Well, everybody thought so at the time, and so did I. The parts that I remember now, 40 years later, are pretty appalling. I can only assume that if 16 had been the legal age of consent instead of 17, Mariel Hemingway's character would have been 16. And the way that the ex-wife's lesbianism is played as being all about the personal humiliation of the Woody Allen character seems deeply chauvinistic. The Meryl Streep character seems cold and unfeeling in general. I don't remember her expressing affection for anyone, not even her new partner. Being a lesbian hasn't made her happy, it's made her MEAN.

Oh Jesus Christ... "The Chaplin disease"? Was that taken from the Playboy interview, or some drunken party where everybody got togather round listen to the Great Man opine like the extras in F for Fake?

Surely, there is an Orson Welles disease, and its name is alcohol. Orson Welles once spit in the face of the innocent stage manager when his play bombed.

I'm starting to be glad my dreams of being a great filmmaker never panned out.

Wow, I hadn't known Welles dumped on Allen. Interesting quotation.

A Few other Welles quotes:
Jean-Luc Godard: "Enormous [talent]. I just can’t take him very seriously as a thinker."
Charlie Chapin: "Modern Times ... doesn't have a good moment in it."
John Ford: "Made very many bad pictures ... The Searchers was terrible."
Alfred Hitchcock: "Egotism and laziness ... [making films] lit like television shows.”
Sergei Eisenstein: “The most overrated great director of them all."

You know, I remember Welles hosting a series of movies on PBS during the seventies, and while introducing The Gold Rush, he spoke quite admiringly of Chaplain for being enough of a maverick to make two silent movies during the sound era, including, of course,Modern Times.