Thursday, April 3, 2008

The Great Dictator...

The Great Dictator...

My all time favorite movie. The movie is based in the early 1940s when World war-2 was about to start. Charlie chaplin plays a dual role..as a demonic dictator called Henkel (spoof of Hitler) and as a Jewish barber in Germany. In his own satarical tone Charlie chaplin neatly portrays the 2 characters, their activities, their trials....all really funny but heavily loaded with political realities of that time. At the end of the movie by a quirk of fate Henkel is taken to be the Jewish barber and the Jewish barber is mistaken to be Henkel. The barber (mistaken to be Hitler) is alofted into a podium and is asked to address a large gathering of Nazi soldiers. What does the barber do ?? He comes out with one of the most memorable lines ever delivered in an English movie. Genuinely poignant !! A true master piece of Charlie chaplin. Curious ones may find the speech (video and text) in the following link:http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechthegreatdictator.html

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