Charlie Chaplin he later wrote, "for Hitler must be laughed at." Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with "A Jewish Barber", a reference to the Nazi party's belief that he was Jewish. In a dual performance, he also played the dictator "Adenoid Hynkel", who parodied Hitler. "The Great Dictator" spent a year in production and was released in October 1940. The film generated a vast amount of publicity, with a critic for "The New York Times" calling it "the most eagerly awaited picture of the year", and it was one of the biggest money-makers of the era. The ending was
Charlie Chaplin who loses his job and begins marrying and murdering wealthy widows to support his family. Chaplin's inspiration for the project came from Orson Welles, who wanted him to star in a film about the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. Chaplin decided that the concept would "make a wonderful comedy", and paid Welles $5,000 for the idea. Chaplin again vocalised his political views in "Monsieur Verdoux", criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction. Because of this, the film met with controversy when it was released in April 1947; Chaplin was