One of Chaplins best!!!

Rating: 9/10 (30 September 2007)

As a die-hard fan of Charles Chaplin, my primary devotions are to his best material, which for me are all the silent films. I believe that he himself had a clear intuition that something would dissipate were he to switch to talking films. This is not to say that he did not produce wonderful "talkie" films. He did and The Great Dictator (TGD) is one of his best. Perhaps his greatest film, "Modern Times" has a bit of speaking in it and of course his wonderful impromptu song filled with gibberish words. We don't think of this as a "talking" film in the same way that TGD is; this was his first all talking film. I still prefer the silent films for several reasons. His true genius lay in suggestions brought about ONLY by facial expression. He had no peer who could evoke what his face could; remember that Keaton was known as 'stone face' and never, ever broke his facial expression, no matter what. Chaplin's silent evocations also relied on incredible physical agility and body humor that is still hilarious today.
TGD still uses quite a bit of physical humor and it all works well. TGD is a scathing indictment of fascism in Europe, ending as it does with a phenomenal and hair raising speech, spoken out of character, where Chaplin addresses himself to all of humanity. It is also a sad, shocking and disturbing drama filled with bits of humor that are as dark as Chaplin knew how to express.
Consider his physical humor for a moment. In the early part of the film when the plane crashes, Chaplin emerges from complete submersion in a huge pile of wet mud. His entire head is enveloped in mud as he pops his eyes open - I really don't know how he did that without blinding himself. The scene is incredible and although it lasts for a few moments, it shows to what extremes he was willing to go to produce a laugh. Consider the scene in the ghetto where his lady friend, in trying to help him, accidentally bops him quite hard on the head with a frying pan.
In his depiction of the Hitler-like leader, Hinckle, there is one scene that must go down as one of the most breathtaking and marvelous in all movie history. It comes when he is alone in his room and plays with a huge inflatable globe of the world, bouncing it up and down, catching it and bouncing it sometimes off his rear end. The symmetry of his movements as lithe as anything a top ballet dancer could have done. The scene lingers in the mind, having deeper meaning than the surface action. Chaplin was blessed with a deep insight into people and this film shows him at his razor sharpest.
Another reason this film is so important: in a time when almost all of the world had turned it's back on the racial genocide that Nazi Germany was perpetrating on Europe's Jews, Chaplin knew of it and was convinced that something brave must be said about it. Where almost no one, certainly in Hollywood, thought it important to say that the Jews were getting massacred, Chaplin brought the Jewish focus front and center and miraculously, in a funny sort of way. Even though the rest of the world was to discover after the war that the destruction of Jews was far more sinister and horrific than this film implies, at least Chaplin stood up and shouted about it.
This is a brave, moving, brilliant, scathing, insightful, compassionate and raucous movie. Chaplin's portrayal of Hinckle, where he moves in and out of a Germanic accent, shows that a great silent film actor could move quite successfully into the talking movies. His Hitlerian rants were often so similar to Hitler's own that it was amazing to see that Chaplin could be vocal mimic as well. A complex film that holds up very well. A must see for all Chaplin fans.