sources there are a few news pieces that mention "Godard" and
Chaplin visiting.
I wondered whether Chaplin met with the Socialist Godard during his visit,
same time?, or whether it was Charlie and Paulette on a fun trip - the
spelling of her name into Vietnamese losing the second "d".
Does anyone know the dates for Justin Godard's inspection?
-David
Judith A. Henchy judithh at uw.edu
Tue Oct 20 13:21:08 PDT 2015
David, I have these dates in my notes:
File : Visit of Godard, 1 jan to 13 mars 1937
LT2: 11A.45/182 (2)
Also a report in Cong Luan:
Cong Luan 4 jan 1937
Reports that Godard met with the greveurs presented by Thau, Tao and Thach, conseillers oeuviers. Tramways strike.
Best
Judith Henchy
University of Washington
David Biggs biggsbiggs at gmail.com
Tue Oct 20 13:25:56 PDT 2015
Thanks, Judith! Mystery solved. May 1, 1936 would have been too soon -- the
PF came to power just then.
Best,
David
Bill Hayton bill.hayton at bbc.co.uk
Tue Oct 20 13:29:01 PDT 2015
It would have been more fun if he’d joined the honeymoon…
Gibbs, Jason (LIB) Jason.Gibbs at sfpl.org
Mon Oct 26 09:23:58 PDT 2015
The weekly paper Phong Hóa, published by the Tự Lực Văn Đoàn, published an interview between Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard and Thạch Lam in issue #185 published on May 1, 1936. I’ve translated that interview here:
http://taybui.blogspot.com/2015/10/duoi-mat-nha-du-lich-charlot-through.html
For background, Chaplin left Los Angeles with Goddard and her mother for Hawaii on 2/5/1936. Chaplin and Goddard continued their travels to Asia evidently going to Shanghai then Indonesia and Singapore. They then travelled north through Indochina before secretly marrying in Canton / Quảng Đông in May. They returned to America in early June (this information was culled from bios by David Robinson, Joyce Milton and Simon Louvish).
Phong Hóa was a satirical paper poking fun at social mores (the paper’s title translates as Mores). Thạch Lam was the youngest of three brothers who regularly wrote and illustrated for the paper and is still a well-known author even though he died young.
It’s hard to know how to react to the interview text. There is some room for doubting that there was an actual interview or that the printed interview accurately reflects what was spoken. The first question one asks is what language was the interview conducted in – certainly not the Vietnamese that was published. One of the Chaplin bios indicated that Chaplin’s French was not great, and I don’t know what Goddard’s linguistic abilities were. It’s not out of the question that Thạch Lam knew English, but I have never seen evidence that he did. The other reason to wonder about the interview is that most of the subject matter surrounds Thạch Lam’s and Phong Hóa concerns – satirically pointing out the backwardness and absurdities of their own society. Thạch Lam could have used Chaplin as a character in a short satirical piece to illustrate this.
But, in favor of the interview’s authenticity – it was probably not common knowledge that Chaplin’s actual physical appearance was very different than the tramp he portrayed, and Thạch Lam seemed genuinely surprised about this. Another factor was his curiosity about Modern Times, a film released immediately prior to Chaplin and Goddard’s departure from the U.S. and that had not yet had a screening in Vietnam. Also, there is a tone of star-strucked-ness in Thạch Lam’s questioning, balanced by a graciousness on Chaplin’s side.
At the least, I think it’s clear that Chaplin and Goddard were in Hanoi in April 1936 and there was some buzz about it at the time.
Jason Gibbs
San Francisco Public Library