The Great Dictator

[Nick D]

TCM just aired Chaplin's "The Great Dictator." I've been wanting to see this film for some time, but this was my first opportunity.

I loved this movie for several reasons. The humor and gags were wonderful, but there's a lot more to it. Knowing what happened after the film was made in 1940 adds a whole 'nother dimention.

The best part was the end. I think that was probably the most powerful speech I've ever heard in any movie, and Chaplin's delivery was spot on. I know "The Great Dictator" has been disparraged in the past, but that speech alone should make up for any other failing.

I highly reccomend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.

Cheers,
Nick

 

[Rafter]

Since Adolf Germany's WWII-era leader had the audacity to borrow his mustache from the most famous celebrity in the world--Charlie Chaplin--it meant Germany's WWII-era leader was fair game for Chaplin's comedy. (In fact, the two men were born within four days of each other.)
The Great Dictator was conceived in the late thirties but not released until 1940, when Germany's WWII-era leader's war was raging across Europe, is the film that skewered the tyrant.
Chaplin 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 ********** 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.

 

[John in Covina]

The whole interplay between Chaplin and Jack Oakie as Benzine Napolini remains the strongest comedy for me, it is brilliant.

The collar tabs showing dice in the # 7 is great too.

 

[Dr Doran]

The inflatable globe scene is the thing I remember the best. Wasn't the dictator's name Hinckle in the film?