SPECIAL THANKS TO ELIZABETH L.!

In his controversial masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona.  Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him.  Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

“A great movie because it works as a film, and because it is a document of courage and faith, the prime exhibit in Chaplin’s humanist brief … Dictator is a comedy, the work of a clown, but it is no joke. Chaplin had lethal intent.” — Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

“The Chaplin masterpiece is a mecca of motion-picture art to which the industry’s devout will make repeated pilgrimages in future years.” — John Kinloch, California Eagle