CAPTURING DER FUHRER OVER CHAPLIN'S 'DICTATOR'.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

CHARLIE CHAPLIN really did manage a truly subversive act of satire with his 1940 film ``The Great Dictator,'' even if the comic director later admitted that if he had understood the true extent of Adolf Hitler's atrocities, he never would have made the film. Kevin Brownlow and Michael Kloft's documentary ``The Tramp and the Dictator'' offers a glossy, breezy overview of the making of the film and never really tries to dig very deep.

Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, the film offers Cliffs Notes-style biographies of both Chaplin and Hitler and points out how their lives intersected - Chaplin was a fave rave when he visited Berlin in 1931, but footage of his visit was used in a Nazi propaganda film decrying his perceived Semitism.

The film offers heretofore unseen color footage shot by his brother Sidney while Chaplin was shooting ``The Great Dictator'' - it's fascinating to a point, but used only sporadically, and doesn't really add anything to our understanding of Chaplin's work methods. Brownlow does point out what a perfectionist Chaplin had become at that point in his career - he spent almost a year and a half making the film and had sets that had been destroyed rebuilt so he could reshoot minor sequences (all expenses came out of Chaplin's own pocket, an indulgence filmmakers today might be well- advised to consider).

But ``The Tramp and the Dictator'' doesn't tell us anything a lot of us didn't already know about either man. It reports that no less a personage than President Roosevelt encouraged Chaplin to make the film when more timorous souls in Hollywood recommended he back off, and suggests that Hitler may have seen the film, and speculates what he may have thought about it, but since it is just speculation, it really doesn't add anything valuable to either's biography. Still, it serves as a potent reminder of a time when certain Hollywood artists weren't afraid to make important social statements in mainstream entertainment.

``The Tramp and the Dictator'' will be presented along with a number of World War II-themed films, including ``The Great Dictator,'' ``Casablanca'' and the Jack Benny masterpiece ``To Be or Not to Be,'' as well as cartoons from the era, throughout October.

THE TRAMP AND THE DICTATOR - Three stars

What: Documentary on the making of Charlie Chaplin's classic ``The Great Dictator.''

Where: Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

When: 5 and 8:30 tonight.

In a nutshell: Intriguing and entertaining despite its superficiality.

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Charlie Chaplin took aim at Adolf Hitler in the 1940 film ``The Great Dictator,'' which took the comedian 1 1/2 years to make. Turner Classic Movies airs a documentary on the satire tonight.