Satire (1922), "Elmer Gantry" (1927; dedicated by Lewis to H. L. Menchen), and "It Can't Happen Here" (1935), and his books often explored and satirized contemporary American values. The film "The Great Dictator" (1940) by Charlie Chaplin is itself a parody of Adolf Hitler; Chaplin later declared that he would have not made the film if he had known about the concentration camps. In the United States 1950s, satire was introduced into American stand-up comedy most prominently by Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl. As they challenged the taboos and conventional wisdom of the time, were ostracized by the mass media establishment
Charlie Chaplin filmography time at Keystone, he began writing and directing some of the films in which he starred. Chaplin signed with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company in 1915, and the year after with the Mutual Film Corporation. In 1918, Chaplin began producing his own films, initially releasing them through First National and then through United Artists, a corporation he co-founded with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Chaplin was accused of being a Communist sympathiser, which he denied. He remained a British subject and, while travelling to England in 1952 to attend the