(snip)
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.[31] Chaplin had been planning his feature-length work for years. Hitler had been previously allegorically pilloried in the German film by Fritz Lang, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse.
The film was well received in the United States at the time of its release, and was popular with the American public. The film was also popular in the United Kingdom, drawing 9 million to the cinemas,[32] despite Chaplin's fears that wartime audiences would dislike a comedy about a dictator. It was the second-most popular movie in the US in 1941.[33]
The film was banned in several Latin American countries, where there were active movements of Nazi sympathizers.[34]
During the film's production, the British government had announced that it would prohibit its exhibition in the United Kingdom, in keeping with its appeasement policy concerning Nazi Germany.[35] But by the time the film was released, the UK 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.[3]
When the film was released in France in 1945, it became the most popular movie of the year, with admissions of 8,280,553.[36]
The film was Chaplin's first true talking picture and helped shake off criticism of Luddism following his previous release, the mostly dialogue-free Modern Times (1936), after the silent era had all but ended in the late 1920s. The Great Dictator does feature several silent scenes more in keeping with Chaplin's previous films. Some audiences had come to expect Chaplin to make silent films even during the sound era.[citation needed]
Honors[edit]
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".[37]
In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film #37 in its "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list.[38]
The film holds a 92% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 reviews, three of which are negative.[39]
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 celluloid 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."[40]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator
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