The Tramp energy depicting people in their working lives.” “Though there had been films depicting the lives of immigrants and urban workers, no filmmaker before Chaplin had created their experience so humanly and lovingly.” Chaplin used not one but two similar-looking characters to the Tramp in "The Great Dictator" (released October 15, 1940); however, this was an all-talking film (Chaplin's first). The film was inspired by the noted similarity between Chaplin's Tramp (most notably his small mustache) and that of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Chaplin used this similarity to create a dark version of the Tramp character in parody of the dictator.
Charlie Chaplin to have little interest in a Chaplin film without Chaplin, and it was a box office disappointment. The filmmaker was hurt by this failure – he had long wanted to produce a dramatic film and was proud of the result – and soon withdrew "A Woman of Paris" from circulation. Chaplin returned to comedy for his next project. Setting his standards high, he told himself "This next film must be an epic! The Greatest!" Inspired by a photograph of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush, and later the story of the Donner Party of 1846–47, he made what Geoffrey Macnab calls