Lifestyle
How Charlie Chaplin used his uncanny resemblance to Hitler to fight fascism
It’s been 85 years since The Great Dictator dazzled audiences in 1940. It was a big risk for one of the world’s most popular performers to take a stand against fascism on film.
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Hollywood studios did not want Charlie Chaplin to make The Great Dictator. When he first started writing the script in 1938, the U.S. had not yet entered World War II. In fact, it still enjoyed friendly diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, as well as many lucrative business ones.
So Chaplin financed The Great Dictator himself. He took advantage of his uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler by playing an obvious parody of the Nazi leader, named Adenoid Hynkel, in the film. But the parallels continued, as noted in the 2002 documentary, The Tramp and Dictator.
“Charlie Chaplin, the Little Tramp, and Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany, had more in common than just a moustache,” says the narrator. “They were born in the same week of the same month of the same year. A few years before Chaplin became famous as the Tramp, Hitler was a tramp. Both were outsiders who left their homeland to conquer the world. They became the best loved and most hated men of their time.”

In The Great Dictator, Chaplin played another character as well: a likeable Jewish barber who finds himself mistaken for the odious Hynkel and who, at the end of the film, delivers an incredibly moving speech.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor,” he gently informs an assembly of Hynkel’s army and advisors. “I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible. Jew, gentile, Black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery.”
Never before this film had the biggest star of silent film spoken aloud on screen.
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“Greed has poisoned men’s souls,” he continues, “has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.”
Later, Charlie Chaplin said he hoped that talking from his heart might even help to end the war.
“Machinery that gives abundance, has left us in want,” he says in the speech. “Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.”
Some critics found the speech overly sentimental. Chaplin’s film also stirred the ire of right-wing politicians and power brokers in Washington including Sen. Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, who wrongly accused him of being a Communist sympathizer. The FBI would eventually compile a 1,900 page file on him.
The film was indeed subversive, and impressively so, said science fiction legend Ray Bradbury, who was interviewed in the documentary The Tramp and Dictator before his death in 2012.
“Comedy is the greatest way to attack anything like a totalitarian regime. They can’t stand it,” Bradbury said. “At the end of the speech, [Chaplin] dares to remind you that you don’t have to go on killing. You don’t have to be a totalitarian. You can make do with the worst people in the world. Somehow you must.”
Chaplin ended his speech with an appeal to the humanity of everyone facing war. “Let us fight for the world of reason,” he implored. “A world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”
The Great Dictator was released years before the world was aware of the extent of Nazi crimes against humanity. Later, Chaplin said he never would have made a comedy about Hitler had he known. But 85 years after it debuted, his movie stands as a testament to how art can stand up to tyranny, and how hard it can fight.
Demonstrators in Berlin wave flags and hold a poster reading “Peace with Russia and China” as they rally in front of a screen displaying a scene from the movie The Great Dictator during the “Peace – Freedom – Referendum” demonstration in May 2025.
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Ralf Hirschberger/AFP via Getty Images
Lifestyle
‘Wait Wait’ for April 18. 2026: With Not My Job guest Phil Pritchard
Phil Pritchard of the Hockey Hall of Fame works the 2019 NHL Awards at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on June 19, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
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This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, judge and guest scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest Phil Pritchard and panelists Alonzo Bodden, Adam Burke, and Dulcé Sloan. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.
Who’s Alzo This Time
The Don Vs The Poppa; World’s Worst Doctor; Should We Eat That?
Panel Questions
Big Cheese News!
Bluff The Listener
Our panelists tell three stories about someone missing a huge opportunity in the news, only one of which is true.
Not My Job: Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup, answers three questions about the other NHL, National Historic Landmarks
Peter talks to Phil Pritchard, the NHL’s Keeper of the Stanley Cup. Phil plays our game called, “Let’s Go Visit The NHL” Three questions about National Historic Landmarks.
Panel Questions
The Trump Dump and Air Traffic Control Becomes Animal Control
Limericks
Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Spice Up Your Spring Cleaning; A Fizzy Meaty Drink; The Right Way to Eat Peeps.
Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else
Predictions
Our panelists predict the next big AirBnB story in the news
Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Paul W. Downs
Paul W. Downs can’t help it that even on the weekends, his life intersects with “Hacks,” the HBO comedy he co-created and co-showruns with his wife, Lucia Aniello, and their friend Jen Statsky. (He also appears on the show as Jimmy LuSaque Jr., the besieged manager of its two stars, played by Emmy winners Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder.) The fifth and final season of “Hacks” premiered last week, but on Downs’ days off, he often finds himself at its previous filming locations or hanging out with cast members who have become like family.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Downs moved to Los Angeles in 2011, but soon after, he and Aniello were hired to write (and for him to act) on the über-New York show “Broad City,” keeping them away from the West Coast for years. Now the couple live in Los Feliz, which they enjoy with their young son.
“I love Los Feliz because it’s a real neighborhood with restaurants and bars, but also feels close to nature with Griffith Park,” Downs says. “Also it’s very central to my Eastside friends and Westside agents.”
And if he had to live at a local mall, like the character Ava Daniels did in the third season of “Hacks,” which would he choose?
“It would be the Americana, obviously.”
Here’s how he’d spend a perfect day in L.A.
10 a.m.: A late rise and a li’l barista
I’m sleeping in if I can, which I can’t because I have a toddler, but let’s say I can sleep ’til 10. That would be insane.
Then I’m making coffee at home. I’m making it with my 4-year-old because he likes to make my coffee now. He always wanted to help, now he really wants to do it on his own. I’m still there to supervise, but he does do a lot of it.
I do batch brew. I’m doing Verve Coffee that I’m grinding there, and then I’m brewing four cups because I need my coffee. I had a Moccamaster for a long time, but I recently got a Simply Good Coffee. There’s no plastic — it’s all glass and metal.
11 a.m.: Chocolate croissants for everyone
We’re driving to Pasadena and we’re going to [Artisanal Goods by] CAR, which is the place to get the best chocolate croissant, I think, in the world. I don’t just think in L.A., I think they’re better than Paris. I’m going there with my wife and my kid and I’m having another coffee and some pastry. We’re ordering three [chocolate croissants]. We’re not doubling up.
11:45 a.m.: The family business
We’re driving to Fair Oaks in Pasadena. There’s a place called T.L. Gurley. We shot “Hacks” there, actually. Not only in Season 1, but also full circle in Season 5. We’re going to shmay around and look at antiques. My kid is going to want to play a vintage pinball machine. We’re going to find a little piece of art for the house or what have you. It’s not necessarily that I’m on the hunt. It’s to pass the time and to have some fun. If I could do anything and have a leisurely day and take my mind off work, that’s what I’m doing.
People love to interact with my kid when he’s there. We’re really training him to appraise things at a young age. My parents are part-time dealers of antiques. My grandmother bought and sold antiques. It’s kind of a family business.
1:30 pm.: Baguettes and books
We’re driving to Larchmont and we’re getting a sandwich at Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese. I’m doing prosciutto-mozzarella-basil on a baguette.
Then we’re going to Chevalier’s Books. What’s sad is that I’m often not looking for leisure material. I’m looking for something that I’m interested in learning more about or writing about, or that they’re turning into a show I want to audition for. But we’re also doing Little Golden Books for my son. He’s obsessed. We’re not huge on screen time, so we really encourage the book-buying.
2:30 p.m.: Cast pool party
We’re having some family fun in the pool and we’re doing that until evening. We invite people over all the time. My sister-in-law is a New Yorker, but she actually wrote last season on “The Rooster” and she’s often writing on shows in L.A., so she’s often here and she’ll have a couple friends come over. I know this sounds like a piece of PR or something, but we’ll really literally have Hannah [Einbinder] and maybe Mark Indelicato from “Hacks” come over to swim. Jen, our co-creator of “Hacks,” will come over.
6:00 p.m.: Family dinner
Sometimes we’ll order Grá to the house, which is a pizza place in Echo Park — excellent sourdough crust pizza. But if we don’t do that, an ideal evening is an early dinner at All Time on Hillhurst in Los Feliz. We’re ordering the ceviche and my son is having all of it and not sharing with anybody at the table.
8:45 p.m.: A thrilling ending to the day
After putting my kid to bed, my wife and I, in an ideal world (full disclosure: we haven’t done this in two years), we’ll watch something together that we’ve been meaning to watch. We have a long list of movies and we either want to revisit or that we haven’t seen that we need to watch.
We don’t watch a lot of comedies. It’s a dream to watch a “Black Bag” or a little espionage thriller. We really like that because it’s so different than the stuff that we’re working on in the day.
Often the things we watch are things that we admire. We like deconstructing it as fans of film and television. We do like talking about the making of it, but it’s less of a critique and more of a listing of the things we appreciated about it.
10:30 p.m.: No work tomorrow
And then it’s lovemaking ’til morning on a perfect Sunday. If it’s a perfect Sunday, there’s also a Monday that’s off.
Lifestyle
Sitting in a jail cell, alone and hopeless, a man’s life is suddenly changed
Jay (not pictured) found himself alone and hopeless in a jail cell when a fellow inmate’s unexpected words of comfort changed his life.
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When Jay was 22 years old, he was a self-described loner. In this story, he is being identified by his nickname to allow himself to speak candidly about the following experience and his mental health. He says the few people he did hang out with at the time had questionable morals.
”I chose my friends poorly, and your friends have a tendency to rub off on you. And so I started making poor decisions,” Jay said.
One evening, when he and his friends were out drinking, someone suggested they should try to break into the chemistry building on his college campus. Most of the group shrugged the suggestion off, deeming it impossible, but Jay was convinced he could pull it off.
“The next night I made a plan of how to do it, and I did it,” Jay remembered. “And I didn’t get caught doing it, [but] I got caught afterwards.”
At around 1 that morning, Jay was placed in the county detention center. Sitting alone in his cell, reality began to sink in.

