The Great Dictator noted Chaplin's use of Wagner's "Lohengrin" prelude when Hynckel dances with the globe-balloon. Chaplin repeated use of the "Lohengrin" prelude near the conclusion, when the exiled Hannah listens to the Jewish barber's speech celebrating democracy and freedom. The music is interrupted during the dictator's dance but it is heard to complete and climax in the barber's pro-democracy speech. Commenting on this, Lutz Peter Koepnick writes in 2002, 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. Chaplin had been planning his feature-length
The Great Dictator work for years, and began filming in September 1939. 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, 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. The film was banned in several Latin American countries, where there were