, 1941 Chaplin's film was released nine months after Hollywood's first parody of Hitler, the short subject
You Nazty Spy! by the
Three Stooges, which premiered in January 1940. Chaplin had been planning his feature-length work for years, and began filming in September 1939. Hitler had been previously allegorically pilloried in the 1933 German film
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, by
Fritz Lang. The film was well received in the United States at the time of its release and was popular with the American public. For example,
Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times called the film "a truly superb accomplishment by a truly great artist" and "perhaps the most significant film ever produced." The film was also popular in the United Kingdom, drawing 9 million to the cinemas, despite Chaplin's fears that wartime audiences would dislike a comedy about a dictator. The film earned
theater rentals of $3.5 million from the U.S. and Canada and $5 million in total worldwide rentals. During the film's production, the
National Government of
Neville Chamberlain had announced that it would prohibit its showing in the UK in keeping with its policy of
appeasement towards Germany. By the time the film was released, however, Britain was at war with Germany and the film was welcomed in part for its obvious
propaganda value. In 1941, London's
Prince of Wales Theatre screened its UK premiere. The film had been banned in many parts of Europe, and the theatre's owner, Alfred Esdaile, was apparently fined for showing it. When the film was released in France in 1945, it became the most popular film of the year, with admissions of 8,360,048. The film was voted at No. 24 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine
Cahiers du cinéma in 2008. In 2010,
The Guardian considered it the 22nd-best comedy film of all time. The film was voted at No. 16 on the list of
The 100 greatest comedies of all time by a poll of 253 film critics from 52 countries conducted by the
BBC in 2017. Chaplin biographer
Jeffrey Vance concludes his lengthy examination of the film, in his book
Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema, by asserting the film's importance among the great film satires. Vance writes, "Chaplin's
The Great Dictator survives as a masterful integration of comedy, politics and satire. It stands as Chaplin's most self-consciously political work and the cinema's first important satire." Vance further reports that a refugee from Germany who had worked in the film division of the Nazi Ministry of Culture before deciding to flee told Chaplin that Hitler had watched the movie twice, entirely alone both times. Chaplin replied that he would "give anything to know what he thought of it."
Chaplin's Tramp character and the Jewish barber (as Hannah) in this image from the film trailer. There is no critical consensus on the relationship between Chaplin's earlier
Tramp character and the film's Jewish barber, but the trend is to view the barber as a variation on the theme. French film director
François Truffaut later noted that early in the production, Chaplin said he would not play The Tramp in a sound film. Turner Classic Movies says that years later, Chaplin acknowledged a connection between The Tramp and the barber. Specifically, "There is some debate as to whether the unnamed Jewish barber is intended as the Tramp's final incarnation. Although in his
autobiography he refers to the barber as the Little Tramp, Chaplin said in 1937 that he would not play the Little Tramp in his sound pictures." In
My Autobiography, Chaplin wrote, "Of course! As Hitler I could harangue the crowds all I wished. And as the tramp, I could remain more or less silent."
The New York Times, in its original review (16 October 1940), specifically sees him as the tramp. However, in the majority of his so-called tramp films, he was not literally playing a tramp. In his review of the film years after its release,
Roger Ebert says, "Chaplin was technically not playing the Tramp." He also writes, "He [Chaplin] put the Little Tramp and $1.5 million of his own money on the line to ridicule Hitler." Critics who view the barber as different include Stephen Weissman, whose book
Chaplin: A Life speaks of Chaplin "abandoning traditional pantomime technique and his little tramp character". DVD reviewer Mark Bourne asserts Chaplin's stated position: "Granted, the barber bears more than a passing resemblance to the Tramp, even affecting the familiar bowler hat and cane. But Chaplin was clear that the barber is not the Tramp and
The Great Dictator is not a Tramp movie."
The Scarecrow Movie Guide also views the barber as different. Annette Insdorf, in her book
Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (2003), writes that "There was something curiously appropriate about the little tramp impersonating the dictator, for by 1939 Hitler and Chaplin were perhaps the two most famous men in the world. The tyrant and the tramp reverse roles in
The Great Dictator, permitting the eternal outsider to address the masses". In
The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies (1998), Kathryn Bernheimer writes, "What he chose to say in
The Great Dictator, however, was just what one might expect from the Little Tramp. Film scholars have often noted that the Little Tramp resembles a Jewish stock figure, the ostracized outcast, an outsider." Several reviewers of the late 20th century describe the Little Tramp as developing into the Jewish barber. In
Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s, Thomas Schatz writes of "Chaplin's Little Tramp transposed into a meek Jewish barber", while, in
Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929–1939,
Colin Shindler writes, "The universal Little Tramp is transmuted into a specifically Jewish barber whose country is about to be absorbed into the totalitarian empire of Adenoid Hynkel." Finally, in
A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age,
J. P. Telotte writes that "The little tramp figure is here reincarnated as the Jewish barber". A two-page discussion of the relationship between the barber and The Tramp appears in Eric L. Flom's book
Chaplin in the Sound Era: An Analysis of the Seven Talkies. He concludes:
Awards The film was
nominated for five Academy Awards: •
Outstanding Production –
United Artists (Charlie Chaplin, Producer) •
Best Actor – Charlie Chaplin •
Best Writing (Original Screenplay) – Charlie Chaplin •
Best Supporting Actor –
Jack Oakie •
Best Music (Original Score) –
Meredith Willson Chaplin also won best actor awards at
National Board of Review awards and
New York Film Critics Circle Awards. In 1997,
The Great Dictator was selected by the
Library of Congress for preservation in the United States
National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2000, the
American Film Institute ranked the film No. 37 in its
"100 Years... 100 Laughs" list. The February 2020 issue of
New York Magazine lists
The Great Dictator as among "The Best Movies That Lost Best Picture at the Oscars." The film holds a 92% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes based on 53 reviews. The consensus reads, "Charlie Chaplin demonstrates that his comedic voice is undiminished by dialogue in this rousing satire of tyranny, which may be more distinguished by its uplifting humanism than its gags." Film critic
Roger Ebert of
Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and included it in his
Great Movies list. ==Plagiarism lawsuit==