The Great Dictator
Once again - the whole world laughs!
Plot:Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
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Cast & Crew
Charlie Chaplin
Adenoid Hynkel, Dictator of Tomania / A Jewish Barber
Jack Oakie
Benzino Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria
Reginald Gardiner
Commander Schultz
Henry Daniell
Garbitsch
Billy Gilbert
Field Marshal Herring
Grace Hayle
Madame Napaloni
Carter DeHaven
Spook
Paulette Goddard
Hannah
Maurice Moscovitch
Mr. Jaeckel
Emma Dunn
Mrs. Jaeckel
Bernard Gorcey
Mr. Mann
Paul Weigel
Mr. Agar
Chester Conklin
Barber's Customer
Esther Michelson
Jewish Woman
Hank Mann
Storm Trooper Stealing Fruit
Visual Effects
Jack Cosgrove
Visual Effects
Directing
Charlie Chaplin
Director
Sound
Charlie Chaplin
Original Music Composer
Glenn Rominger
Sound Designer
Percy Townsend
Sound Designer
Carmen Dragon
Orchestrator
Writing
Charlie Chaplin
Writer
Editing
Willard Nico
Editor
Costume & Make-Up
Ed Voight
Makeup Artist
Fun Facts of Movie
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Adolf Hitler banned the film in Germany and in all countries occupied by the Nazis. Curiosity got the best of him, and he had a print brought in through Portugal. History records that he screened it twice, in private, but history did not record his reaction to the film. Sir Charles Chaplin said, “I’d give anything to know what he thought of it.” For political reasons in Germany, the ban stayed after the end of WWII until 1958.
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This film was financed entirely by Sir Charles Chaplin himself, and it was his biggest box-office hit.
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Although this movie was banned in all Nazi-occupied countries, it was screened once to a German audience. In the occupied Balkans, members of a resistance group switched the reels in a military cinema and replaced a comedic opera with a copy of this film, which they had smuggled in from Greece. So a group of German soldiers enjoyed a screening of this film until they realized what it was. Some left the cinema, and some were reported to have fired shots at the screen.
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Released eleven years after the end of the silent era, this was Sir Charles Chaplin‘s first all-talking, all-sound film.
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According to documentaries on the making of the film, Sir Charles Chaplin began to feel more uncomfortable lampooning Adolf Hitler the more he heard of Hitler’s actions in Europe. Ultimately, the invasion of France inspired Chaplin to change the ending of his film to include his famous speech.
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Sir Charles Chaplin said that had he known the true extent of Nazi atrocities, he “could not have made fun of their homicidal insanity”. More than 50 years later, the Italian comedian Roberto Benigni took up that artistic challenge and created a sensitive comedy-drama in the Academy Award winning Life Is Beautiful (1997).
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Sir Charles Chaplin got the idea when a friend, Alexander Korda, noted that his screen persona and Adolf Hitler looked somewhat similar. Chaplin later learned they were both born within a week of each other (Chaplin 4/16/1889, Hitler 4/20/1889), were roughly the same height and weight, and both struggled in poverty until they reached great success in their respective fields. When Chaplin learned of Hitler’s policies of racial oppression and nationalist aggression, he used their similarities as an inspiration to attack Hitler on film.
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At the 1940 Academy Awards, the film received five nominations, but it did not win any. Sir Charles Chaplin was hurt by this, as he already had spent 27 years in Hollywood. James Stewart, the winner of the Best Actor Award (for which Chaplin was nominated), was not even planning on going to the ceremony until someone told him to go there hours before it began. Interestingly enough, this was the first year in which the winners remained secret until the moment they were announced at the ceremony.
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When Sir Charles Chaplin had heard that studios were trying to discourage him from making the film, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a representative, Harry Hopkins, to Chaplin to encourage him to make the film.
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Sir Charles Chaplin said wearing Hynkel’s costume made him feel more aggressive, and those close to him remember him being more difficult to work with on days he was shooting as Hynkel.
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Sir Charles Chaplin blinks fewer than ten times during the entire final speech, which lasts over five minutes.
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