The Great Dictator late 1920s. "The Great Dictator" does feature several scenes without dialogue more in keeping with Chaplin's earlier films. The score was written and directed by Meredith Willson, later known as composer and librettist of the 1957 musical comedy "The Music Man": According to Willson, the scene in which Chaplin shaves a customer to "Brahms' Hungarian Dance" No. 5 had been filmed before he arrived, using a phonograph record for timing. Willson's task was to re-record it with the full studio orchestra, fitting the music to the action. They had planned to do it painstakingly, recording eight measures or less at
Dictator novel Although some dictator novels centre on one historical dictator (albeit in fictional guise), they do not analyze the economics, politics, and rule of the régime as might a history book. The dictator novel genre includes "I, the Supreme" (1974), by Augusto Roa Bastos, about Dr. Francia of Paraguay, and "The Feast of the Goat" (2000), by Mario Vargas Llosa, about Rafael Leónidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. Alternatively, the novelist might create a fictional dictator to achieve the same narrative end, as in "Reasons of State" (1974), by Alejo Carpentier, in which the dictator is a composite man assembled from