Thursday, March 3 2022 | The Great Dictator USA 1940 d. Charlie Chaplin with Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Henry Daniell, Reginald Gardiner, Billy Gilbert and Maurice Moscovich. Black and white. 125 m
“Chaplin’s film, aimed obviously and scornfully at Hitler himself, could only have been funny, he says in his autobiography, if he had not yet known the full extent of the Nazi evil. As it was, the film’s mockery of Hitler got it banned in Spain, Italy and neutral Ireland. But in America and elsewhere, it played with an impact that, today, may be hard to imagine. There had never been any fictional character as universally beloved as the Little Tramp, and although Chaplin was technically not playing the Tramp in The Great Dictator, he looked just like him, this time not in a comic fable but a political satire.” Roger Ebert
“Much had happened in the world while the film was being made. Hitler and Mussolini had formed the Axis, and Hitler had signed a nonaggression pact with Stalin, invaded Poland, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and occupied Paris and much of the rest of France. Was this a time to be funny about dictators? Even Chaplin, well into production, had his doubts—ultimately assuaged, we are told, by an encouraging message from President Roosevelt. Still, it must have been hard for Chaplin fans around the world to imagine how his style of comedy could tackle so ugly and resistant a subject.” Michael Wood
See Also: Monsieur Verdoux (Chaplin, 1947), The Producers (Brooks, 1967), Moon Over Parador (Mazursky, 1988)
Series: Spring 2022 :: ANTIWAR