The Great Dictator, a satirical social commentary film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, was released in 1940.
The Great Dictator, an American comedy film directed and starred in by Charlie Chaplin, was released in 1940. It was Chaplin's most popular box office film, satirizing Adolf Hitler and Nazism while denouncing anti-Semitism. Chaplin played a Jewish barber who is misidentified as a despotic tyrant. He keeps up the farce and eventually delivers a speech calling for peace and compassion. In a dual role, Chaplin also portrayed a fascist ruler based after Adolf Hitler. One of the film's most famous sequences involves Hynkel dancing with a world balloon to Richard Wagner's music. Chaplin subsequently stated that if the real magnitude of the Nazis' crimes had been generally known, he would not have been able
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