03 Feb The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator, WWII Movie starring Charlie Chaplin

(1940) I hate to admit it at my age, but to the best of my memory this is the first Charlie Chaplin movie that I’ve watched all the way through.

Along with this movie, Chaplin’s first “talkie,” I also watched the 2002 documentary The Tramp and the Dictator.  Many people who are either film historians or were involved with the making of The Great Dictator comment on Chaplin’s passion to forge ahead with its production in spite of everyone who begged him not to.

He was determined to produce a movie which would make Hitler look ridiculous and would draw attention to what was happening under his rule.  It was right at the beginning of World War II when the Fuhrer was at the zenith of his power.

Other filmmakers who were making movies about the early war  were dancing around the harsh facts. They didn’t want to shake things up too much, didn’t want their movies to be banned.  Even the Jewish leadership tried to talk Chaplin out of this for fear of Nazi reprisals.  Chaplin was not to be stopped.  He played the dual roles of a Jewish barber and Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomainia.

Chaplin and Hitler had much in common besides a distinctive mustache.  Each was born in April of the same year, 1989, within days of each other. Each of them grew up in poverty and then gravitated toward the arts.  As we have know, Hitler was not accepted to the Vienna Academy to study painting.  Instead he went into politics and, after elocution and acting lessons, was able to convince the German people through his very persuasive and dramatic speeches that he would save their country.

Chaplin considered Hitler to be one of the greatest actors he had ever seen. (from “The Tramp and the Dictator.”)

Of course, Chaplin became one of the most popular men in the world.  This was his highest grossing film.  He had the last laugh.

The Great Dictator at amazon.com

Share this Post

• Tweet