The Great Dictator in 1945, it became the most popular film of the year, with admissions of 8,280,553. Chaplin biographer Jeffrey Vance concludes his lengthy examination of the film, in his book "Chaplin: Genius of the Cinema", by asserting the film's importance among the great film satires. Vance writes, "Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" survives as a masterful integration of comedy, politics and satire. It stands as Chaplin's most self-consciously political work and the cinema's first important satire." There is no critical consensus on the relationship between Chaplin's earlier Tramp character and the film's Jewish barber, but the trend is to view the barber
Roman dictator was nearly absolute. However, as a rule he could not exceed the mandate for which he was appointed; a dictator nominated to hold the "comitia" could not then take up a military command against the wishes of the Senate. Some dictators appointed to a military command also performed other duties, such as holding the "comitia", or driving a nail into the wall of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; but presumably they did so with the Senate's consent. The "imperium" of the other magistrates was not vacated by the nomination of a dictator. They continued to perform the duties of