I have always found Chaplin to be extremely irritating even though his brilliance cannot be denied. His routines have always gone on just that little bit too long, but I guess a lot of that was an era thing as well; he was after all the first of his kind.
When I first watched the Great Dictator I expected just another Chaplin movie, but I became more and more engaged as it went along, this was obviously written as an anti war movie and would have been a difficult balancing act.
I had to check the date the film was made, the world would have been aware of what was happening in Germany at the time, but I think had Chaplin been aware of the extent to which Hitler was to go, the film would have been treated somewhat differently. On the other hand it is the lighter moments that actually get the message across. The sequence with the world balloon is nothing short of amazing even today. I still found the humour a bit confronting; the scene where his lieutenant comes and says that he has perfected the gas is shocking. But that is probably because we are watching with hindsight. I have to check what serious movies he’s made........ I think I’ve changed my opinion about him.
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