Charles Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” Speech

When Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died in the fall of 1975 there was one immediate consequence: Charles Chaplin’s movie that poked fun at fascism and German dictator Adolph Hitler was FINALLY shown in Spain.

I was writing in Spain for The Christian Science Monitor and also a slew of other publications. I saw the Spanish-dubbed version of this Chaplin classic 13 times and did a news feature about it being shown in Spain for the Monitor and also for the European edition of Newsweek.

What was moving was that at the end, where Chaplin’s little Jewish barber (the tramp character of old) gets mistakenly switched for The Great Dictator and gets a chance to deliver a speech, Chaplin’s serious speech on liberty and humanity had Spanish audiences in the darkened theaters rising up, standing up, clapping and in some instances crying.

When people think of Chaplin, they don’t think of this moment in his film career. But it’s arguably one of the most moving — and although Americans may not have been as moved by it, those Spanish audiences who had just gotten their first taste of liberty after the death of their Great Dictator connected with it.

PS: This was the only film where Chaplin had the tramp character talk throughout and he knew it was the end of that character. Perhaps. But the film still has some wonderful comic moments — and the scene you see below where a character speaks out…as does the actor comedian:

Here’s Chaplin doing his Hitler imitation (the Great Dictator Hinkel looks just like the Jewish Barber/Little Tramp):