Chaplin's worst?

I just watched The Great Dictator for the first time, in fact, it's the first time I've watched a Chaplin film. I enjoyed it but felt I wasn't getting the full Chaplin experience. I'd like to see, if such a thing exists, a more typical Chaplin film.

Which Chaplin films do you recommend?

I agree with the Marky...

This is one of my favorites films of all time, certainly my favorite from this particular time period and most definitely my favorite Chaplin talkie. The fact that this film predicted WWII is unbelievably prescient.

To the original poster:

If you think this film is Chaplin's worst, you probably love most of the IMDB bottom 100 and consider the films of Uwe Boll to be cinematic masterpieces.

"It's so hard having a good time. Even smiling makes my face ache."

[deleted]

I would love to know what you found to be more poignant in his canon as compared to his ending speech and the context in which he spoke it. His appeal to the finer qualities in man is often a musing of the idealist, though Chaplin within the context of the film delivers something in such contrast with the expectant surface of the caricature he played. I think what is most poignant of all is that Charles said what he did in such a time which reflected the promises of a democracy in the face of a world-wide struggle against the machinery of military rule and then men who used others as cogs in their machinery of conquest and lack of empathy. To me, it is poignant precisely for the moment in which it was said and, to illustrate the word, remains a defense of human decency and what man in his kindest nature is also capable of, with reason, with tolerance, with the ability to shrug off and accept the manner of belief, speech, caste, and accept the ghost inside the shell, so to speak, and one man by his works for all least of all for himself, his actions, not his prologue, mattering infinitely more than the ethnicity or position relegated to us all upon our birth. What we were at birth is no indication as to the nobility of our actions and kinder gestures of our hearts. The title, I feel, is not by intention irony, yet the salutation given to the personality which speaks at the end. Above all, it is a plea to our decency and empathy. To further add to its sincerity, although in character, even if political, was using his costume as a proxy to express something he really believed, something he really wanted to say--if not to change men, rather exhibit the possibility of such a change.

Just my opinion.

To say that THE GREAT DICTATOR is a bad film is a huge mistake, in my opinion (that said, everyone is entitled to their own, of course...). For one thing, it`s among the bravest films to have been made at the time. True, Hitler had little chance of getting hold on Chaplin when he set out to make out the film in -38, but nobody knew then how the war would turn out (in fact, WWII had not officially started yet). Chaplin was severely critized by the larger part of Hollywood for making the film, and is even reported to have received written death threats during its production. How can one possibly think that the business with the globe, or Chaplin`s imitation of Hitler speaking, isn`t brilliant stuff?

I do agree, though, and I say this as probably one of the most devoted Chaplin-fans in the world, that the film as an entirety is decidedly weaker than MODERN TIMES, or CITY LIGHTS and THE GOLD RUSH. This should hardly be surprising; it was Chaplin`s first talkie, and as such it was based on a carefully prepared script, which in itself made it differ radically from his silent days, when his films were constructed through much more spontainiety. Although Chaplin is brilliant as Hitler (or "Hynkel"...), and I really like Jack Oakie as well, some of the acting hasn`t aged that well (I like Paulette Goddard much better in MODERN TIMES), and some of the dialogue feels a bit stilted. As a result, it feels more old-fashioned than films Chaplin made 15 years earlier. But, this being said, I still regard it as a brilliant film, both for the comedy and the fact that it was made even before the US entered the war.