Based upon the best-selling novel. The profoundly moving story of a girl who transforms the lives of those around her during World War II, Germany. Although Liesel is illiterate when she is adopted by a German couple, her adoptive father encourages her to learn to read. Ultimately, the power of words helps Liesel and Max, a Jew hiding in the family's home, escape from the events unfolding around them.

In Chaplin's first talkie, he plays the duel role of dictator Adenoid Hynkel and a Jewish barber who is a dead-ringer look-alike for der Nutsie...and who thwarts his plans for world domination.