UNTITLED

Both Charlie Chaplin and Adolph Hitler long endured comparisons to each other, thanks to the coincidence of each sporting a toothbrush-style mustache. In 1938, at a time when Nazism and isolationism were significant forces in both American life and Hollywood, Chaplin set out to exploit those comparisons in what would become his masterpiece satire of fascism, The Great Dictator. For the next two years, as Hitler's armies marched across Europe and his horrors became evident to the world, Chaplin enlisted everything he had learned about comedy for the purpose of mocking the would-be world conquerer. There are pratfalls and food fights and, for the first time in movies, Chaplin spoke, creating a garbled German language to help make his Hitler stand-in, Adenoid Hynkel, both dangerous and a buffoon. Then in an ending that still catches audiences off-guard, he broke character to make an impassioned plea to the world for championing liberty and returning to human feeling and decency. Michael Tisserand's narrative nonfiction account of Charlie Chaplin and the making of The Great Dictator brings readers to battlefields and film studios to recreate those days of an advancing war and one man's attempt to stop a dictator by laughing at him. It tells of the Nazi plot on the life of Chaplin, whom Nazi propaganda disparaged as a "dirty Jew acrobat," and traces how The Great Dictator helped make Chaplin undesirable to both German and American governments, ultimately leading to the filmmaker's exile from the United States. It demonstrates how Chaplin's movie has lived on, inspiring current world leaders such as Volodymyr Zelensky and influencing artists ranging from Stanley Kubrick to Mel Brooks. During two years of a raging world war, Chaplin created a lasting work that would reveal both the power and the limitations of satire. For the first time, this book tells the full story of how Chaplin accomplished his remarkable movie.