Reel Classics: ‘The Great Dictator’

In the year 1938, Charlie Chaplin, one of the most famous come­di­ans of the time, began writ­ing a script based on one of the most infa­mous Fascists of the time — Adolf Hitler. The goal was to make a polit­i­cal satire and com­e­dy that would be a par­o­dy of Hitler, the Führer of Nazi Germany. The char­ac­ter he por­trayed was Adenoid Hynkel, the Phooey of Tomainia. This clas­sic Chaplin film is today’s Reel Classic—The Great Dictator.

In 1938 Hitler was engaged in expand­ing his rule in Europe. At that time, the United States was not involved in the war and still had rela­tions with Nazi Germany. The vast major­i­ty of American cit­i­zens then were opposed to U.S. involve­ment in the war in Europe. Chaplin real­ized that mak­ing this film could be very con­tro­ver­sial. Hollywood stu­dios were hes­i­tant to take on the project, and Chaplin financed the endeav­or him­self. In fact, he also wrote, pro­duced and starred in the film and was involved in the musi­cal score. 

Chaplin actu­al­ly plays two roles in the film. In addi­tion to Adenoid Hynkel, he also plays a work­ing class Jewish bar­ber liv­ing and work­ing in a Jewish ghet­to. The bar­ber is a vet­er­an of the first World War who spent time in a hos­pi­tal with injuries after hav­ing saved the life of a pilot, Commander Schultz (Reginald Gardiner). Twenty years lat­er, the bar­ber stills suf­fers from amne­sia, and Schultz is now an offi­cer in the mil­i­tary that over­sees the ghetto.

The bar­ber falls in love with a neigh­bor woman, Hannah, (Paulette Goddard) and togeth­er they work in the resis­tance move­ment with­in the ghet­to. Storm Troopers arrive and cap­ture the bar­ber and are about to exe­cute him when Commander Schultz rec­og­nizes him as the sol­dier who saved his life 20 years ago. Schulz pre­vents the exe­cu­tion, and their con­ver­sa­tion about the past helps to restore the mem­o­ry of the barber.

Meanwhile, The Phooey is try­ing to per­suade a Jewish banker to loan mon­ey to help finance the grow­ing mil­i­tary forces of Tomainia. When the banker refus­es, Hynkel orders a purg­ing of the Jews and has them sent to con­cen­tra­tion camps. Commander Schulz protests this action and is arrest­ed and is also sent to a camp. He escapes the camp and goes to the ghet­to, where he hides with the bar­ber. Eventually he and the bar­ber are dis­cov­ered by the troops and are sent to the con­cen­tra­tion camp. Hannah and her fam­i­ly flee the coun­try to the neigh­bor­ing Osterlich.

Meanwhile, Hynkel meets with fel­low fas­cist dic­ta­tor Benzino Napoloni (Jack Oakie). He is the Diggaditchie of the coun­try Bacteria (a take on Mussolini of Italy). They are try­ing to decide which coun­try will invade the neigh­bor­ing coun­try of Osterlich. It is final­ly agreed upon that troops from Tomainia will invade Osterlich, and in doing so, Hannah and her fam­i­ly are captured.

Back at the con­cen­tra­tion camp, Schulz and the bar­ber man­age to steal some mil­i­tary uni­forms and escape the camp. Given his remark­able resem­blance to Hynkel, the bar­ber in uni­form pass­es as the Phooey.  Meanwhile, a vic­to­ry parade is planned in Osterlich, and Hynkel is to speak. Prior to his appear­ance, Hynkel decides to dress in reg­u­lar clothes and goes out into the woods to duck hunt. He is mis­tak­en by troops for the escaped bar­ber and arrest­ed. Schulz and the bar­ber arrive in Osterlich and wit­ness the vic­to­ry parade. The bar­ber, still in uni­form, is mis­tak­en for Hynkel and asked to speak to the crowd. He pro­vides a very stir­ring and pas­sion­ate speech, but not exact­ly what the crowd was antic­i­pat­ing. Hannah hears his voice on the radio and lis­tens. His last few lines of his speech are addressed specif­i­cal­ly to her. He says:  “Look up, Hannah. The soul of man has been giv­en wings, and at last he is begin­ning to fly. He is fly­ing into the rain­bow, into the light of hope, into the future, the glo­ri­ous future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us.” And, she has hope.

The Great Dictator marked a cou­ple of impor­tant mile­stones for Chaplin. Released in 1940, it was 11 years after the end of the “silent era.” However, this was Chaplin’s first film with all talk­ing and sound. Though he had made Modern Times ear­li­er and it did have some sounds, it was still pri­mar­i­ly a “silent” film. This film also marked the last appear­ance of the “Little Tramp” char­ac­ter, though Chaplin denied that the bar­ber was the “Little Tramp.” But he had the char­ac­ter­is­tic mus­tache, bowler hat, and cane of the infa­mous character.

