Two men of great historical import have worn the iconic toothbrush moustache (you know—the one that looks like a soul patch under your nose): Adolf Hitler and Charlie Chaplin. Because of the former, we’re unlikely to see anyone of note ever wear it again, but (due to the latter) there was a simpler time when said moustache stood for all that was right with the world: pratfalls, slapstick, pathos. As Hitler rose to power, however, the moustache was usurped and became synonymous with hatred, destruction, and imperialism. Chaplin, of course, was not about to take this lying down.

The Great Dictator finds Chaplin lampooning the Nazis—and at least five years before it was cool, too. The film was released in 1940, before World War II had started in earnest, at a time when criticizing the titular character was still synonymous with risking your neck—even from the relatively safe shores of the United States. Set in the fictional European nation of Tomania, the film features Chaplin in a dual role: a Jewish barber (a variation on his usual “Tramp” character) and Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania. Both characters look like Chaplin, and—therefore—like Hitler. Hynkel (of course) essentially is Hitler in all but name, and the visual similarities between the two characters allow for some hilarious mix-ups (but I’m getting ahead of myself).

The film opens during World War I, where we see Chaplin’s barber character fighting bravely for Tomania, risking death until the very end. He spends the following twenty years in the hospital as an amnesiac, blissfully unaware of Hynkel’s rise to power. After regaining his memory, he returns to his barbershop in his Jewish ghetto, just in time to get assaulted by Tomanian stormtroopers. Together with several members of his ghetto and an old friend from the war (who is still in Hynkel’s army), he forms something of an underground movement.

To say that that’s the “plot” would be a bit of an overstatement, since, like many of Chaplin’s films, the storyline functions mainly as a framework on which to hang various slapstick sketches. These sketches are, for the most part, very funny. Highlights include Chaplin spoofing Hitler’s angry speeches with a jumble of words that may or may not be actual German, a “drawing straws” scene where everyone gets the short straw, and the back-stabbing antics between Hynkel and “Napaloni” (a very, very funny—and Oscar-winning—Jack Oakie as a stand-in for Mussolini). As in his other films, Chaplin displays a talent for comic timing—allowing each sketch to build slowly to a hilarious climax—that is sorely lacking in many comedies, especially the comedies of today.

The Great Dictator isn’t a perfect film. Like much of Chaplin’s later work, it runs a little long (even after most of the humorous potential has been tapped), and some of the sketches should have been left on the cutting room floor. (Imagine five minutes of Hitler—sorry, Hynkel—dancing with an inflatable globe. It’s even less funny than it sounds.) Additionally, those who are bothered by movies that end with “And Here’s the Moral” speeches will want to leave before the final scene. I personally wasn’t bothered by it—in fact, I found it inspiring to see one of Hitler’s contemporaries stand up to him so forcefully and overtly. In an era where Hitler is the international symbol for evil and the butt of every joke, it’s easy to forget just how popular and powerful he was at one point in time. Making fun of history’s dead losers takes no guts at all (I’m looking at you, Mel Brooks); what Chaplin did with The Great Dictator was not only daring, it resulted in a great film.