Great for its day

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2013)

Easy to sneer now - but think 1940.
Chaplin's three-minute sermon at the end of this film can sound like every brotherly-love cliché rolled into one, as well as being technically dubious - bolted-on, rather than crafted into the action, and implausible anyway, coming from the lips of a humble barber.
But unlike any other, 1940 was a year full of despair for the world, and an appeal for optimism from the Little Tramp, never downhearted for long, must have provided a ray of hope for millions, when it was most needed. "The hate of men will pass." Dare to believe it...
Mistaken identity is not exactly the most original storyline either, but Chaplin makes good use of it in his dual role as Hynkel (Hitler) and an unnamed Jewish barber in the ghetto.
The action starts in 1918, with the collapse of the Tomanian (German) army, and the barber saving the life of a wounded pilot, but losing his own memory through concussion.
Fast-forward twenty years, and the barber escapes from his care-home, to return to the ghetto, now governed by stormtroopers reporting to... none other than the ex-pilot, who is secretly planning a resistance movement.
The political background is the Anschluss (invasion of Austria) where Hynkel is competing for influence with an obvious Mussolini figure, played with gusto by Jack Oakie.
Owing to some fairly contrived twists, the barber and the pilot find themselves pursued by the law, and happen to arrive at the Austrian border in uniform, just as Hynkel, out duck-shooting in civilian clothes, gets arrested in error. So a huge parade, waiting to be addressed by Hynkel, gets the barber's speech instead, and they all cheer the message of peace.
This was only Chaplin's first talkie, and some of its best scenes owe much to silent technique, such as his dance with an inflatable globe, and other sequences that are almost mime with music.
Work had started on this film in 1937, and Britain and America were both planning to boycott it, for the sake of their neutrality. It is to Chaplin's credit that he risked his career, as well as his own capital, in pressing ahead with such a vast commitment. But his political naivety always showed, as when someone suggested he should make a similar film about Stalin. "It is hard to play a man who has no faults", came the astonishing reply.
Finally, no report on The Great Dictator is complete without some verdict about Hitler's own rumoured screening of it (as a one-time Chaplin fan). Two prints were acquired from Portugal and delivered to the Führer's private cinema. Albert Speer declared that Hitler never saw the film - but he couldn't strictly have known. Some say he watched it twice in total silence and made no reaction. Chaplin said he would give anything to know what he thought of it.