20. MGM attempted to hire Freud as a film consultant in the 1920s
Samuel Goldwyn of Hollywood’s Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios was a fan of Freud, and when the studio began to develop Anthony and Cleopatra, he offered Freud $100,000 to act as a consultant, calling him “the greatest love specialist in the world”. Freud’s response appeared in The New York Times. He had no interest in participating in the film industry in any form, and his response made his position clear. But his reticence did not extend to a private analysis of one of the most famous characters in film history, Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Freud, who dismissed most films as a waste of time, enjoyed the Little Tramp.
Freud’s analysis of the Little Tramp was based on his observations of the character in films. He wrote to a friend that Chaplin played the character, “as he was in his early dismal youth”. To Freud, this was consistent to his theories regarding all artists, whose creations were “intimately bound up with their childhood memories”. Freud called Chaplin’s portrayal of the Tramp, “an exceptionally simple and transparent case”. Freud’s analysis of Chaplin using the Little Tramp to deal with childhood issues was not endorsed by the actor, who claimed the character was created by accident while filming Mabel’s Strange Predicament for Mack Sennett.