The Great Dictator

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The Tramp and the Dictator

Original title: The Great Dictator
Year: 1940
Running time: 128 min.
Country: United States
Director: Charles Chaplin
Screenwriter: Charles Chaplin
Music: Charles Chaplin, Meredith Willson
Cinematography: Roland Totheroh, Karl Struss (B&W)
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Carter De Haven, Grace Hayle, Maurice Moscovitch, Billy Gilbert
Producer: United Artists
Genre: Comedy | Satire. Nazism. II World War. Propaganda
Synopsis / Plot: In the 1930s, Tomania falls under the control of dictator Adenoid Hynkel, who dreams of world domination. In the Jewish district of the capital lives a barber who looks so much like Hynkel that he could be his twin. During the First World War, the barber had saved the life of a military pilot named Schultz, who has now become a commanding officer. Schultz pays the barber back by protecting the area in which he lives from anti-Semites. But when Schultz is arrested for being too friendly with Jews, both men are taken to a concentration camp. Later, the two men escape and the barber is mistaken for Hynkel. He takes the opportunity to make a radio speech in the dictator’s place.

Awards: 1940: Academy Awrards, includinb best Movie, Actor (Chaplin) and Screenplay

1940: New York Film Critics Circle: Best Actor (Chaplin)

Critics' reviews

"This is Chaplin's most serious, most tragic, most human work (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of four)"

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"A truly superb accomplishment by a truly great artist (...) Perhaps the most significant film ever produced"

Bosley Crowther: The New York Times
"It’s when he is playing the dictator that the comedian’s voice raises the value of the comedy content of the picture to great heights."

Variety
"The result is an unrepeatable explosion of doublings (...) A cheaply, but methodically, made film"

Michael Atkinson: Village Voice
"Chaplin is at his most profound in suggesting that there is much of the Tramp in the Dictator, and much of the Dictator in the Tramp."

Dave Kehr: Chicago Reader
"Though the slapstick may seem tired now, there are moments of greatness (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"

David Parkinson: Empire
"The representation of Hitler is vaudeville goonery all the way, but minus the acid wit and inventive energy that Groucho Marx managed"

Time Out

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