During the filming of this scene in The Great Dictator (1940), Charlie's left hand was caught in the slamming gate, breaking his middle finger.
Leading lady (and Mrs. Chaplin) Paulette Goddard quickly called a car and rushed Chaplin to Hollywood Hospital, where they found themselves completely ignored by the hospital doctors & staff. After an interminable wait, Goddard approached a doctor and said that Mr. Chaplin's case needed immediate attention. The doctor looked more closely at Chaplin and his finger, then immediately apologized, stating, according to the original press book of The Great Dictator, "When I saw you both coming in in makeup, I thought it was a couple of Hollywood jokers having a little fun at our expense."(Chaplin: The Dictator & The Tramp, BFI, 2004)If you watch the film closely, you can see Charlie favoring his finger in certain scenes, including the the one right before the gate closes, which suggests that he must have reshot this scene after the accident.
You can clearly see a bandage on Charlie's finger in the coin-eating scene:
At the October 1939 funeral of Ford Sterling, Charlie is sporting a bandage on his finger (his hair is also dyed for the film).
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| L-R: Harold Lloyd, Mack Sennett, Barney Oldfield, CC, Douglas Fairbanks, Donald Crisp and Charlie Murray. |
This was not the first time Charlie was injured while making a film. During the scene in Easy Street (1917) where Charlie pulls the lamp post down on the bully (Eric Campbell), the lamp's sharp metal edge cut across the bridge of his nose requiring stitches. The injury contributed to a delay in the release of the film.
There are also noticeable bruises on his left arm in The Bank (1915):
In his autobiography, Charlie mentions a "slight accident" with a blowtorch during the filming of this scene in The Idle Class (1921). "The heat of it went through my asbestos pants, so we added another layer of asbestos."
