Watched Chaplin's The Great Dictator last night....

[RobertDevereaux]

...some brave soul in Hollywood ought to remake it now.

[Protagoras]

1. God please no! A thousand times NO.

The movie is perfect both in presentation and, more importantly, in it's historical context.

I agree that everyone SHOULD SEE the movie.

I utterly disagree that we need anymore unoriginal remakes. God, the idea of Val Kilmer or George Clooney trying to take Chaplin's shoes makes me shudder. If people can't appreciate this one in its original then they won't get much from a crappy remake.

Let's just digitially restore it and re-release it :D

[RobertDevereaux]

2. I misspoke...

...I meant of course a complete reimagining of the general idea with Chimpy as the focus.

[BuelahWitch]

3. It was re-released on DVD in 2003

Double disc set, includes a documentary called The Tramp and the Dictator. Did you know Hitler and Chaplin were born 4 days apart?

Classicfilmfan, Chaplin scholar

[gauguin57]

8. Hey Chaplin scholar ...

... did you hear Robert Downey Jr.'s rendition of "Smile" on NPR yesterday? He has an ... unusual voice, but I really liked his interpretation. And since he embodied Chaplin in "Chaplin," I appreciated his take on Chaplin's song.

You can hear a few bars at

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00064AFK0/qid%3D1100972534/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/102-2438531-9430565

... from his about-to-be-released CD, "The Futurist."

[BuelahWitch]

12. No, I'm afraid I didn't hear it

I liked RD Jr. as Chaplin, but wasn't crazy about the movie itself.

[henslee]

14. Yes! Rob Schneider. Big. Loud. tons of fx. Soundtrack. Cameos.

Maybe a big dance number. I like it. Then we can turn it into a ride at Universal.

[Name removed]

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[tokenlib]

6. No remake, please...

Sure you could remake "The Great Dictator".. But without Chaplin, the world renowned, beloved actor--and the background of how this silent man used the novelty of his voice to make such a powerful statement...
...it would be a bit lacking. This movie was a labor rooted in his love for humanity--and when Chaplin took a stand--people listened.


I watched the DVD prior to the Iraq War and grieved for how foolish people like Bush and Cheney really are. And then I watched the Marx Brothers "Duck Soup" and almost thought Bush could have taken the role of Firefly.. "To war we're gonna go...".. indeed. Apparently some generations need to relearn anew the lessons painfully taught to their forebears.

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Actually the remake of DUCK SOUP makes more sense

Let's see...

Jim Carrey as Firefly, and Roseanne in the Margaret Dumont role...

[rasputin1952]

9. Here are two items that might interest some out there...

The first is the classic anti war flick, "All Quiet on the Western Front". The original is stunning in in its honesty.

The second is a reader, I found I could not put it down once I started it. It is a first person WWI account, Dalton Trumbeau's (sp),
"Johnny Got His Gun". It is the quintessential war horror story. God help anyone who winds up like this poor soul.

I highly recommend both of these.

[FlaGranny]

10. I haven't read that, but

my "daddy" was in WW-I. He was scarred, physically (from mustard gas exposure) and mentally, for life from that. He wouldn't talk much about the war. He loved the sea voyages and the castles of France and the French people. The most he ever told me about the war itself was that he never shot his rifle at anyone because he was afraid he might kill someone. He told me also about digging for left-over potatoes in frozen fields because they were starving to death. He was at Argonne.

[struggle4progress]

11. ... Trumbo, born the son of a Colorado sheriff at a time when ...

... the American frontier era was ending, remains the best-known and most successful of the "Hollywood Ten", the band of refuseniks exiled in the McCarthy era. Trumbo wrote Tender Comrade, had refused to name names before the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), and went to jail for his principles. While blacklisted, Trumbo won an Oscar for Roman Holiday under a fictitious name, and broke the blacklist itself in 1960 as the credited screenwriter for Spartacus ...

http://film.guardian.co.uk/patterson/story/0,12830,1235583,00.html


... McCarey and Disney both appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the first week of the October 1947 anti-Communist hearings. Charlie Chaplin, his public image then mired in political trouble, was subpoenaed, but after several postponements was never officially called to testify. The unpredictable Sam Goldwyn, who was subpoenaed as a friendly witness, likewise never testified. “The most un-American activity,” Goldwyn told the press even before the blacklist, “which I have observed in connection with the hearings has been the activity of the Committee itself” ...

http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/huac_into.htm


... During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist; and J. Edgar Hoover, who had instructed the FBI to keep extensive files on him, tried to end his United States residency. In 1952, Chaplin left the US for a trip to England; Hoover learned about it and negotiated with the INS to revoke his re-entry permit. Chaplin then decided to stay in Europe, and made his home in Switzerland. He briefly returned to the United States in April 1972 to receive an Honorary Oscar ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin

[BuelahWitch]

13. Chaplin also gives a great anti-war speech in Msr. Verdoux

His movie from 1947 about a man who is laid off from his banking job in middle age. He can't find work, and must support a wife and son, so he marries wealthy women and kills them, then inherits their money.

[grasswire]

15. hmmm

Maybe it's time for a run of films about the depression on TCM to show Americans what we're facing with Bush economics. If you suggest them, I'll request them. Grapes of Wrath, of course. Are there many films about bread lines and peoples' protests?