Trivia / A Countess from Hong Kong

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren did it to work with Charlie Chaplin without seeing the script.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: The film's theme song, "This Is My Song", written by Charlie Chaplin and performed by Petula Clark, became a worldwide success, topping the charts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, the Netherlands and Belgium, while reaching number three in the United States and number four in Canada.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Sean Connery was one of Charlie Chaplin's choices for Ogden. He did lend his voice to the film, as You Only Live Twice was also being shot at Pinewood Studios.
• Executive Meddling: The original cut was two hours long but since Universal Pictures footed the bill they cut about 15 minutes for the general release, which upset Chaplin.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The film's draft (called Stowaway) was written in the 1930's and was to start Paulette Goddard and Gary Cooper.
• Hostility on the Set: This was by all accounts an unhappy film to make.
  • Marlon Brando had always greatly admired Charlie Chaplin's work and looked upon him as "probably the most talented man the [movie] medium has ever produced"; however, in his autobiography, Brando described Chaplin as "probably the most sadistic man I'd ever met, a fearsomely cruel man...He was an egotistical tyrant and a penny pincher. He harassed people when they were late, and scolded them unmercifully to work faster".
  • According to Brando, Chaplin frequently berated his son Sydney Chaplin and when Brando arrived onset fifteen minutes late, Chaplin gave him a dressing down in front of the cast and crew. An embarrassed Brando demanded — and received — an apology. Chaplin, for his part, described directing Brando as "impossible".
  • Brando and Sophia Loren didn't get along, especially after the day they were doing a love scene and he commented, "Did you know you have black hairs up your nostrils?"
• Inspiration for the Work: The story is based loosely on the life of a woman Charlie Chaplin met in France, named Moussia Sodskaya, or "Skaya", as he calls her in his 1922 book My Trip Abroad. She was a Russian singer and dancer who "was a stateless person marooned in France without a passport". The idea, according to a press release written by Chaplin after the film received a negative reception, "resulted from a visit I made to Shanghai in 1931 where I came across a number of titled aristocrats who had escaped the Russian Revolution. They were destitute and without a country; their status was of the lowest grade. The men ran rickshaws and the women worked in ten-cent dance halls. When the Second World War broke out many of the old aristocrats had died and the younger generation migrated to Hong Kong where their plight was even worse, for Hong Kong was overcrowded with refugees".
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Sydney Chaplin plays Harvey.
  • Chaplin's three eldest daughters appeared in the film: Geraldine Chaplin (at minutes 46 and 65), Josephine and Victoria Chaplin (at minute 92).
• Troubled Production: Shooting was frequently interrupted by Marlon Brando arriving late and then being hospitalised with appendicitis, Brando and Charlie Chaplin having the flu, and Sophia Loren remarrying Carlo Ponti. One day, Chaplin was walking around outside discussing ideas when his foot got caught in a grate and he broke his ankle. It was the first serious injury he ever sustained.
• Uncredited Role: Hugh Futcher as Barker.
• What Could Have Been:
  • To play Ogden Chaplin wanted Rex Harrison or Cary Grant.
  • Hudson was to be played by Peter Sellers and Noël Coward.
  • Tania Mallet was interviewed for a role.

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