The Great Dictator (1940)

Director:

Charles Chaplin

Writer:

Charles Chaplin (written by)

Release Date:

7 March 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | War

Tagline:

The Comedy Masterpiece!

Plot:

In Chaplin's satire on Nazi Germany, dictator Adenoid Hynkel has a double... a poor Jewish barber... who one day is mistaken for Hynkel.

Plot Keywords:

Barber | Dictator | Soldier | Amnesia | Satire

Awards:

Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Charles Chaplin	...	Hynkel - Dictator of Tomania / A Jewish Barber
Jack Oakie	...	Napaloni - Dictator of Bacteria
Reginald Gardiner	...	Schultz
Henry Daniell	...	Garbitsch
Billy Gilbert	...	Herring
Grace Hayle	...	Madame Napaloni
Carter DeHaven	...	Bacterian Ambassador (as Carter De Haven)
Paulette Goddard	...	Hannah
Maurice Moscovitch	...	Mr. Jaeckel (as Maurice Moscovich)
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 Stealing Fruit

Also Known As:

The Dictator (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Esperanto

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Brazil:Livre | Germany:6 (DVD rating) | South Korea:All | USA:TV-PG (TV rating) | Spain:18 (re-rating) (1976) | UK:U (original rating) | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG | Chile:TE | Denmark:7 (2003) | Finland:K-12 | Finland:S (re-release) | France:U | Germany:(Banned) (original rating) | Ireland:(Banned) (original rating) | Ireland:PG (re-rating) | Norway:7 | Spain:(Banned) (1940-1976) | Spain:T (re-rating) | Sweden:Btl | UK:PG (re-rating) (2003) | USA:Approved (PCA #6611) (original rating) | USA:G (re-rating) (1972) | West Germany:12 (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Agoura Hills, California, USA

Company:

Charles Chaplin Productions

Trivia:

This is the first Charles Chaplin film since Behind the Screen (1916) in which Chaplin plays a character who is actually identified by name. His famous Tramp character was rarely given a name, though he was often referred to as Charlie. The tramp-like barber in this film remains unnamed, but the Dictator is clearly referred to by name.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When the Jewish Barber first finds his shop full of webs, you can see the shadow of the camera on his left shoulder.

Quotes:

Garbitsch: "Corona veniat electus." Victory shall come to the worthy. Today, democracy, liberty, and equality are words to fool the people. No nation can progress with such ideas. They stand in the way of action. Therefore, we frankly abolish them. In the future...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: (#8.40)" (2009)

Soundtrack:

Prelude to 'Lohengrin'

Chaplin's comment on fascism is his first talking film...

Hynkel, dictator of Tomania, is a spoiled child who becomes angry when he cannot gets what he really wants... And what he simply wants is nothing less than the world...

In one of the extraordinary scenes of Chaplin art, Hynkel performs a ballet with the 'world' which bursts when he thinks he has it in his grasp...

Chaplin also has some biting words on war and war films... In a scene at the beginning of the movie, which takes place during World War I, the Tomanian messenger crashes the plane and thinks... He is about to die... In a state of delirium, he begins to say ridiculous words... The empty double-talk continue ascending into a brilliant take off on all the heroic death scenes of War films...

In another scene when he becomes a fugitive in the Jewish ghetto and assumes command of the resistance fomenting rebellion among the old men, he plans to kill the dictator... One of the group must kill the ruthless conqueror of Austerlich... Whoever is chosen will naturally die, but his heroic death will be rewarded and his name will shine like a star in Tomanian history...

The sequence in which he and four other characters eat cream cakes containing coins to determine which shall sacrifice his life to murder the dictator is a bitter hilarity filled with great fear...

For all its disappointing shortcomings, "The Great Dictator" is still a significant movie for the ironic tones of the film adding something that neither Chaplin nor anymore else could have given it: the irony of history... The necessity to murder Hynkel presages the assassination attempt against Hitler by his generals... The force of the original satire is only surpassed by history's imitation of art...

With a splendid sequence like the duck-shooting accident which leads to the dictator being mistaken for the humbly Jewish barber and vice versa, "The Great Dictator" is Chaplin's first talking movie... This time 'Charles' and not 'Charlie,' wanting to say more through his movie and not through an amusing comedy, the last in which he uses his celebrated 'Tramp Character.'