ABSTRACT
Chaplin’s performance is so skilled that it appears that a second actor plays the Dictator. When the Dictator dances with a globe we see the only occurrence of a famous gesture of Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ character-a backward kick. The Tramp uses it to dispose of cigarette butts but the Dictator disposes of the world. The kick is the one gesture that the two characters have in common, but diff erent contexts change its meaning.
