Your favorite bit from Chaplain's The Great Dictator

Adnoid Hinckle of the Double-cross!

It was on TCM last night but too late for me to stay up and watch it again.

Do you know the that Chaplin is speaking nothing but gibberish when he speaks as Adenoid Hynkel. I've read where the language you see on the Barbershop Store is actually in Esparanto.

My favorite will always be the big globe and how Chaplin played with it like a toy. I imagine that the boy idiot is probably doing the same thing

I just got slammed by my boss for mistakes in my monthly report. I heartless when proofing what others have written but suck at proofing my own

I'm pretty fussy myself about grammar and mechanics.

pure improvization

Also a ballroom scene near the end of the movie where Chaplin dances briefly with a very large fat woman, as he moves through a scene, and he is so elegantly serious and dances very well with her, and it so gently funny about how huge she is next to him and how graceful they look together, really, like the globe scene, except this is more of a blimp. It is very funny and pretty at the same time.

I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.

Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."

There's so much in that movie. It would make great house party material, and you'd be doing people a favor by introducing them to it. Everyone likes to share it too.

what wonderful words.

Well, technically the last time Chaplin played the "lil tramp" was in Modern Times although when the Jewish Barber was convalescing he was dressed as the tramp and acted with the tramp's mannerisms.

I also have The Kid & Modern Times on VHS but I'm not sure where I packed them.

City Lights is just sublime - one of these best movies ever with the most magnificent ending imaginable. And yet sometimes I think Gold Rush is my favorite Chaplin because it's got a wonderful plot line filled with both slapstick comedy and heartbreaking scenes. Plus the score for City Lights is all in Fugues which I adore.

the scene where he gets stood up for new years always tugs at me when i watch it - i think it strikes a chord with outcasts everywhere. chaplin was definitely tim burton's predecessor in depicting misfits in a leading role

My teenage son loved it and thinks we need to own the DVD, if its available.

My favorite bit is the speech before the adoring crowd where he is supposedly speaking German but it's all gibberish. As a student of German, it cracked me up. Hinkle with the globe was pretty funny too.

warner bors. just reissued all of chaplin's feature length films last year-they're available in two box sets or indivually

check out modern times while you're at it-and i'm one of few, but i think the circus is one of his best

I've seen so few of his works but I've loved those I have seen. I think I'll try to scrounge up enough money for the box sets.