TheLittleSongbird Am a big fan of Charlie Chaplin, have been for over a decade now. Many films and shorts of his are very good to masterpiece, and like many others consider him a comedy genius and one of film's most important and influential directors. It is hard to not expect a lot with all his feature films between 'The Kid' and 'Limelight' being very good to masterpieces. On that front Chaplin's penultimate film 'A King in New York' disappoints a little. As far as his feature films go it is one of his weaker ones, being nowhere near the standard of 'The Gold Rush', 'The Kid', 'Modern Times', 'The Great Dictator' and especially 'City Lights'. As far as his overall career goes it is nowhere near among his worst, including his early career short films it is much better than the worst of his Keystone period and even his much improved Essanay period had a couple of lacklustre ones. He also did a couple of historical curios and patchworks that this is also superior to. 'A King in New York' has its problems. It is one of his least visually refined feature films. Some of the camera work and editing are rough and the evoking of New York is not very convincing at all, it was made in England rather than being authentic and it is very obvious it was not shot in New York. Chaplin also lays it on far too thick with the political elements which, while admirably cutting and personal, felt very heavy-handed and not always needed. Especially what is said from the young boy. Chaplin is no stranger to including politics in his films and short films and they are not subtle, but it comes over as very bitter and aggressive here in a way that wasn't there previously. A few parts go on too long too and could have been trimmedHowever, the music is good, neither intrusive or out of place. Chaplin does give a typically great performance and the supporting cast acquit themselves well too. Chaplin is not at his most inspired in the directing but the expertise is still there and handled well.The film is never dull either, while the satirical element is sharp, the comedy is genuinely funny, there is some very thought-provoking insight and there is some sentiment/pathos that is very touching while not being over-the-top or overused.Summing up, good but didn't blow me away. 7/10 Bethany Cox

tieman64 This is a brief review of Charlie Chaplin's last six feature films.A comical take on Lang's "Metropolis" (1927), Chaplin's "Modern Times" opens with the words "a story of industry and individual enterprise, humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness!", an ironic jab at the mantras of industrial capitalism. The film then finds Chaplin reprising his iconic role as "the tamp", a poverty-stricken but lovable outcast whose ill-fitting clothes epitomise, amongst other things, his inability to fit in.The film watches as the tramp struggles to survive in a depressed economy. Like "Metropolis", it satirises labour, management and dehumanising working conditions. Elsewhere life for the worker is seen to be precarious, alternatives to playing the game are but death or prison, giant clocks speak to the daily grid of blue-collar workers, bosses are shown to be obsessed with speed and production, the property class relies on police brutality and all-encompassing surveillance, and the workplace itself is painted as an absurdest torture chamber. The film ends with the tramp on a road, America's future uncertain."Modern Times" made waves when it was released. It was banned in fascist Germany and Italy, then allies of the West, and scorned by those in power in the United States. It was also heavily praised in the Soviet Union and France, particularly by philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merlau-Pony. The film's middle section, which featured Chaplin waving a red flag and unwittingly leading communists and worker unions, would get Chaplin on several government watch-lists.Chaplin followed "Times" with "The Great Dictator". Hollywood studios wanted the film scuttled, so Chaplin financed it himself. It contains two criss-crossing plots, one about a Jewish barber who is essentially persecuted by Nazis, the other about a brutal dictator, a stand in for Adolf Hitler. Funny, scary and sad, the film would rock the US establishment. Hitler was, at the time, a US ally and good for business. What's more, he was viewed by those in power as a tool to destroy communist Russia. For many, Chaplin was a "subverisive" who was "inciting war with an ally". Deemed particularly offencive was a last act speech in which Chaplin urges the people of the world to "love one another", "throw away international barriers" and foster an "international brotherhood". Though deliberately vague, this speech was viewed as inflammatory. Was Chaplin extolling the virtues of the United States or the Soviet Union? Regardless, the US' approach to the conflicts in Europe promptly shifted. It became an ally with Russia, Hitler became the enemy and Germany attacked Russia. In the blink of an eye, "Dictator" went from being sacrilege to prophetic.Chaplin, British, was born into extreme poverty and often found himself sleeping on the streets of London. As such, he identified with his "tramp" character completely, as did millions word-wide, who saw themselves in the tramp: desolate, poor and forever bumbling down life's highways. Prior to shooting "Times", Chaplin would embark on a tour of the world, intent on seeing the effects of poverty. He'd talk to many prominent figures, most notably Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Einstein and Gandhi.As Chaplin