'The Great Dictator' (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)

Title: 'The Great Dictator'

Release Year: 1940

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie.

Plot: Adenoid Hynkel is the tyrannical dictator of Tomania. An unnamed Jew is a once private that now survives as a poor barber in the ghetto. They exist in separate yet not independent worlds that will cross thanks to their big resemblance.

Review: After watching 'Modern Times' (which I liked but not loved due to the proximity with which I had seen previous Chaplin movies), 'The Great Dictator' will be the last Charlie Chaplin film I'll see for this project. Before doing it, the expectations were rather high. Now? They've been completely fullfilled.

There are many reasons why I recall this movie the best of Chaplin that I've seen (even better than 'The Kid'). First, I absolutely loved Hynkel. His dictator is a complex and wonderful creation; emotionally unstable and insecure. I love his agressive attacks in German, and the way he says thousands of things which are just a few words in other languages. There's nothing of him I didn't like. Add to this the hypnotic magic scene he performs when playing with a globe and you'll have a round character.

The fairy score and Chaplin at his finest and best create pure magic

Moreover, that's his first talkie. I wonder why he didn't do any other before. Maybe because he didn't need it; with his star status he could still sell silent pictures and his humour could be fully developed in those. Anyway, his speaking side is also wonderful, thanks to his nice voice and lovely British accent.

What else can be said? Everything mentioned plus his always sweet tramp makes of this film a message of love with plenty of sweetness and fun. After the terror that spreads when the Germans go to the ghetto, that's the final conclusion the film wants to give. Yes, Chaplin put himself in a delicate position with this movie, assotiating his name to politics in a dangerous time, but without that quantity of risk, we would've never been able to see such a beautiful movie. Such a beautiful ending. Such a beautiful message, direct from him to the world and to his beloved Hannah: HOPE.

"Look up Hannah, look up!" Chaplin's best performance to the date concludes with his famous speech