Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1940 • United States
Starring Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Paulette Goddard
In his controversial masterpiece THE GREAT DICTATOR, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, THE GREAT DICTATOR, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.
Up Next in The Mustache Club
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Capricious Summer
Directed by Jiří Menzel • 1968 • Czechoslovakia
Two years after his worldwide hit CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS, Jiří Menzel directed this amusing idyll about three middle-aged men whose mellow summer is interrupted by the arrival of a circus performer and his beautiful assistant. A meditation on agi...
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The American Friend
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1977 • Germany
Starring Dennis Hopper, Bruno GanzWim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with THE AMERICAN FRIEND, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Ripley’s Game.” Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American a...
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • 1943 • United Kingdom
Starring Roger Livesey, Anton Walbrook, Deborah KerrConsidered by many to be the finest British film ever made, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is a stirring masterpiece like...