“I pretty much thought that my life as I knew it was going to be over, and I had decided that the world would be better off without me in it.”
Jay made a plan to end his life. As he prepared himself, he began to cry.
“But just in that moment when I was ready to do it, I heard a voice coming from the top left corner of my cell, from a little vent. And someone called out to me and said, ‘Hey, is this your first time?’”
The man who called out was an inmate in the cell next door.
“I collected myself a little bit, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Can I pray for you?’”
Jay had grown up religious, but had stopped going to church years before. In that moment, though, he knew he needed support. He said yes, and listened as the man began to pray.

“I wish I could tell you that I remember the [exact] words that he said to me, but what I remember is that his words landed with me, and instead of wanting my life to be over, suddenly I saw hope,” Jay said.
The interaction happened nearly ten years ago, but it was a pivotal moment in Jay’s life, and one he thinks about all the time.
“[Now], I have a good job. I have a girlfriend who loves me. I have a life. But I have a life because somebody who was in the same situation I was in had the courage to talk to a fellow inmate and be kind.”
Jay says that he wishes he could meet that man again and express his appreciation.
“[I would] shake that guy’s hand, give him a hug, and tell him what his small gesture meant for me, how he changed the course of my life.”
My Unsung Hero is also a podcast — new episodes are released every Tuesday. To share the story of your unsung hero with the Hidden Brain team, record a voice memo on your phone and send it to myunsunghero@hiddenbrain.org.
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