Charlie Chaplin hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual, and First National corporations. By 1918, he was one of the best-known figures in the world. In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length film was "The Kid" (1921), followed by "A Woman of Paris" (1923), "The Gold Rush" (1925), and "The Circus" (1928). He refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing "City Lights" (1931) and "Modern Times" (1936) without dialogue. He became increasingly political, and his next film "The Great Dictator" (1940) satirized
American comedy films the short subject. Hal Roach Studio specialized in this form. While Columbia was prolific, producing 190 Three Stooges releases, alone. These non-feature productions only went into decline in the 1950s when they were migrated to the television. As the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism rose in Germany, Adolf Hitler in popular culture became more common in the American film industry. "Bosko's Picture Show" became the first American cartoon to parody Hitler, however brief. "Der Fuehrer's Face" and "Herr Meets Hare" became cartoons to expand the parody of the Fuhrer. As Jews, the Three Stooges felt personally concerned for antisemitism