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
Roman dictator held by the dictator, Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, unless he agreed to withdraw his name from the list of candidates for the consulship. A dictator was expected to resign his office upon the successful completion of the task for which he was appointed, or at the expiration of six months. These sharp limitations were intended to prevent the dictatorship from too closely resembling the absolute power of the Roman kings. But the six month limitation may have been dispensed with when the Senate deemed it expedient; no consuls are known for the years 333, 324, 309, and 301, and it is