Thus always to tyrants...

Rating: Null/10 (28 April 2004)

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS
With The Great Dictator, after holding out for years, Charlie Chaplin finally joined the world of talking pictures. On a purely cinematic level, the results are far from perfect, but Chaplin picked his subject matter well enough to more than make up for it. Rather than just being another adventure of the tramp stumbling through an uncaring world, The Great Dictator is a merciless mockery of Hitler's deranged regime. It reminded the world, at a time when it seemed to be willfully blind, just how stifling, corrupt, and inefficient Nazism really was.
At the centre of the picture, and easily the best thing about it, is Chaplin's portrayal of the titular character, "Adenoid Hynkel." His resemblance to Hitler in appearance, voice, and action is uncanny, and this makes his constant efforts to make Hitler look ridiculous all the more effective. You go from watching what almost looks like documentary footage to seeing Hynkel gesticulate lewdly about "die Aryan maiden," and then fall down the stairs (it's more funny in context than it sounds here). Equally brilliantly handled are the points about Hitler's fixation on Nazifying classical art (Venus and the Thinker giving the salute), the ruthless military experimentation (the bullet-proof uniform, the parachute hat, both of which messily fail), and Goebbels' (here called Garbitsch) attempts at psychology not being nearly as brilliant as he thinks. Plus, the obsessive one up-manship between Hynkel and "Benzino Napaloni" is pure gold.
The weakest parts of the film are those that don't deal with Hynkel, and unfortunately, there's a lot of them. Chaplin's other role is as a Jewish barber who is almost-but-not-quite the tramp. The scripting for these sections is much less sharp and much more meandering, and there are too many characters who aren't very strongly drawn. To his credit, however, Chaplin relies on his old mastery of silent comedy a lot to give these scenes some impact. The chase around the roof is a classic, and the "coin in the pudding" sequence is priceless, not to mention some of the barber's professional antics.
In the final scene's bombastic speech to the audience officially has the barber impersonating Hynkel, but of course it's really Chaplin himself speaking. Perhaps it is a bit shameless and obvious, but one has to remember that when it was originally spoken, the "medieval maniac" that Hynkel was a parody of was still very much alive and menacing, and had more than a few sympathizers around the world. A film that's so blatantly political and yet so good on its own is not something we'll likely see again soon. Though something called "The Appointed President" might not be amiss...