The Great Dictator 1939 1941 next previous
The Great Dictator Clippings 102/369
L. O. P., Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 1, 1940.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN was the greatest booster of Eddie
Vitch, whom Derby attorneys are trying to help
re-enter the United States. Vitch sketched Mickey Rooney,
Tyrone Power and Wayne Morris long before they
were famous.
(...) Sketch, Des Moines Register, Des Moines,
Iowa, Aug. 4, 1940
„What a shallow character“
Editorial content. „Chaplin Tells Of „Dictator“
Says Film Has Great Message
By Louella O. Parsons
HOLLYWOOD, Aug. 31. – I have been hounding Charlie
Chaplin for weeks to hear his voice on the screen.
Finally, a few days ago, a telephone call came asking me to
have luncheon with him. You can imagine my delight
when he permitted me to sit in while he and Meredith Willson
completed the last scoring of The Great Dictator, which
has taken Charlie two years to make.
Surprising that the Charles Chaplin I knew 25 years ago
isn‘t one whit older in the movies. He looks like a boy.
As for his voice, well, wait until you hear it! It is so pleasing,
so cultured and really appealing!
The music which he composed is a haunting melody
that lingers, and I found myself humming it long after we left
the projection room.
Calls Story ,Timeless‘
We‘ve all had our jokes at the way Charlie works. Two
long years on one picture – but I feel we should now
apologize, for he has given us a comedy that will stand
alone. It took a lot of courage for him to change
from the world‘s greatest pantomimist to a comedian who
utters witty dialogue. He wrote his own story; put
his own words in his mouth and did really a one-man job
for many months.
,You‘ve had a lot of trouble keeping up with the
fast-changing world conditions, haven‘t you?‘ I said to him.
,Not at all,‘ he answered. ,My story is timeless.
It would be good now or one hundred years from now.
From the beginning of the world certain people
have been persecuted. ,The Great Dictator‘ tried to do for
the Jewish people what Uncle Tom‘s Cabin did
for the Negro.
Draws Racial Analogy
,Just as the black man was traded, so has the Jew
been harassed, mistreated and killed, and that‘s
what I tried to tell in the screen play that I am presenting.‘
I must have looked puzzled, for he read my thoughts.
,Of course, my picture isn‘t 100 percent tragic,‘
he said. ,Comedy and pathos are so closely allied that
you cannot have one without the other. So many
people,‘ he told me, ,have written and said ,How can you
make comedy out of the heartache and suffering
of people? How can you laugh at the world‘s greatest
tragedy?‘
,I explained,‘ said Charlie, ,that the only way we can
survive is to laugh at our troubles!‘
Dictator Shallow Fellow
Charlie is the first to make a comedy of Hitler‘s
ruthless policies and Mussolini‘s obvious entrance into the
war when he felt Germany had the upper hand. We
have had many serious dramas showing the unbearable
conditions in Germany; the atrocities in the
concentration camps; the cruelties toward the non-Aryan;
but this is the first comedy in which Herr Hitler
figures.
What a shallow character Chaplin makes of the real
of the real dictator, and what a kindly, fine person
is the little tramp who gets mistaken for the Fuehrer, and
does everything contrary to the Nazi ideas!
I promised I wouldn‘t tell one word, but I just have
to say that the emblem worn by Charlie as the
dictator is the double cross! You have probably seen
it in photographs.“ (...)
The Great Dictator world premiere is in New York Oct. 15, 1940
at the Capitol and Astor Theatres.
Capitol Theatre, 1645 Broadway (at 51st Street), New York.
Astor Theatre, 1531 Broadway (at 45th Street), New York.
Redaktioneller Inhalt
The Great Dictator 1939 1941 next previous
