The Great Dictator is a comedy film by Charlie Chaplin released in October 1940. Like most Chaplin films, he wrote, produced, and directed, in addition to starring as the lead. Having been the only Hollywood film maker to continue to make silent films well into the period of sound films, this was Chaplins first true talking picture as well as his most commercially successful film. More importantly, it was the first major feature film to bitterly satirize Nazism and Adolf Hitler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator