Lobby card for the film “The Great Dictato" (1940)
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Overall: Height: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm) | Width: 14.000 inches (35.56 cm)
Lobby card with a large, photographic image of a scene still printed on rectangular, off-white cardstock from the film, “The Great Dictator.” The photo depicts a scene in an outdoor courtyard, separated from a street in the background by a tall, solid, gray wall. In the center of the wall is a wooden gate, which a man in dark clothes, a bowler hat, and small mustache is trying to push shut. Behind the gate is a group of soldiers in brown uniforms, attempting to push through. Two of the soldiers are scaling the wall, on either side of the gate. To the left of the gate is a woman in a dark dress, holding up a long-handled broom, poised to hit the soldier scaling the wall. In the foreground are the backs of a group of people, observing the scene. Inset in the lower right corner is a yellow rectangle, outlined in red-and-white bars, with the film title and credits inside. Small, blue text containing the copyright information is printed in the bottom margin. On the back, there is a blue ink stamp in three corners. In the lower left corner, the blue stamp overlays a purple ink stamp. There are black smudges across the back, in addition to ink transfer from another image. Left to right: Paulette Goddard as Hannah, Charlie Chaplin as A Jewish Barber, others unidentified back, top left corner, stamped, blue ink : AMERICAN POSTER SUPPLY / 425 VAN BRAAM ST. / PITTSBURGH, : : PA back, top right corner, stamped, blue ink : AMERICAN POSTER SUPPLY / 425 VAN BRAAM ST. / PITTSBURGH, : : PA back, top right corner, handwritten, pencil : 4 00 back, bottom left corner, stamped, blue ink : AMERICAN POSTER SUPPLY / 425 VAN BRAAM ST. / PITTSBURGH, : : PA back, bottom left corner, stamped, blue ink : AMERICAN POSTER SUPPLY / 425 VAN BRAAM ST. / PITTSBURGH, : : PA back, bottom left corner, stamped, purple ink : ADVERTISING ACCESSORIES, Inc. / 1627 Rear, Blvd. of Allies / PITTSBURGH, PA.
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The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Lobby card for the American satirical film, “The Great Dictator,” released by United Artists in the United States in October 1940. Lobby cards are promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. In his first film with dialog, Charlie Chaplin plays both an unnamed Jewish barber with amnesia and a fictional dictator that is a thinly veiled caricature of Hitler. The two characters are caught up in a comic case of mistaken identity before taking a serious turn at the end. The barber gives a three-minute-long speech promoting human kindness against evil, a monologue that has Chaplin effectively breaking the fourth wall, directly addressing the audience by speaking directly at the camera. “The Great Dictator,” earned five Academy Award nominations, but also led to a Senate subcommittee to subpoena Chaplin to testify in relation to war propaganda in films. The success of the satire occurred before the American public was aware of the atrocities occurring under Hitler’s orders. Conversely, the comic portrayal of the dictator led the film to be banned in Spain, Italy, and Ireland. The film also includes the first onscreen depiction of Jewish freedom fighters during a raid of the Jewish ghetto. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
The lobby card was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.