Charles Chaplin Productions
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner
Directed by: Charles Chaplin
Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin’s bitingly sarcastic condemnation of fascism and the Hitler regime, presented brilliantly as comedy. Chaplin’s story takes place in the fictional country of Tomainia where a Jewish barber (Charles Chaplin), suffering from twenty years of amnesia after World War I, returns home to find his beloved country under siege by a ruthless dictator named Hynkel (also Chaplin.) The barber and the dictator look strikingly similar, plus the barber has a friend in an old military acquaintance named Schultz (Reginald Gardiner) which keeps his Jewish neighborhood from persecution, for a time. But the arms of fascism are closing in and the barber finds himself combating overwhelming odds while simply trying to stay alive.
Cat Cattle Call: When the barber returns home to his little shop, which has sat vacant for twenty years, he doesn’t know so much time has passed and enters as usual. He steps outside a moment later, accompanied by a huge crowd of cats which have apparently taken up residence in the shop during the barber’s absence and don’t seem to enjoy being displaced!
Final Mewsings: If you leave a building vacant for twenty years, dust and cats may accumulate.
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