The Great Charles Chaplin meets The Children of the Doublecross

Rating: Null/10 (13 February 2004)

Chaplin's movies are not really in my line, but with The Great Dictator he has earned my everlasting respect and my great admiration. When watching this movie one should remember that the people parodied in it were at the time of its release very, very much in power and that they had powerful friends in all countries. Yes, it must have been a tremendously courageous act. Mr Chaplin risked his name and possibly large parts of his wealth by doing The Great Dictator and I believe that it was honestly made out of idealism.
The use of sound is outstanding. The ideas for it seem to come from the silent era: careful, very good choice of musical scores, the creation of funny situations by special sound effects. The dialogs are wooden, there is hardly any really meaningful exchange. But then there are Chaplin's monologs. His imitation of the German language is funny and at the same time chilling. Amazing how well he caught the rhythm and speech-pattern of that foreign tongue  I guess for him it was all a kind of music.
In a strange way Chaplin reveals himself to be an Englishman at heart. The use of sound in The Great Dictator reminded me strongly of British Comedies from the Ealing Studios, the Goons show, Monty Python. Somehow they all seem to stand in the same cultural tradition. It was just amazing to hear how English his voice sounds when he makes his final speech (and who had heard Chaplin talk before?). The speech really comes from the heart and is very powerful and moving. It is a strange internationalistic frontal attack against modernism as a whole, the very economical eruption he owed his wealth and popularity to. Just compare it with a song of his compatriot: John Lennon's Imagine.
There may be flaws in this movie (the beginning is confusing, Paulette Goddard seems somewhat lost, the storyline is sketchy), but the terrific performance of Chaplin  who even had the greatness to let himself play literally against the wall by a fellow comedian: Jack Oakie as Benzino Napaloni  more than compensates for them. It's wonderful to watch Charlie move. Such elegance and agility! And he was over fifty, the same age as Adolf Hitler.