The Great Dictator who view the barber as different include Stephen Weissman, whose book "Chaplin: A Life" speaks of Chaplin "abandoning traditional pantomime technique and his little tramp character". DVD reviewer Mark Bourne asserts Chaplin's stated position: "Granted, the barber bears more than a passing resemblance to the Tramp, even affecting the familiar bowler hat and cane. But Chaplin was clear that the barber is not the Tramp and "The Great Dictator" is not a Tramp movie." "The Scarecrow Movie Guide" also views the barber as different. Annette Insdorf, in her book "Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust" (2003), writes that "There was
The Great Dictator the time. Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 "To Be or Not To Be" dealt with similar themes, and also used a mistaken-identity Hitler figure. But Chaplin later said that he would not have made the film had he known of the true extent of the Nazis' crimes. After the horror of the Holocaust became known, filmmakers struggled for nearly 20 years to find the right angle and tone to satirize the era. In the period when Hitler and his Nazi Party rose to prominence, Chaplin was becoming internationally popular. He was mobbed by fans on a 1931 trip to Berlin, which annoyed