The Great Dictator

The Chaplin Collection

Come heil or high water, Charles Chaplin is in the fight! And the result is a celebrated classic honored in 2000 as one of the American Film Institute's Top- 100 American Comedies.

The U.S. was not yet in World War II when Chaplin leveled his comedy arsenal at Der Fuhrer by playing the dual roles of Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who is a dead-ringer look-alike for der Nutsie. Puns, sight gags and slapstick abound as Chaplin skewers fascism, balancing his attack with poignant scenes of a ghetto in the clutches of storm-trooping terror. Immortal bits include Hynkel's besotted dance with a globe, the upside-down flight and Hynkel and a Mussolini-like Jack Oakie madly cranking their barber chairs higher and higher. Great comedy meets great filmmaking passion in The Great Dictator.