Editing The Great Dictator (section)

===Chaplin's Tramp character and the Jewish barber===
[[File:Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard in The Great Dictator trailer 2.JPG|thumb|Chaplin (as the barber) absentmindedly tries to shave [[Paulette Goddard|Goddard]] (as Hannah) in this image from the film trailer.]]

There is no critical consensus on the relationship between Chaplin's earlier [[The Tramp|Tramp]] character and the film's Jewish barber, but the trend is to view the barber as a variation on the theme. French film director [[François Truffaut]] later noted that early in the production, Chaplin said he would not play The Tramp in a sound film.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Films in My Life |last=Truffaut |first=François |year=1994 |publisher=Da Capo Press|isbn= 978-0-306-80599-8 |page=358 }}</ref> Turner Classic Movies says that years later, Chaplin acknowledged a connection between The Tramp and the barber. Specifically, "There is some debate as to whether the unnamed Jewish barber is intended as the Tramp's final incarnation. Although in his [[autobiography]] he refers to the barber as the Little Tramp, Chaplin said in 1937 that he would not play the Little Tramp in his sound pictures."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/157939 |title=The Great Dictator:The Essentials|publisher=[[Turner Classic Movies]]|access-date=December 31, 2010}}</ref>

In ''My Autobiography'', Chaplin would write, "Of course! As Hitler I could harangue the crowds all I wished. And as the tramp, I could remain more or less silent." ''[[The New York Times]]'', in its original review (16 October 1940), specifically sees him as the tramp. However, in the majority of his so-called tramp films, he was not literally playing a tramp. In his review of the film years after its release, [[Roger Ebert]] says, "Chaplin was technically not playing the Tramp." He also writes, "He [Chaplin] put the Little Tramp and $1.5 million of his own money on the line to ridicule Hitler."<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-great-dictator-1940 |title=The Great Dictator (1940) [review] |first=Roger |last=Ebert |date=September 27, 2007 |newspaper= Chicago Sun-Times |access-date=December 31, 2010}}</ref>

Critics who view the barber as different include Stephen Weissman, whose book ''Chaplin: A Life'' speaks of Chaplin "abandoning traditional pantomime technique and his little tramp character".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/chaplinlife0000weis|title=Chaplin: A Life|author=Weissman, Stephen|year=2008|publisher=Arcade|isbn=978-1-55970-892-0|url-access=registration}}</ref> DVD reviewer Mark Bourne asserts Chaplin's stated position: "Granted, the barber bears more than a passing resemblance to the Tramp, even affecting the familiar bowler hat and cane. But Chaplin was clear that the barber is not the Tramp and ''The Great Dictator'' is not a Tramp movie."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/g/greatdictator.shtml |title=The Great Dictator:The Chaplin Collection |author=Mark Bourne |work=DVD Journal |access-date=December 31, 2010}}</ref> ''The Scarecrow Movie Guide'' also views the barber as different.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide |year=2004|publisher=Sasquatch Books|isbn= 978-1-57061-415-6 |page=808 }}</ref>

Annette Insdorf, in her book ''Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust'' (2003), writes that "There was something curiously appropriate about the little tramp impersonating the dictator, for by 1939 Hitler and Chaplin were perhaps the two most famous men in the world. The tyrant and the tramp reverse roles in ''The Great Dictator'', permitting the eternal outsider to address the masses".<ref>{{cite book |title=Indelible shadows: film and the Holocaust |last=Insdorf |first=Annette |year= 2003 |publisher= Cambridge University Press|isbn= 978-0-521-01630-8 |page=410 }}</ref> In ''[[The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies]]'' (1998), Kathryn Bernheimer writes, "What he chose to say in ''The Great Dictator'', however, was just what one might expect from the Little Tramp. Film scholars have often noted that the Little Tramp resembles a Jewish stock figure, the ostracized outcast, an outsider."<ref>{{cite book |title=The 50 greatest Jewish movies: a critic's ranking of the very best |last=Bernheimer |first=Kathryn |year=1998 |publisher=Carol Publishing |isbn=978-1-55972-457-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/50greatestjewish00bern/page/212 212] |url=https://archive.org/details/50greatestjewish00bern/page/212 }}</ref>

Several reviewers of the late 20th century describe the Little Tramp as developing into the Jewish barber. In ''Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s'', Thomas Schatz writes of "Chaplin's Little Tramp transposed into a meek Jewish barber",<ref>{{cite book |title=Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s |last=Schatz |first=Thomas |year=1999 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn= 978-0-520-22130-7 |page=571 }}</ref> while, in ''Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929–1939'', [[Colin Shindler]] writes, "The universal Little Tramp is transmuted into a specifically Jewish barber whose country is about to be absorbed into the totalitarian empire of Adenoid Hynkel."<ref>{{cite book |title=Hollywood in crisis: cinema and American society, 1929–1939 |last=Shindler |first=Colin |year=1996 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn= 978-0-415-10313-8 |page=258 }}</ref> Finally, in ''A Distant Technology: Science Fiction Film and the Machine Age'', [[Jay Telotte|J. P. Telotte]] writes that "The little tramp figure is here reincarnated as the Jewish barber".<ref>{{cite book |title=A distant technology: science fiction film and the machine age |last=Telotte |first=J.P. |year=1999 |publisher=Wesleyan University Press |isbn=978-0-8195-6346-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/distanttechnolog0000telo/page/218 218] |url=https://archive.org/details/distanttechnolog0000telo/page/218 }}</ref>

A two-page discussion of the relationship between the barber and The Tramp appears in Eric L. Flom's book ''Chaplin in the Sound Era: An Analysis of the Seven Talkies.'' He concludes:
{{blockquote|Perhaps the distinction between the two characters would be more clear if Chaplin hadn't relied on some element of confusion to attract audiences to the picture. With ''The Great Dictator''{{'s}} twist of mistaken identity, the similarity between the barber and the Tramp allowed Chaplin {{sic|break}} with his old persona in the sense of characterization, but to capitalize on him in a visual sense. The similar nature of the Tramp and barber characterizations may have been an effort by Chaplin to maintain his popularity with filmgoers, many of whom by 1940 had never seen a [[silent film|silent picture]] during the silent era. Chaplin may have created a new character from the old, but he nonetheless counted on the Charlie person to bring audiences into the theaters for his first foray into sound, and his boldest political statement to date.<ref>{{cite book |title=Chaplin in the sound era: an analysis of the seven talkies |last=Flom |first= Eric |year=1997 |publisher=McFarland |isbn= 978-0-7864-0325-7 |page=322 }}</ref>}}