The Great Dictator late 1920s. "The Great Dictator" does feature several scenes without dialogue more in keeping with Chaplin's earlier films. The score was written and directed by Meredith Willson, later known as composer and librettist of the 1957 musical comedy "The Music Man": According to Willson, the scene in which Chaplin shaves a customer to "Brahms' Hungarian Dance" No. 5 had been filmed before he arrived, using a phonograph record for timing. Willson's task was to re-record it with the full studio orchestra, fitting the music to the action. They had planned to do it painstakingly, recording eight measures or less at
Dictator perpetuo the next ten years. At some point between January and February 44 BCE he was appointed "dictator perpetuo", but was assassinated less than two months later (on the Ides of March). "Dictator perpetuo" is often mistranslated as "dictator for life", but the title did not imply that Caesar would never resign it. Weinstock has argued that the perpetual dictatorship was part of the senatorial decrees regarding Caesar's divine honors, as well as his planned apotheosis as "Divus Iulius", a complex of honors aimed at eternity and divinity. Dictator perpetuo Dictator perpetuo (English: "dictator in perpetuity"), also called dictator in perpetuum,