grew in consciousness, so would FBI files on Chaplin. He was put under government surveillance and forced to appear before a Senate subcommittee in 1941 where he was accused of being "anti American" and an "unofficial communist". Many newspapers, including the Times, began a campaign attacking Chaplin, and called for his deportation. In the mid 1940s he was charged with the Mann Act and the FBI would collude with newspapers to smear Chaplin as a sex maniac who "perverted American culture". From here on, conservative political pressure groups would attack each new Chaplin release. Some of his films would be boycotted or outright banned. In 1947 he'd be brought before the HUAC committee.Chaplin followed "Dictator" up with "Monsieur Verdoux". A black comedy, the idea for which came from Orson Welles, the films stars Chaplin as a bank clerk who loses his job and so murders women for cash and land. The film's point is explicit: if war is an extension of diplomacy, then murder is the logical extension of business. And so banking terminology is used to rationalise murder, weapons manufactures are idolised and the poor are condemned for trying to play by the rules of the wealthy. "Numbers sanctify!" Chaplain says, pointing to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the ruthlessness of post-war capitalism; kill millions and you're a hero.Next came "Limelight", Chaplin's ode to silent film. Elegiac and autobiographical, the film stars Chaplin and the legendary Buster Keaton as two fading comedians. A meditation on time's passing, the film's also relentlessly optimistic; man must assert his will, his desires, no matter how glum the times! The film would be banned from several US theatres. Chaplin himself was swiftly banned from entering the US and several of his assets were seized. He'd live in Switzerland henceforth."A King In New York" followed. It finds Chaplin playing an usurped "dictator" who seeks refuge in America. Also autobiographical, the film pokes fun at various aspects of US culture, its irrational hatred of all things left-wing and the way in which humans are both always branding and refuse to look beyond the political, beyond superficial branding, to tolerate even the slightest bit of difference or dissent. Chaplin's son would play a hilarious anarcho-communist, but the film as whole messily mixed silent gags with sound comedy.Chaplin's "A Countess from Hong Kong" confirms that Chaplin's films were moving from the lower to the upper echelons of society. Here Sophia Loren plays a Russian "tramp" who is taken in by a wealthy politician (Marlon Brando). His worst feature, the film watches as "humane" capitalism benevolently absorbs the "detritus" of Russia and Asia. Chaplin accepted an honorary Oscar in 1972. He received the longest standing ovation in Oscar history.8/10

Bob Pr. This movie was the last one Chaplin made in which he also starred. In the 1950s, American hysteria over communists and communist sympathizers and allegations that Chaplin was either one or the other led J. Edgar Hoover to block Chaplin from returning to the USA from a European trip Chaplin was on in 1952. (Contemporary bad publicity about Chaplin's private life didn't help CC's standing with the public.)This movie was made in 1957 and tweaks some American fetishes and attitudes: its anti-anything-left-of-right-wing, Sen. Joe McCarthy and the House UA committee, plus our American TV ads and commercialism, our fear of looking old, plastic surgery, waves of press hysteria, US "progressive" education, etc. The movie wasn't shown in the USA until about 15 years after its European release.Chaplin typically worked on a full length movie for a year or more in Hollywood with a crew of intimates he'd assembled over the years; often many scenes were shot well over 100 times until it suited CC perfectly. "AKiNY" was made in just 12 weeks in an UK studio with people largely unfamiliar to Chaplin. So maybe we should consider it as a first draft of his usual final copy. Chaplin plays a European king (King Shahdov) who escapes his country, flies to America to avoid being deposed and imprisoned. He plays the part of a royal perfectly, IMO. Shortly after arriving he finds one of his trusted officials who'd also fled with him has now left his king, but taking with him all the king's money.Before the king can solve the dilemma of his unexpected poverty, he is taken advantage of by an attractive TV hostess of a reality show (in 1957 !!-- that was prescient!!) and that leads to a brief career in advertising commercials which supports his life style. On a trip to visit a local progressive school, he meets 12 year old Rupert (played by Chaplin's son, Michael) who spouts left wing political jargon he's picked up from his parents. The parents are later charged and sent to jail as communist sympathizers and Rupert ends up by chance in the king's care. The king also is charged with being a communist sympathizer -- but finally acquitted.We get a few, rare glimpses of the vintage Chaplin facial expressions and sight gags (as when his finger gets stuck in the nozzle of a fire hose). But most sight gags are performed by people other than "the king" (Chaplin).While this isn't Chaplin at his very best, it's still quite good and, for lovers of Chaplin's work, an essential film to experience (as also is "Limelight," one of his VERY best so "AKiNY" is a slightly lesser- than). As usual, Chaplin wrote and directed this film plus composed ALL its music.I'll rate it 8 of 10 stars -- 7 of 10 if it was anyone else doing an equally excellent job as the king.

