Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.
- Nominated for 5 Oscars
- 7 wins & 6 nominations total
- Bacterian Ambassador
- (as Carter De Haven)
- Mr. Jaeckel
- (as Maurice Moscovich)
- Tomanian Commandant at Osterlich
- (as Robert O. Davis)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Summary
Featured reviews
This film is hilarious, poignant and tragic. The tragedy is that Chaplin makes a plea for the madness to end, but it is already to late - for him and for us. A must see if you have any interest whatsoever in history, film-making, politics or sattire as an art-form.
Charlie Chaplin is simply outstanding in this film in what was his first spoken role. To play two completely different characters, Hynkel and the Jewish barber, so convincingly in the same film is truly remarkable. Chaplin's speech at the end, which is very much HIS speech even though he's playing a character, is a piece of cinema I will never forget. Such a powerful, moving and compelling speech that remains relevant even today.
Making a comedy out of such a tragedy is risky business, but Chaplin's anti-fascist message ensured it wasn't taken the wrong way. 'The Great Dictator' is a hilarious but meaningful and powerful film. A brilliant piece of cinema.
A truly great piece of cinema from a truly great performer and genius, whose closing speech mirrors many of the concerns we perpetually live with today and to which we can add climate change and military AI as we enhance our quest for annihilation, extinction and mutually assured destruction.
Did you know
- TriviaAdolf Hitler banned the film in Germany and all Nazi-occupied countries. 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 not his reaction. He was said to have laughed only once which was during the 'barber chair scene' between Hynkel and Napaloni. Charles Chaplin said, "I'd give anything to know what he thought of it." West Germany finally lifted the ban in 1958.
- Goofs(at around 35 mins) When the Barber is chased in the Ghetto streets by Stormtroopers, one California studio building can be seen in the upper right corner of the frame.
- Quotes
[last lines]
A Jewish Barber: I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. 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. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite! Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. 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. Look up, Hannah. Look up!
Mr. Jaeckel: Hannah, did you hear that?
Hannah: Listen...
- Crazy creditsThe film is obviously a satire on Adolf Hitler, represented by Adenoid Hynkel, and its story is based on Hynkel looking exactly like "a Jewish barber": both are played by Charles Chaplin. But it begins with a notice: "Any resemblance between Hynkel the dictator and the Jewish barber is purely co-incidental".
- Alternate versionsIn Italy, all the scenes that involved Napaloni's wife were cut from the movie to respect Benito Mussolini's widow, Rachele. The complete version wasn't seen until 2002.
- ConnectionsEdited into Grand format: Amérique, notre histoire (2006)
- SoundtracksHungarian Dance No. 5
(uncredited)
Written by Johannes Brahms
Played on the radio during the shaving scene
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- El gran dictador
- Filming locations
- Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles, California, USA(duck hunt - war sequences)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $2,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $972,212
- Runtime2 hours 5 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1