Chaplin
Better off silent
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The Great Dictator
Directed by Charles Chaplin
Cast:
Charles Chaplin - Jewish Barber
Charles Chaplin - Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomania
Paulette Goddard - Hannah
Jack Oakie - Benzino Napaloni
Reginald Gardiner - Schultz
Henry Daniell - Garbitsch
Billy Gilbert - Herring
Critic's Review:
After a five-year absence from movies, Charles Chaplin took on a dual role in his first full-length talking feature, famous for its comic attack on Nazi Germany (and Adolf Hitler in particular). The script was written before Hitler's invasion of Poland, and Chaplin subsequently noted that, had he known the scope of the evil perpetrated on Europe by the Nazis, he would never have made them the subject of this lampoon. Not as maniacally funny as Chaplin's classic comedies of the 1920s, The Great Dictator has more in common with Chaplin's later films, which were more lyrical in approach and more overt in their socio-political messages. In this case, the proselytising turned out to be prescient, as Hitler would soon prove Chaplin's concerns well-founded. This was one of very few films made in the West before World War II that dared to take on Hitler and Mussolini. Still, many critics found fault with Chaplin's approach, claiming that, by portraying German Nazis and Italian Fascists as schoolyard bullies and buffoons, Chaplin was cheapening the impact of their evil actions on millions of Europeans. Despite these criticisms, Chaplin's lampooning of Hitler is a moment of comic genius, complemented by Jack Oakie's ridiculously exaggerated portrayal of the Mussolini-like Italian fascist (nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor). The Great Dictator is loosely structured, lacking the tight pace and sense of direction of Chaplin's best films: its long-winded concluding speech is the most egregious example. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Chaplin for Best Actor. ~ Dan Jardine, Rovi
My Review:
One of my favorite films (surprise, surprise), this film is consistently funny throughout, until the very end when the Jewish Barber makes his peace speech to the masses, disguised as the idiot dictator. Chaplin was a master of blending melodrama with hilarious physical comedy, and this is a great example. And arguably his best sound picture--at least, it's the most similar to his earlier silent masterpieces.
Many will look at the film and see the Little Tramp, but the reality was that his Jewish Barber was NOT his most famous characterization. There are parallels though, such as his military experience in this film and in the short Shoulder Arms. A lot of similarities there. But the biggest difference is that the Tramp was consistently unemployed and down-on-his-luck, but here he has a pretty good job as a barber.
Historically, it's an amazing film put in context to the time it was made. I'm actually glad he didn't know what was going on in Germany in 1938, since he most certainly would not have made this film had he known the extent of what Hitler was actually doing with Europe's Jewish population.
The final speech is a long commentary on just getting along and the futility of war, something that is very potent even today, 70 years later. But it's also a take-it-or-leave-it scene, because there is no comedy whatsoever in it and he comes across as slightly preachy. Taken in context, though, it is extremely powerful.
Trivia:
Charles Chaplin got the idea when a friend, Alexander Korda, noted that his screen persona and Adolf Hitler looked somewhat similar. Chaplin later learned they were both born within a week of each other, were roughly the same height and weight and both struggled in poverty until they reached great success in their respective fields. When Chaplin learned of Hitler's policies of racial oppression and nationalist aggression, he used their similarities as an inspiration to attack Hitler on film.
Charles Chaplin said that had he known the true extent of Nazi atrocities, he "could not have made fun of their homicidal insanity".
Some reports refute Charles Chaplin's claims of ignorance as to the true extent of Nazi atrocities, stating that Chaplin was very much aware of the various goings-on, but decided to make the film anyway as an attack on Nazi ideology.
Production on the film started in 1937, when not nearly as many people believed Nazism was a menace as was the case when it was released in 1940. However, this film was ultimately upstaged as the first anti-Nazi film satire by The Three Stooges production, You Nazty Spy! (1940) which was released nine months earlier.
The German spoken by the dictator is complete nonsense. The language in which the shop signs, posters, etc in the "Jewish" quarter are written is Esperanto, a language created in 1887 by Dr L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish Jew.
When this film was released, Adolf Hitler banned it in Germany and in all countries occupied by the Nazis. Curiosity eventually got the best of him and he had a print brought in through Portugal. He screened it not once but twice. Unfortunately, history did not record his reaction to the film. When told of this, Charles Chaplin said, "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it."
Although this movie was banned in all occupied countries by the Nazis, it was screened once to a German audience. In the occupied Balkans, members of a resistance group switched the reels in a military cinema and replaced a comedic opera with a copy of this film, which they had smuggled in from Greece. So a group of German soldiers enjoyed a screening of this film until they realized what it was. Some left the cinema and some were reported to have fired shots at the screen.
This was the last movie in which Charles Chaplin used the "Tramp" outfit - the bowler hat and the walking cane - but although he appears to be playing The Tramp once again, that character had actually been retired in his previous film, Modern Times (1936). Chaplin was said not to consider this movie a "Tramp" film.
Released 13 years after the end of the silent era, this was Charles Chaplin's first all-talking, all-sound film.
According to documentaries on the making of the film, Charles Chaplin began to feel more uncomfortable lampooning Adolf Hitler the more he heard of Hitler's actions in Europe. Ultimately, the invasion of France inspired Chaplin to change the ending of his film to include his famous speech.
Color behind-the-scenes footage exists, including the only footage of an aborted ending in which soldiers break into a folk dance.
The scene where Charles Chaplin dances with a globe had its origins in a 1928 home movie in which Chaplin also toyed with a globe in similar fashion.
