Jack Oakie makes broad comedy work through exact timing: the extra look, the widened eyes, the pause before another reaction. We value his cheerfully unsubtle supporting turns, though familiar tricks can leave the characters looking much alike.
Fi1m perspective
Jack Oakie looks once, then again, and sometimes a third time. The widening eyes and emphatic mugging make the reaction something to watch in its own right, rather than a quick acknowledgement of somebody else's joke. This is broad acting, and we like how carefully he times it. His good-natured, wisecracking supporting characters need that care if they are to remain company worth keeping. The limitation is plain enough: the familiar routine can tell us more about Oakie than about the person he is playing.
Paramount's early talkies gave him regular work before he began freelancing after 1934. In Million Dollar Legs (1932), he had one of his rare romantic leads; Alice in Wonderland (1933) put him in the part of Tweedledum. Song-and-dance and physical comedy gave him several ways to make himself useful, even when the characters were much alike. The career revival came with The Great Dictator (1940), in which he plays Benzino Napaloni, a part that made full use of his expansive manner.
Charles Chaplin, directing and co-starring, gives Oakie a film broad enough to accommodate him. We laughed at Oakie's emphatic reactions because his timing keeps the mugging brisk even when the acting is large. He makes Napaloni's flamboyance entertaining without asking us to mistake it for subtle character work. The pleasure is in watching a performer judge how far he can push a familiar routine, and how much time to give it. Chaplin's own two performances carry the film, but Oakie's energy belongs in this company.
That does not make every extended joke in The Great Dictator worth its time. We rate the film highly while finding its construction loose and some of its lesser jokes overlong, faults that enthusiasm alone cannot repair. Oakie's later work included the dramatic supporting part of Slob in Thieves' Highway (1949), a departure from the comic roles that recur through his work. Start with The Great Dictator, with a little patience for an actor who likes to make quite certain the joke has been noticed.
Biography
Jack Oakie (born Lewis Delaney Offield) was an American actor. He appeared in numerous films from the late 1920s onwards, as well as on stage, radio and television.
Oakie is best known for his role as Benzino Napaloni, Dictator of Bacteria, in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940), for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His other film credits include Alice in Wonderland (1933), Call of the Wild (1935), Thieves' Highway (1949), Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and Lover Come Back (1961). He also appeared in episodes of television series such as Bonanza.
