Last modified: 2006-01-21 by marc pasquin
Keywords: the great dictator | movies | charlie chaplin | tomania |
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The TV channel France5 has produced a series of short films called
"Chaplin aujourd'hui" (Chaplin Today). Every part of the series is
dedicated to one of Chaplin's films, analyzed by a modern movie
director. The producer of the series is Serge Toubiana, now director of
the French Cinémathèque.
The first film analyzed in the series is "The Great Dictator". During
the making-off of the film, Chaplin's brother Stanley filmed some scenes
with his personal camera, and therefore we have a few colour images of
the film. The milician's trousers are red. More important (for us),
Stanley Chaplin filmed the last scene of the movie, when the Jewish
barber replaced Hynkel and gave his speech. There are standard bearers
in the scene and the flags of Tomania shown have black double crosses
... but a yellow field, and not red as expected. The flags are fairly
furled, but it seems that all the flag field is yellow and that the
crosses are placed in the middle, without a white oval or disk around them.
Ivan Sache, 16 may 2003
Regarding the color of the flag, there was a short thread on the list
back in March, The consensus was that the actual color
used in the production was not meant to suggest that was the intended
color of this fictional flag. The feature film itself was shot in
black & white, and any color of similar intensity would do. As Al has
pointed out, where the studio did display color for public
consumption- e.g. promotional posters- the flag had a red field.
Ned Smith, 16 may 2003
by António Martins-Tuválkin
I watched "the Great Dictator" (which is a good movie, by the way, in
case you haven't seen it) and noticed, that as the barber is being
driven by the Tomanian military in their invasion near the end of the
movie, there are a lot of flags and banners along one street, with
the Tomanian insignia, the double cross. Being a black and white
picture, I can't be exactly sure what the colors are, but from what I
can tell, it would be black and white, and shows a pair of crosses
together in the center of the flag, in a diagonal arrangement. The
arm band and banner insignias are different, resembling the Nazi arm
bands more closely, with the double cross symbol in a white oval.
Mac Rosevelt, 3 october 2002
I've found a poster showing Chaplin in front of the flag. The double cross emblem appears on Chaplin's hat in the poster even as he obscures it on the flag. But it is a clear parody of
the Nazi flag, with a red background and a black double cross on a white ellipse (major
axis vertical.)
Albert Kirsch, 10 october 2002
In a programme about Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" there is colour footage made from the set of the movie that shows some flags. The armbinds were skyblue with the emblem white crosses on a black oval. There were also yellow flags with the two black crosses, and vertical banners that appeared to be black, white & grey, like António's image on FOTW.
The cover/poster of the movie shows a red flag, and a red armband on Chaplin. The grey and skyblue was probably chosen because they "appear" as red in black & white.
Jostein Nygård, 3 march 2003
by António Martins-Tuválkin
by António Martins-Tuválkin