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The Great Dictator, the 1940 Charles Chaplin World War II (WWII) anti-war black comedy ("Charlie Chaplin in his greatest role"; "The world will be laughing again..."; "2 1/2 hours of hilarity! Twelve thousand feet of laughter chosen from half a million feet of film!"; "The Chaplin millions love! The little tramp is back, converging into a dual role of a power-mad tyrant!"; "Plus a New Chaplin! A Chaplin for the new generation of fans, aiming his mirth at a target of timeliness!"; "The comedy masterpiece!"; nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award; the movie was Chaplin's first actual talking movie, because his two previous only had music tracks and sound effects, but no dialogue, and this was a fully talking movie, so it was advertised with the tagline "He talks..."; note that this movie was made very early in World War II, and it had actually started production in 1937, long before the U.S. entered, and before the full extent of the Nazi atrocities were even guessed at, but it seems somewhat bizarre to have a movie that makes fun of such events, although the movie ends with a long brilliant speech in defense of pacifism by Chaplin!) starring Charlie Chaplin (Charles Chaplin; nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for this film; he played two parts, the Hitler-like Adenoid Hynkel, and "a Jewish barber", a twin for Hynkel), Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie (nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for this film; as the Mussolini-like Benzino Napaloni), Henry Daniell, Reginald Gardiner, Billy Gilbert (as Field Marshal Herring), Maurice Moscovitch, Emma Dunn, Bernard Gorcey, and Paul Weigel. Note that Adolf Hitler found nothing funny about this movie, and he had it banned in Germany!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Artist: Al Hirschfeld (interior pages)

Important Added Info: Note that we have never before auctioned this 1940 first release pressbook! Also note that it includes great Al Hirschfeld art inside (see our images).

Note that in December 2021, we were consigned a truly remarkable collection of pressbooks (the first 37 were auctioned in our December Major Auction, and the most expensive one sold for $17,500!). In our regular auctions since, we have auctioned hundreds more from this collection. Now we are auctioning 30 of the very best (and most rare) pressbooks from this collection, which is absolutely the finest collection of pressbooks we have ever been consigned. Some of them were folded at one time, but they were stored unfolded for many years, so we left them unfolded, and unless the new owner requests otherwise, we will send them unfolded, because re-folding them would likely lessen the condition. Many of these are ones we have either never auctioned before or only once auctioned before, sometimes many years ago. These were collected decades ago, which was the only time that many of these could be found, and after these auctions are over it may be years (or decades!) before some of these are offered again. They ARE that rare! Note that pressbooks from the 1930s are almost never found in great condition, and some of them (especially those printed during World War II, including all the MGM ones from that time) are printed on newsprint, and are hard to find in even lesser condition. We have several images from each pressbook. We have given each an overall grade, and ask that you look at our images to get a good sense of the condition of that pressbook, because, since they have many pages, it would take forever to describe their condition in detail. However, EVERY one of these pressbooks is complete and uncut!

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775