The Great Dictator (1940)
Charlie Chaplin. It’s a name everyone who knows even a little bit about the movie industry should recognize. It seems more of his silent films are talked about than his sound films but numerous titles and scenes come to mind when one thinks of Chaplin. The two films I hear mentioned the most when it comes to opinions on his best and/or most famous are Modern Times and The Great Dictator. The former is a silent film while the latter was actually not only a sound film but his first one, and it’s the movie we’re looking at today. It predates the majority of World War II but is a complete satire of what would turn into the Nazi regime. Chaplin would say many years later that if he realized how horrible the regime was, he never would have made the movie, but in 1939-1940 the atrocities were not yet known worldwide. Fortunately, the fictionalized party (which I’m going to call the XX party since that is the logo on the uniforms) is made to look so foolish that the parody works. Let us dive in.
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