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 force of law, but in practice it was nearly always followed. Either consul could nominate a dictator. If both consuls were available, the dictator was chosen by agreement; if they could not agree, the consuls would draw lots for the responsibility. Finally, the "Comitia Curiata" would be called upon to confer "imperium" on the dictator through the passage of a law known as a "lex curiata de imperio". A dictator could be nominated for different reasons, or "causa". The three most common were "rei gerundae causa", "for the matter to be done", used in the case of dictators appointed to