 The Chaplin Collection Come heil or high water, Charles Chaplin is in the fight! And the result is a celebrated classic honored in 2000 as one of the American Film Institute's Top- 100 American Comedies. The U.S. was not yet in World War II when Chaplin leveled his comedy arsenal at Der Fuhrer by playing the dual roles of Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who is a dead-ringer look-alike for der Nutsie. Puns, sight gags and slapstick abound as Chaplin skewers fascism, balancing his attack with poignant scenes of a ghetto in the clutches of storm-trooping terror. Immortal bits include Hynkel's besotted dance with a globe, the upside-down flight and Hynkel and a Mussolini-like Jack Oakie madly cranking their barber chairs higher and higher. Great comedy meets great filmmaking passion in The Great Dictator. Storyline: Twenty years after the end of WWI in which the nation of Tomainia was on the losing side, Adenoid Hynkel has risen to power as the ruthless dictator of the country. He believes in a pure Aryan state, and the decimation of the Jews. This situation is unknown to a simple Jewish-Tomainian barber who has since been hospitalized the result of a WWI battle. Upon his release, the barber, who had been suffering from memory loss about the war, is shown the new persecuted life of the Jews by many living in the Jewish ghetto, including a washerwoman named Hannah, with whom he begins a relationship. The barber is ultimately spared such persecution by Commander Schultz, who he saved in that WWI battle. The lives of all Jews in Tomainia are eventually spared with a policy shift by Hynkel himself, who is doing so for ulterior motives. But those motives include a want for world domination, starting with the invasion of neighboring Osterlich, which may be threatened by Benzino Napaloni, the dictator ... Written by Huggo Cast Notes: Charles Chaplin (Adenoid Hynkel [Dictator of Tomania] / A Jewish Barber), Paulette Goddard (Hannah), Jack Oakie (Benzini Napaloni [Dictator of Bacteria]), Reginald Gardiner (Commander Schultz), Henry Daniell (Garbitsch), Billy Gilbert (Field Marshal Herring), Grace Hayle (Madame Napaloni), Carter DeHaven (Spook [Bacterian ambassador] [as Carter De Haven]), Maurice Moscovitch (Mr. Jaeckel), Emma Dunn (Mrs. Jaeckel), Bernard Gorcey (Mr. Mann), Paul Weigel (Mr. Agar), Chester Conklin (Barber's Customer), Esther Michelson (Jewish Woman), Hank Mann (Storm Trooper). User Comment: rbverhoef (rbverhoef@hotmail.com) from The Hague, Netherlands, 29 November 2004 • Chaplin's first all talking, all sound motion picture is still a great one, although sometimes it feel awkward to watch. Of course that has to do with what we know now and Chaplin probably did not know then. His film must have been in production before the start of WW II and in certain scenes it almost feels as prophecy. Maybe they thought in 1940 the scene where the Jewish ghetto is sort of destroyed went too far, we know so much better now. The film is basically an attack on Hitler and Mussolini; on their personas and their stupid ideas. In the film Hitler is named Adenoid Hynkel, played by Chaplin, and Mussolini is Benzino Napaloni (Jack Oakie). Their countries are called Tomania and Bacteria. People who work for Hynkel have names like Garbitsch (Henry Daniell). The human side of tragic events is shown through a Jewish barber, also played by Chaplin, and a couple of friends that surround him in the ghetto, including the girl he likes Hannah (Paulette Goddard). We see how so-called "storm troopers" treat the Jews in the ghetto, how Chaplin is helped by Commander Schultz (Reginald Gardiner) because Chaplin saved him in the previous great war, how they are imprisoned, how they escape and how their story finally meets Hynkel's story. How I will not reveal. Hynkel's story was more or less about nothing, about how to conquer the world, until Napaloni arrives. They both want to invade a free country named Österlich: trouble! The story is not really that important actually. 'The Great Dictator' exists out of great moments where Hitler and Mussolini are ridiculed and out of simply fantastic Chaplin bits. The way Chaplin portrays Hitler and his speeches in German are terrific, they make you laugh at Hynkel and therefore at Hitler. The only two real German words I heard were "Wienerschnitzel" and "Sauerkraut", but it sure sounds like the Nazi dictator. The Chaplin bits are there when Hynkel has the whole world literally in his hands (painted on a balloon) until it collapses in his face or when he, as the Jewish barber, is hit on the head and does a little dance for us. Great parts like these, combined with the sad story it tells, this is a great film. Yes, his silent films like 'City Lights' and 'Modern Times' are better and Chaplin is more in his element, but the nerve to make this as your first sound picture alone is admirable. That it is a sound picture gives Chaplin a chance to deliver a fine speech near the end of the film. Although it does not really fits the character, it seems that we simply hear Chaplin, it sure is a true thing. Summary: The great Chaplin. User Comment: donnola from New York, NY, 5 June 2002 • Released in 1940, "The Great Dictator" was the first Hollywood film that denounced Hitler directly (albeit in the guise of Adenoid Hynkel), took a virulent stand against fascism, and directly addressed Anti-Semitism. Over-long, at times heavy-handed, it still has many wonderful sequences, including the famous dance with the globe, and all the scenes of Chaplin with Jack Oakie, each trying to out-do the other and prove his superiority. One criticism that seems to occasionally rear its head is the implication that Chaplin's pre-World War II anti-fascism was somehow wrong-headed. The atrocities of the Holocaust weren't fully known to the world yet, so Chaplin's anti-Hitler diatribe is, in the minds of some, misguided. After the war this mindset would result in the debacle of the blacklist, when Chaplin, among others, were branded "pre-mature anti-fascists." In other words, it wasn't politically acceptable to be against Nazism until war broke out with the U.S. Hard to believe anyone could still see things that way now, but some do. The film industry of the 1930s wanted no part of international politics, no matter how blatant the brutality of a given regime. Profits were at stake. It was little goyisha Charley Chaplin, playing a Jewish barber, who took a public stand. While "The Great Dictator" may not be among Chaplin's finest films, it may, historically, be his finest hour. Summary: The "Pre-Mature" Anti-Fascist. IMDb Rating (11/29/07): 8.3/10 from 20,761 users Top 250: #105
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