A respectable if a bit rushed accounting of the lives of Chaplin (born April 16, 1889) and Hitler (born April 20, 1889), and the events that led them into opposition as the Nazis rose to power in Germany. There are interviews with people like Sidney Lumet and Ray Bradbury that I couldn't get enough of, and others that either didn't add much or weren't challenged, like the archival footage of the then deceased Reinhard Spitzy, a Nazi in Hitler's inner circle. The film is at its best when it makes observations about the parallels between the two men's lives, like Hitler who was a supreme actor while orating and critically needed sound while being filmed, whereas Chaplin always thrived in the silent medium.
The documentary would make quite an accompanying piece to Chaplin's masterpiece The Great Dictator because it provides so much context to that film, including just how much courage and resolve Chaplin had to summon to make it, and some of its finer satirical moments. Some of the context was the fact that antisemitism was alive and well in America too, and it doesn't shy away from this. Having Chaplin's brother Sydney's color home footage of the shooting of The Great Dictator weaved in was a nice treat as well. The documentary builds to Chaplin's big speech at the end but then curiously doesn't let it play in its entirety, which I think was a mistake, as stirring as it was.
Chaplin was a beacon of light about fascism at a time when Hollywood was generally trying to ignore the problem and appease as many people as possible, foreign and domestic. To its credit, while the post-war commentary is brief, the documentary includes the bitter irony of Chaplin having been forced into exile during the communist witch hunt, having set this up with explanations of his satire of capitalism in another of his masterpieces, Modern Times (1936).
I still brim with admiration for Chaplin's humanism and how he used his immense popularity on things of importance, like helping wake Americans up to the evil that was going on in the world. The documentary could have been more fleshed out, but it's well worth seeing, even if you're already knowledgeable on the subject.