Review of The Great Dictator (1940) by Byron B — 14 Mar 2013

Another classic I saw at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque. Unique experience hearing Chaplin speak, seeing him play two roles, and enjoying the political satire! Lots of awesome comic characters and set pieces.

It starts in WWI. The battle scenes are fairly impressive, but of course Chaplin as a low ranking soldier (barber by trade) getting in over his head is the star. Years later a Hitler-like politician in a German-like country is rising to power by giving stirring nationalistic anti-Semitic speeches (in gibberish).

Chaplin, the Jewish barber, returns home, but things have changed in the ghetto. Paulette Goddard is cute and strong as the barber's girl next door. We pop back and forth getting to know both the barber and the dictator and Chaplin does an excellent job of making us believe they are different individuals.

Through a silly plot contrivance the Jewish barber ends up dressed like the dictator and is mistaken for him. The impassioned speech Chaplin makes here at the conclusion of the movie is absolutely one of the best about the human condition ever! The special features on the Criterion Collection DVD are cool too.

We are treated with a documentary tracing Chaplin's and Hitler's lives, a couple visual essays, a couple barbershop scenes, a very funny one deleted from one of Charlie's shorts and a not so funny one from one of Sydney's shorts, and finally a real treasure of color 16mm home movie footage that Charlie's brother Sydney filmed behind the scenes during the making of The Great Dictator.