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Great Dictator, The (1940)
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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 (Pauliette 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.
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