Paulette Goddard, who played Hannah, and Chaplin appeared togeth­er in the film Modern Times.  They  had mar­ried in 1936 and remained mar­ried until 1942. During the film­ing of The Great Dictator, their rela­tion­ship began to fail, though report­ed­ly they both worked to main­tain it.  Their divorce and part­ing were amicable.

As men­tioned above, there was con­cern about the mak­ing and releas­ing of this film. The British gov­ern­ment, when learn­ing of the pend­ing mak­ing and release of the film, stat­ed it would be banned in Britain, because at that time, the gov­ern­ment was try­ing to appease the German Nazis. However, by the time it was released in 1940, Britain was at war with Germany, and the film was wel­comed.  Several Latin American coun­tries with pro-Nazi lean­ings also banned the film. When President Roosevelt learned that the Hollywood stu­dios were try­ing to dis­cour­age the mak­ing of the film, he sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to meet with Chaplin and encour­age him to go for­ward with the project. Upon the film’s release, Chaplin and his stu­dio received many threat­en­ing let­ters from American Nazi sym­pa­thiz­ers. Needless to say, Hitler banned the film in Germany and all of the coun­tries they had occu­pied. Spain’s dic­ta­tor Francisco Franco banned the film in his coun­try, and it remained banned until after his death in 1975.

The Great Dictator turned out to be the most suc­cess­ful box office hit of Chaplin’s career. It was also well received by film crit­ics. It was nom­i­nat­ed for five Academy Awards, includ­ing Outstanding Production, Best Actor (Chaplin), Best Supporting Actor (Oakie), Best Writing (Chaplin), and Best Music. The crit­ic for The New York Times described it as “a tru­ly superb accom­plish­ment by a tru­ly great artist ... per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant film ever pro­duced.”  The crit­ic for The New York Herald Tribune wrote, “The Great Dictator is a frank, hard-hit­ting attack on Fascism, in which vio­lent car­i­ca­ture bulks even larg­er than the immutable com­e­dy of human exis­tence that Chaplin knows so well.” Roger Ebert gave the film four of four stars and includ­ed it in his list of Great Movies. 

More recent reviews have also been very pos­i­tive. The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus reads: “Charlie Chaplin demon­strates that his comedic voice is undi­min­ished by dia­logue in this rous­ing satire of tyran­ny, which may be more dis­tin­guished by its uplift­ing human­ism than its gags.” In October 2025 NPR did a sto­ry on the film and focused on the speech giv­en by the bar­ber pos­ing as the Fascist leader Hynkel. Excerpts from that pow­er­ful speech include:

“I’m sor­ry, but I don’t want to be an emper­or,” he gen­tly informs an assem­bly of Hynkel’s army and advi­sors. “I don’t want to rule or con­quer any­one. I should like to help every­one if pos­si­ble. Jew, gen­tile, Black man, white. We all want to help one anoth­er. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each oth­er’s hap­pi­ness, not by each oth­er’s misery.”

“Greed has poi­soned men’s souls,” he con­tin­ues,” has bar­ri­cad­ed the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into mis­ery and blood­shed. We have devel­oped speed, but we have shut our­selves in.”

The NPR sto­ry also point­ed out how some took Chaplin’s words to be a pro­mo­tion of Communism.  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover com­piled a fold­er of over 1900 pages on Chaplin and Senator Joe McCarthy accused Chaplin of being a Communist sym­pa­thiz­er.  Ed Sullivan, lat­er known for his long-run­ning tele­vi­sion show, was a news­pa­per colum­nist at the time of the release of The Great Dictator.  He, along with anoth­er pop­u­lar gos­sip colum­nist, Hedda Hopper, attacked Chaplin and the film as being pro-Communist.  These efforts lat­er led to Chaplin being exiled from this country. 

The sto­ry from NPR end­ed with the fol­low­ing line:  “But 85 years after it debuted, his movie stands as a tes­ta­ment to how art can stand up to tyran­ny and how hard it can fight.” In a BBC arti­cle review­ing the pic­ture from a few years ago, a very telling descrip­tion was writ­ten: “What’s even more remark­able is that Chaplin did­n’t just cap­ture Hitler, but every dic­ta­tor who has fol­lowed in his goose steps …. If you want to see a crys­talline reflec­tion of the 21^st cen­tu­ry’s despots, you’ll find it in a film that came out 80 years ago.”

 In 1997 the Library of Congress select­ed The Great Dictator for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry.  In 2000 the American Film Institute iden­ti­fied it at # 37 in the Top 100 Funniest American Movies. The Internet Movie Database rates the film at 8.4 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 92% and an Audience Score of 95%.

In search­ing my Roku device, I found sev­er­al sites offer­ing the film for screen­ing includ­ing Plex, Shout TV, Pluto TV, Classic Comedy Channel and Kanopy (avail­able free with your library card).  Unfortunately, there is not a copy of the DVD at the Clark County Public Library, but they will obtain a copy if you ask. 

Along with the movie trail­er, I am also includ­ing the final speech dis­cussed above. It is only sev­er­al min­utes long, but is a very pow­er­ful state­ment. Please take a few min­utes and watch it. The words are as rel­e­vant today as they were in 1940.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.