The Great Dictator The Great Dictator The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire comedy-drama film written, directed, produced, scored by and starring British comedian Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the only Hollywood filmmaker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplin's first true sound film. Chaplin's film advanced a stirring, controversial condemnation of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism, and the Nazis. At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany. Chaplin plays both leading roles:
Dictator novel as being one of structure, and therefore the problem of the state "manifested through the will of some monstrous personage violating the ordinary individual's privacy, both of home and of consciousness." In the early twentieth century, the Spaniard Ramón del Valle-Inclán's "Tirano Banderas" (1926) acted as a key influence on those authors whose goal was to critique power structures and the status quo. Latin American novels that explore political themes, but that do not centre upon the rule of a particular dictator, are informally classified as “not quite dictator novels”. For example, "Libro de Manuel" (A Manual for Manuel, 1973),