ANTI-NAZI FILMS

I was disappointed by Kenneth Turan’s failure to acknowledge the importance of Charles Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” (1940) in “When Nazis Walked the Earth” (March 30). This extraordinary film should have been the focal point of his article.

“The Great Dictator” was the cinema’s first important satire, and the fact that Chaplin (whose Tramp persona was the most beloved figure in the world) should attack the similarly mustachioed Adolf Hitler (certainly the most hated and feared man) in such a controversial--and extremely popular--film deserved more attention.

JEFFREY VANCE

Studio City

*

Although obviously all the anti-Nazi movies made by Hollywood could not be shown by the County Museum of Art, it is unfortunate that one of the most powerful films of the era is being overlooked.

Indelibly etched in my memory is Skip Homier’s chilling portrayal of the consummate example of the Hitler Youth movement, as he boasts to his adoptive American family, “Today Europe, ‘Tomorrow the World.’ ”

STAN RESHES

Whittier