The Great Dictator

One of the great debates when it comes to silent cinema is that of who was the greatest silent comedian. On one side you have the great Stone Face, Buster Keaton, and on the other Charlie Chaplin and his Little Tramp (Poor old Harold Lloyd doesn't get much of a look in, unfortunate chap.) I'm always a little bemused by the debate, because to me it seems like trying to decide whether spare ribs or fried chicken is better. Either way, you're going to be well fed.

The recognition of their silent genius is very important when it comes to appraising Chaplin's 1940 film, The Great Dictator. This was the maestro's first ever full talkie picture, and aimed to poke fun at no less than Hitler's Nazi Germany. Chaplin himself plays two roles, both the Dictator Hynkel of Tomania, who is the film's Hitler stand in, and also a poor persecuted Jewish barber living in one of Tomania's Jewish ghettoes.

As Chaplin's first foray into sound pictures, it really confirms what a terrific silent comedian he is. The parts of this that really shine are the silent comedic scenes that could have fit into any of his previous masterpieces. The barber's scene shaving a customer to the sound of Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5, and Hynkel's maniacal dance with the inflatable globe are both fully worthy of any other Chaplin film. Chaplin himself remains as nimble as ever, hilariously able to spring into a chest and hide in mere seconds at one point.

The attempts at spoken comedy fall a little more flat. One of the main gags with Hynkel and the Benito Mussolini counterpart, Napaloni, relies on their accents, with the main joke appearing to be 'listen to these guys, they have funny foreign accents'. It can be understood perhaps, considering the political state of the world at the time, but has dated very badly in the intervening years. Partly because of this, the Hynkel scenes are the least enjoyable parts of the film, with those featuring the Barber generally more entertaining. This can be attributed to the fact that the barber is a variation on his lovable Tramp character, and thus more prone to the silent comedy he does so well.

The other section of the film that has unfortunately dated is for more historical reasons. Depictions of life in the Jewish ghettoes and the Nazi concentration camps are very far from the reality of the situation in Europe at the time. There was no way Chaplin could have known this when he made the film, but it makes the scenes far more poignant and melancholy because of it. Whilst he was showing what he thought was the extent of the suffering for the Jewish people, the extreme suffering and deprivation we now know them to have suffered is absolutely sickening in contrast. Chaplin himself stated in his autobiography that had he known the extent of the horrors of the concentration camps, he never would have made this film.

How to judge The Great Dictator then? Best to view it as a historical curiosity. It is an excellent example of a wartime propaganda piece, and an important documentary testament to the American and European understanding of the reality of life in Nazi Germany at the time. As a comedy it is somewhat less successful, with the moments of genius leavened with parts that really have dated badly. This is certainly not where you should start if you had not watched any Chaplin yet, rather one for the completionists only.