12. Charlie Chaplin may have lampooned Hitler, but his attitude to Mussolini and Italian fascism wasn’t quite so straightforward.
The king of silent movies famously made a whole film mocking Adolf Hitler. In The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin ridiculed the German dictator’s stature and pomposity, winning him fans around the world. However, according to some scholars, Chaplin’s views on fascism weren’t so clear-cut. Before laughing at Hitler on the big screen, the clown had gone through a phase of admiring the Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. What’s more, there’s evidence to suggest that his views remained unchanged right up until the eve of the Second World War.
Chaplin visited Italy in 1931. He wrote to friends back in the United States, stating that he was “impressed with its atmosphere. Discipline and order were omnipresent. Hope and desire seemed in the air”. Even in 1938, the Hollywood superstar was effusive in his praise for Mussolini, telling friends and acquaintances that he was a great man who had brought order to his country. At the same time, however, Chaplin was always opposed to Nazism, not least due to its antisemitic underpinnings. Indeed, it was he who pushed hard to get The Great Dictator released, even when diplomats were stressing it could be too offensive to Hitler and the German people.