The Great Dictator (May 14th and 15th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE GREAT DICTATOR screens Saturday May 14th at 7:15 p.m. and Sunday May 15th at 3:45 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Viewers are used to short-lived satire like EPIC MOVIE or DISASTER MOVIE, which will look terribly out of date just months later. Not exactly great art. But THE GREAT DICTATOR is different. This is satire as art, with indeed silent-era icon Charlie Chaplin - in his first film with extensive dialogue - on a mission to raise an outcry over the screwed-up world of the 1930s (seemingly more screwed-up than today, if that's possible), attacking the international villains of the era, the Third Reich. Between WWI and WWII, a title tells us up front, insanity reigns and humanity "got kicked about a bit" in a suspiciously German-looking country called Tomania.