THE MOVIEGOER

"The Great Dictator" opens with a World War I sequence. The Big Bertha cannon is being aimed to destroy the great Cathedral at the center of Paris--but the shot succeeds only in blasting a little privy in the suburbs. Charlie Chaplin, himself, suffered a similar misfortune with this picture. He planned to pierce the Nazis with barbs of wit and make people laugh at the weakness and foolishness of Herr Hitler.

Charlie mistimed his jokes. When he is the little Jewish barber, shaving customers to waltzes, beating storm troopers to the punch in street battles, and making love to Paulette Goddard, it's the old Charlie Chaplin of "Modern Times" with pantomime and fine expressive acting. But as Hynkel, the dictator, Charlie either falls flat or resorts to simple slapstick of the three stooges type to get his laughs.

Everyone of course knows the plot by now. The Ghetto barber, mistaken for dictator Hynkel, gets to make the big address at a party rally. Instead of preaching tyranny and inhumanity, however, Chaplin himself steps out of character to preach his own democratic philosophy. Early reviewers pretty much agreed that this spoiled the picture. The changing events in Europe will make this statement of faith in democracy more appealing than some of the ruthless storm troopers' actions which now aren't quite so funny. As a whole the picture is a spotty job. In some scenes, such as the bubble dance with a world globe, Charlie exceeds even his greatest performances in the past. But these scenes are separated by long, arid stretches of not-very-funny political continuity. It is a show that no one should miss, but that no one should expect to enjoy entirely.

The remainder of the program is a hodge-podge of Information Please, Robert Benchley, Donald Duck, the FBI, and Mrs. Roosevelt.