The Great Dictator

Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell,
Billy Gilbert

The Great Dictator, possibly the most well-known of Charlie Chaplin's films, was a timely satire on
Nazisim and fascism in general, and Adolph Hitler in particular. In it, Charlie Chaplin plays a double
role -- Adenoid Hynkel, autocratic dictator of Tomania who blames the Jewish people for all of
society's ills, and a Jewish Barber who happens to be the spitting image of Hynkel.

Editorial Reviews of The Great Dictator

(courtesy Amazon.com)
Since Adolf Hitler had the audacity to borrow his mustache from the most famous celebrity in the
world--Charlie Chaplin--it meant Hitler was fair game for Chaplin's comedy. (Strangely, the two men
were born within four days of each other.) The Great Dictator, conceived in the late thirties but not
released until 1940, when Hitler's war was raging across Europe, is the film that skewered the tyrant.
Chaplin plays both Adenoid Hynkel, the power-mad ruler of Tomania, and a humble Jewish barber
suffering under the dictator's rule. Paulette Goddard, Chaplin's wife at the time, plays the barber's
beloved; and the rotund comedian Jack Oakie turns in a weirdly accurate burlesque of Mussolini, as a
bellowing fellow dictator named Benzino Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria. Chaplin himself hits one of his
highest moments in the amazing sequence where he performs a dance of love with a large inflated globe
of the world. Never has the hunger for world domination been more rhapsodically expressed. The
slapstick is swift and sharp, but it was not enough for Chaplin. He ends the film with the barber's six-
minute speech calling for peace and prophesying a hopeful future for troubled mankind. Some critics
have always felt the monologue was out of place, but the lyricism and sheer humanity of it are still
stirring. This was the last appearance of Chaplin's Little Tramp character, and not coincidentally it was
his first all-talking picture. --Robert Horton --This text refers to the VHS Tape edition.

DVD features
Kevin Brownlow and Michael Kloft's absorbing documentary, "The Tramp and the Dictator,"
backgrounds Chaplin and Hitler (who were born a few days apart) and gives a detailed account of The
Great Dictator's production. Twenty-five minutes of color footage, shot by Chaplin's brother Sydney on
the set, provides a fascinating look behind the scenes. --Robert Horton

Description
In Chaplin's classic satire on Nazi Germany, dictator Adenoid Hynkel has a double -- a poor Jewish
barber--who one day is mistaken for Hynkel.
Quotes from The Great Dictator
Commander Shutz : Check the gas.
A Jewish barber : I did, it kept me up all night.

Commander Shutz : Strange, and I thought you were an Aryan.

A Jewish barber : No. I'm a vegetarian

International press reporter : The Fooyie has just referred to the

Jewish people.

Field Marhsall Herring : We've just discovered the best poisonous

gas. It will kill everybody.

Trivia about The Great Dictator:

Charlie Chaplin got the idea when a friend, Alexander Korda, noted that his screen persona and
Adolf Hitler looked somewhat similar. Chaplin later learned they were both born within a week of
each other, roughly the same height and weight and both struggled in poverty until they reached
great success in their respective fields. When Chaplin learned of Hitler's policies of racial
oppression and nationalist aggression, he acted this similarity as an inspiration to attack Hitler on
film.
Chaplin states that had he known the true extent of the Nazi atrocities, he "could not have made
fun of their homicidal insanity."
Production on the film started in 1937, when not nearly as many people believed Nazism was a
menace as was the case when it was released in 1940.
The German spoken by the dictator is complete nonsense. The language in which the shop signs,
posters, etc in the "Jewish" quarter are written is Esperanto, a language created in 1887 by Dr L.L.
Zamenhof, a Polish Jew.
When The Great Dictator was released, Hitler had it banned from all occupied countries. Curiosity
eventually got the best of him and he had a print brought in through Portugal. He screened it not
once, but TWICE! Unfortunately, history did not record his reaction to the film. When told of this,
Charlie Chaplin stated, "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it."
Although this movie was banned in all occupied countries by the Nazis, it was screened once to a
German audience. In the occupied Balkan, members of a resistance-group switched the reels in a
military cinema and replaced a comedic opera by a copy of "The Great Dictator" which they
received from Greece. So a group of German soldiers enjoyed a screening of "The Great Dictator".
Some left the cinema after they recognized it and some were even reported to shoot at the screen.
According to documentaries on the making of the film, Chaplin began to feel more uncomfortable
lampooning Hitler the more he heard of Hitler's actions in Europe. Ultimately, the invasion of
France inspired Chaplin to change the ending of his film to include his famous speech.
Chaplin said wearing Hynkel's costume made him feel more aggressive, and those close to him
remember him being more difficult to work with on days he was shooting as Hynkel.
Chaplin named Paulette Goddard's character after his mother, Hannah Chaplin.

The Great Dictator, by Charlie Chaplin. The Clown Ministry. April 5, 2005.

http://www.clown-ministry.com/Resources/chaplin/the-great-dictator-

chaplin.html