|
Comedy • War • Classic 
|
The Great Dictator
Image Entertainment
FEATURES
Scene Access • Deleted Scenes • Featurettes • Production Notes • Original Story Notes, Scripts and Production Records OVERVIEW
In The Great Dictator, his first talking film, Charlie Chaplin skewers both Adolf Hitler (Adenoid Hynkel) and Benito Mussolini (Benzino Napaloni) on sharp spears of ridicule. I'm a clown, he said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine shortly before the film's 1940 premiere, and what can I do that is more effective than to laugh at these fellows that are putting humanity to the goose step? Chaplin plays both the malevolent dictator and an innocent Jewish barber who is in love with Hannah (Paulette Goddard). The plot turns on the astonishing resemblance of the dictator to the barber. Mistaken for the Phooey (der Fuhrer), the barber makes a speech at an enormous rally for the Sons and Daughters of the Double Cross that double crosses the double crossers. Includes: * A seven-minute sequence shot in 1918 for Sunnyside that inspired the famous barber scene in The Great Dictator * A 1933 Fox MovieTone newsreel about Adolf Hitler * Original story notes, drafts of scripts and production records documenting Chaplin's work on Sequence X--the Final Speech EASTER EGGS
|
|