In Spain, the film was banned until dictator Francisco Franco died, in 1975.
Charles Chaplin said wearing Hynkel's costume made him feel more aggressive, and those close to him remember him being more difficult to work with on days he was shooting as Hynkel.
Charles Chaplin named Paulette Goddard's character after his mother, Hannah.
The 'Big Bertha' artillery piece mentioned in the beginning of the film was not actually used to shell Paris, as stated in the film. In fact, the Big Bertha was simply a heavy artillery piece used by the Germans in the beginning of the war to smash Belgian forts during the invasion of Belgium. The large howitzer used to shell Paris by the Germans during WWI was simply called "The Paris Gun".
Charles Chaplin accepted an invitation to perform the movie's climactic speech on national radio.
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.
Shot for 539 days.
According to his biographer David Robinson, Charles Chaplin despised script girls and refused to abide by their guidance, resulting in continuity lapses in this movie.
Charles Chaplin spent some time attempting to simulate the sound of an airplane motor with various methods, only to be upstaged by one of his sound technicians who simply went to an airport for the appropriate sounds.
Charles Chaplin wrote the entire script in script form, except for the fake German, which was improvised. In addition, he also scripted every movement in the globe dance sequence.
In Italy, all the scenes that involved Napaloni's wife were cut from the movie to respect Benito Mussolini's widow, Rachele. The complete version wasn't seen until 2002.
During Hynkel's speech, there are several recognizable German words used. Most popular are "Wienerschnitzel" (a Viennese style breaded veal cutlet), and "Sauerkraut" (a kind of sour preserved cabbage). Others are "Leberwurst" and "Blitzkrieg". Though some other utterances vaguely resemble words in German, the speech is actually gibberish. Several times in the film, Hynkel utters "cheese und cracken!" in the context of an obscenity.
When Charles Chaplin's young son Sydney Chaplin saw the scene where the artillery shell drops out of the supergun for the first time, he burst out laughing. It ruined the take.
Charles Chaplin considered Adolf Hitler to be one of the greatest actors he had ever seen, while Hitler assumed that Chaplin was a Jew.
When Charles Chaplin first announced that he was going to make this film, the British government - whose policy at the time was one of appeasement towards Nazi Germany - announced that they would ban it. By the time of the film's release, though, Britain was at war with Germany and in the midst of the blitz, so the government's attitude towards the film had completely changed toward a film with such obvious value as propaganda.
Charles Chaplin blinks fewer than ten times during the entire final speech, which lasts over five minutes.
At the 1940 Academy Awards, the film got five nominations. It failed to win any Academy Awards, and Charles Chaplin was hurt by this. He already had spent twenty-seven years in Hollywood. James Stewart, the winner of the Best Actor Award (for which Chaplin was nominated), was not even planning on going to the ceremony until someone told him to go there hours before it began. Interestingly enough, this was the first year in which the winners remained secret until the moment they won their Awards.
Financed entirely by Charles Chaplin himself, and his biggest box-office hit.
Playwright Daniel Lewis James, who was associated via Erwin Piscator with Charles Chaplin's friend Hanns Eisler, helped Chaplin with the screenplay.
When he had heard that studios were trying to discourage him from making the film, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt sent a representative, Harry Hopkins, to Charles Chaplin to encourage him to make the film.
Douglas Fairbanks visited the set of the film in 1939, and laughed almost uncontrollably at the scene that was being played. He waved goodbye to Charles Chaplin and left. He was dead within a week and it was the last time Chaplin would see him.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower personally requested French dubbed versions of the film from Charles Chaplin for distribution in France after the Allied victory there.
Charles Chaplin originally intended to call the film "The Dictator", but received notice from Paramount Pictures that they would charge him $25,000 for use of the title-they owned the rights to an unrelated novel by Richard Harding Davis. Chaplin balked at the conditions and inserted "Great" into the title. (In France the film is known as "Le Dictateur" and in Finland as "Diktaattori" .)
During filming, Charles Chaplin's relationship with Paulette Goddard began to deteriorate, but both tried very hard to save it. In 1942, Chaplin proudly introduced her as "my wife" (a position that was always considered sketchy) at a New York engagement, but within months they were amicably divorced, and the notoriously finicky Chaplin agreed to a generous divorce settlement. In the 1960s, both Chaplin and Goddard were living in Switzerland but having made no contact, they spotted each other at a café and had lunch together. It was their last meeting.
Jack Oakie once said that he "had made hundreds of pictures, but they only remember me as Napaloni in The Great Dictator (1940)."
When Jack Oakie as Benzini Napaloni first visits Adenoid Hynkel (Charles Chaplin) in his palace, Oakie greets Chaplin with a Yiddish expression which loosely translated means "how's it going?"
The part of the elderly Jewish shopkeeper, Mr. Jaeckel, is played in the film by Maurice Moscovitch, veteran of the Yiddish theater, but his wife, Mrs. Jaeckel, is played by the Emma Dunn, who often played Irish mothers and landladies.
The world premiere of the film was held at two packed theaters (the Astor and Capitol) in New York on 15 October 1940. It was a much anticipated gala affair attended by many luminaries, including Alfred E. Smith, James A. Farley, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Fannie Hurst, Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. Charles Chaplin and his wife and co-star Paulette Goddard made an appearance at both theaters. They watched the movie in a loge at the Capitol with H.G. Wells, Constance Collier and Tim Durant, among others.
This movie was Charles Chaplin's biggest-ever box-office hit, grossing about $US 5 million at the time.
