and Chaplin

The leading characters in this film are seen at a movie theatre playing 'The Great Dictator.' Outside, there is heavy camera-emphasis on the publicity material for the film under the marquee.

I thought a detected a bit of irony about American unpreparedness in dealing with the Axis powers.

I haven't seen PEARL HARBOR yet (I'll wait and rent the DVD), but it sounds like *period* was being established here for an audience that might not know much about WWII. THE GREAT DICTATOR was about the only pre-1942 film (along with 1939's CONFESSIONS OF A NAZI SPY) to deal directly with the coming war.

Richard Carnahan

That's my plan. It looks like a good film to watch on a particularly arid TV evening.

And given those two films, Chaplin's is by far the more recognizable today. Even most of the people who haven't seen _Dictator_ or _Chaplin_ will recognize Chaplin as a period star.

Connie K.

Yes, obviously. That is the whole moral lesson of Pearl Harbor, isn't it? The irony here, though, is that the entire rest of the movie is dedicated to converting the attack into some kind of 'victory' for the U.S., i.e., combining it with the Doolittle raid, etc. I don't think there is any way to avoid the reality that the actual PH attack was an embarrassment and a shame.

There was a very good mini essay by Richard Schickel (sp?) in _Time_ last week about the pitfalls of over-glorifying the generation that lived through and fought WWII. One of his points was that for the most part they didn't know exactly what they were fighting for. But they did fight and win

Somewhat confusing back then perhaps because we were fighting against totalitarianism and our key ally was the world's largest totalitarian

Interestingly, when Chaplin attempted to clarify part of that confusion, by pointing out some of the less-than-democratic tactics we ourselves adopted to combat the threat, you fault him rather than reevaluating whether or not 'totalitarianism' was the true enemy or merely a convenient bit of economically convenient but somewhat hypocritical sloganeering. And whether or not I personally agree, those were Chaplin's concerns, which is all that should matter here (he quickly adds in a no doubt futile attempt to keep this from becoming yet another forum for Shelps' personal political views).

Group: alt.movies.chaplin Date: Tue, Jun 12, 2001, 3:00pm (EDT-3) From:

wrote:

Who was the 'true enemy' then (according to Chaplin)?

Kuriyama wasn't expressing 'Chaplin's concerns either,' she was repeating Richard Schickel's views on the WW2 generation.

Hey, bozo, I simply responded to Kuriyama's statement about WW2. Are you running for Chief of Thought Police again?

One point raised in the _Time_ essay was that for the most part they were ignorant of the plight of the European Jews at a time when anti-Semitism was at a peak in the US, and in the military.

And we might also wonder how they reconciled all that racist rhetoric against the 'Japs,' and the internment, with the heroic performance of Japanese-American soldiers in Europe

To get back to Chaplin, certainly he is trying to clarify issues for a mass audience in _Dictator_, and one of the issues he is placing front and center is the scapegoating of Jews. It was a gutsy thing to do in that time and place.

Connie K.

Still boggles the mind that FDR ordered the internment and the courts upheld it.

And what happened to Chaplin's servant Kono (who was Japanese) during this period?