Moustache will sell for an Arm and Leg

international | consumer issues | other press

Thursday December 09, 2004 22:04

by gavel?!?!

Chaplin's Moustache from The Great Dictator at Auction. sale 5515 lot 71 asking bid - 3500 stg

once upon a time, 63 years before the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime and the popular embracing and hugging of plural democracy by the peoples of Iraq assisted by the coalition of the willing, despite all the nasty misfits, have a go types, intellectuals, teachers, and biographically scant men from the provinces of Ireland, Europe the Americas, Africa and Asia doing their best to stop it.

A very pissed of Charlie Chaplin, composer, script writer, director, actor, comedian, satirist and genius saw fit to screen a movie about dictatorship and the limits of strong leadership and the evils of demogogues and the threat to civilised values in Europe. He had begun work on it in 1938, and when it was finished he chose to append a personal statement feeling "Hitler is a horrible menace to civilisation rather than someone to laugh at" rather than shelve it.
He financed the movie himself, coz no-one else cared to annoy nice Mr Hitler.

He called it "The Great Dictator".

It was first screened in 1940.

No member of the axis powers of Italy, Germany, Rumania or Hungary showed the movie.

Nor was it passed by the censors in Poland, Denmark , Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, because they were occupied by Nazi germany at the time.

It wasn't shown in Eire either because that type of thing would have scared the children, and De Valera weas totally against scaring children unless they had been born in mary magdalene homes.

It wasn't shown in Northern Ireland, where the Stormont government censored it, on the grounds that Chaplin was moral reprobate and jewish interest movies would scare the children.

and was nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture.

If you haven't seen it, you should.

The moustache he wore as Adenoid Hynkel, the ranting dictator of Tomania, will be sold at auction in London on the 15th December.

details-
http://www.christies.com/promos/dec04/5515/promo_gallery.asp?page=2

London - King Street
8 King Street, St. James's
London SW1Y 6QT
Main Number: +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Bid Department: +44 (0)20 7389 2865
Press Office: +44 (0)20 7389 2964
Auction Estimate Appointments: +44 (0)20 7839 9060

London - South Kensington
85 Old Brompton Road
London SW7 3LD
Main Number: +44 (0)20 7930 6074
Bid Department: +44 (0)20 7752 3225
Press Office: +44 (0)20 7752 3121
Auction Estimate Appointments: +44 (0)20 7930 6074

additional details "liberátion" (costing an arm and a leg) "the other press bit"
http://libe.com/page.php?Article=195004&Template=GALERIE&Objet=26544

for info on the movie see-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Dictator