The Great Dictator (1940)

Fantastic!

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The final speech is beautiful. though the comedy usually doesn't quite work for me and i don't find them enjoyable, charlie chaplin's movies are always wonderful and kind at heart. however, the final scenes in this film were striking and heartfelt in a way that is rare to come by in life. definitely worth watching

Sure the project is honorable and courageous to kick dictators and alert about the oppressed but a movie is not a political work but an artistic one: honestly i tried to watch it but after 20 minutes of unfunny jokes, heavy pantomimes and silly grimaces, i had enough... The production looks cheap or the sets are really badly build, the scenes are tedious, endless, ... so that's really not my kind of fun and it's really discourages me of watching any Charlot movie after that! For the same subject, prefer the comics Maus!

What is very clear is that Charlie Chaplain is the master of silent films and slapstick humour. Unfortunately, this is not a silent film.Near the beginning there is a ~5-10 minute long 'joke' of a speech in garbled German-English words. I couldn't even make out what he is saying, the German-English jokes were not at all obvious, and so it was not funny and quite boring. If you manage to keep watching past this, you're doing well, it gets better but not by much.The small amount of classic charlie chaplain slapstick was mostly good and I laughed a few times at that, but unfortunately between the slapstick is tedious, unexciting dialogue.Maybe what Charlie Chaplain did was ground breaking at the time. Today, it fails to capture interest long enough to enjoy the comedic elements.

In his very first 'talkie' film. Charlie Chaplin proves as he did with his silent work to be impressive and inspirational in this now classic comedy/drama parodying the events leading up to and during the Second World War. The film opens with a Jewish soldier fighting on a fictionalised version of the Western Front for the nation of Tomania. After a near-fatal plane crash, the barber loses his memory and spends twenty years recovering in a hospital, during the same time his country and people are undergoing a radical revolution in the name of a new dictator named Adenoid Hynkel. Considered taboo and even downright dangerous at the time, The Great Dictator shows Chaplin to be more than just an outstanding actor and comedian, but a remorseful and courageous human being standing up to the real world troubles at the time and using his voice as a weapon. This is not just apparent in the beautiful and unifying speech that Chaplin delivers in the third act, but in his depiction of dictators and corrupt rulers. The film will have you laughing, cheering and even crying by the soul-touching finale, which challenges the very concept of human nature and the slow demise of mankind. While Chaplin may have come to pass, his legacy has well and truly lived on in what some consider his finest work. The only minor flaws are a lack of a real soundtrack that could have boosted the emotion, especially in the more serious scenes and some recurring gags that loose their comedic value by the end. 9/10