The Great Dictator

The Great Dictator (1940) is a comedy aimed openly at Hitler, made before America entered the war. Chaplin plays two parts: Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomainia, and a Jewish barber from the ghetto who lost his memory in the war. They resemble each other and by the end they are confused for one another. The timing is the bravest thing about it. In 1940 America was neutral, Hollywood did not want to lose the German market, and Chaplin made this largely with his own money. He was pressured to abandon it and continued. Chaplin and Hitler were born four days apart in April 1889. They wore the same moustache. Chaplin uses the resemblance directly. The best known scene is Hynkel dancing with a balloon shaped like the globe. There is no dialogue, only music, and the whole film is contained in those three minutes of a man handling the world like a toy. This was Chaplin's first real sound film. The greatest figure of silent cinema began speaking by impersonating a dictator. The closing speech steps out of the character and is delivered straight to the audience, abandoning everything the film has built. It is still argued over: to some the most powerful moment in it, to others a break that ruins the comedy. Chaplin said years later that he could not have made the film had he known the true scale of the camps. It runs 125 minutes. Good for: Chaplin, political satire, and film history. Less good for: the pace belongs to its period and the final speech sits apart from the rest.