We are speaking. The Great Dictator isnt just an essential work in the history of film, but it’s a powerful piece of art that feels timely — especially when silence is complicity.

Doors open at 6:30 and we will be screening the first half of the documentary The Tramp and The Dictator for pre-show. It gives excellent context re: the making of The Great Dictator and how Chaplin navigated thumbing his nose at the ruthless, murderous Hitler.

In his controversial masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.