Charles Chaplin "The Great Dictator"

Michael Lalla

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tutomuete

The Final Speech of the Great Dictator

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule 

or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile, black men, white…

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others’ happiness, 

not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room 

for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and 

beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery 

and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance 

has left us in want. 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. 

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out 

for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and 

little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say “Do not despair.”

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of 

human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people 

will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, 

tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you 

as cannon fodder!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men—machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! 

You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a loveof humanity in your hearts! 

You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man 

nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, 

the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, 

to make this life a wonderful adventure. 

Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth 

a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! 

They do not fulfill their promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!

Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! 

To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

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The text of The Final Speech of the Great Dictator, delivered by the character, the Jewish Barber, in Chaplin’s 1940 film, 

The Great Dictator. The Jewish Barber was played by Sir Charles Chaplin.

This is the story of the period between two world wars--an interim during which insanity cut loose, liberty took a nose dive, and humanity was kicked around somewhat." With this pithy opening title, Charles Chaplin begins his first all-talking feature film, The Great Dictator. During World War I, a Jewish barber (Chaplin) in the army of Tomania saves the life of high-ranking officer Schultz (Reginald Gardiner). While Schultz survives the conflict unscathed, the barber is stricken with amnesia and bundled off to a hospital. 

Twenty years pass: Tomania has been taken over by dictator Adenoid Hynkel (Chaplin again) and his stooges Garbitsch (Henry Daniell) and Herring (Billy Gilbert). Hynkel despises all Jews and regularly wreaks havoc on the Tomanian Jewish ghetto, where feisty Hannah (Paulette Goddard) lives. Meanwhile, the little barber escapes from the hospital and instinctively heads back to his cobweb-laden ghetto barber shop. 

Unaware of Hynkel's policy towards Jews (in fact, he's unaware of Hynkel), the barber gets into a slapstick confrontation with a gang of Aryan storm troopers. He is rescued by his old friend Schultz, now one of Hynkel's most loyal officers. Thanks to Schultz's protection, the ghetto receives a brief respite from Hynkel's persecution. The barber sets up shop again, developing a warm platonic relationship with the lovely Hannah. But things take a sorry turn when Hynkel, angered that a Jewish banker has refused to finance his impending war with Austerlitz, begins bearing down again on the Ghetto. 

Near the end of the film, when the dictator is expected to make another one of his hate-filled, war-mongering speeches, the barber steps up to the microphones...and Charles Chaplin drops character and becomes "himself," delivering an impassioned plea for peace, tolerance, and humanity. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi