The Great Dictator

1940’s The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first talking movie, and also the film that he later said he would never made had he known what was actually happening in Nazi Germany.

Chaplin plays a dual role – the Jewish barber who resembles the Little Tramp, and Adenoid Hynkel, the Dictator of Romania.

If you can forget real life, it is a very funny film, with plenty of comic set pieces, and a performance from Jack Oakie as Napaloni, the Dictator of Bacteria, which almost topped Chaplin’s.

Original cinema advertising materials for the original release of this title are highly sought after.

This is an original Japanese movie poster (measuring c 20 ins x 29 ins) produced for the film’s cinematic re-release in the early 1970s, as Chaplin was being feted once again, welcomed back to the US and awarded an honorary Oscar.  It’s a nicely colourful design, also featuring the key imagery from the film’s original release.