SnorrSm1989 A KING IN NEW YORK is a curious film in the Chaplin-canon. It was his first film to be produced outside of Hollywood. It was the last film in which he had a starring role. It was his second to last completed film altogether. It is also by many regarded as his worst film, but while it is hard not to recognize that KING is uneven in places, I find it equally hard not to recognize its better qualities.By the time he embarked upon the screen-play, Chaplin had been seeking for a story for his next film since his exile out of the United States in 1952. For a while he considered getting his beloved Tramp character back in the limelight, but abandoned this idea as he was getting too old for doing the sort of physical playfulness that was required from the character. He finally landed on the story of King Shadhov, who has eloped to New York as a revolution has taken place in his country. Nearly broke, the king is forced into making money in ways which might disturb his royal image. He acquaints a super-intelligent, albeit precocious kid named Rupert (Michael Chaplin), whose parents are suspected of being communist sympathizers during the prime of the McCarthy-era. Chaplin ridicules several aspects of contemporary American culture, including predictable movies, commercials, rock'n'roll, how plastic surgery is increasingly being used out of a obsessive desire to prevent age to be recognized, and Television; one sequence probably stands even more relevant today, when King Shadhov is invited to a gathering in which he, unbeknownst to him, is being filmed through hidden cameras and shown directly on TV…this was ages before reality-TV, folks.What is usually criticized about the film is how Chaplin's personal bitterness over his exile is made too evident, and that he seems to be dealing with more problems than he can chew. In my eyes, these are not big problems; the satire may rarely be subtle, and it is obvious that the film is based on personal opinions of the creator, but such it had always been with Chaplin. Ever since the first films he made in which a conscious move to leave comment on the society can be traced, Chaplin's motive had not been as much to put the society to question as to let the society be the target of his comedy simply because he found lots of comic potential in it. I don't believe Chaplin would have made MODERN TIMES had he not seen the possibilities of making comedy out of the serious theme it covers. In the same way, he hardly made KING in a desire to let out his opinions, at least not solely so; rather, I believe that in search of new comedy material, he decided to use themes which had obsessed him much in the last few years, making the McCarthy-era and American culture obvious choices.Chaplin tries to chew a lot, but I think he succeeds most of the time, as his covering of nearly every theme in the film somehow relate to one another. More importantly, I think much of the comedy is breathtakingly funny; when King Shadhov arrives at the airport, exclaiming to his ambassador that "We fooled them!", not realizing that a reporter has placed a microphone beneath his mouth, I laughed out loud, and it went louder pretty much throughout. One part which always makes me nearly roll on the floor in laughter is when Shadhov and his ambassador are having lunch right after Rupert has admitted to them that his parents have been members of the Communist party, making the two men so nervous they can't drink their coffee. It then knocks on the door, resulting in the ambassador getting his tongue paralyzed and being only able to shiver a series of "C-c-c-c-c-c-c…'s" until the person who knocked, a room service man, has left, whereupon the ambassador THEN exclaims totally exhausted, "…Come in!" The timing is perfect from both Chaplin and Oliver Johnston, who in fact overshadows Chaplin's performance a few times in the film.Yet, despite my conviction that A KING IN NEW YORK is a far cry better than its reputation claims, it suffers from inevitable short-comings. Some of the parts in which the comedy is not present are rather dull. I don't get what purpose the queen in the film fulfills, other than making way for an obvious conclusion to the story; the king and the queen has decided to divorce on the king's insistence, but they part on friendly terms. A scene follows in which the two of them chat about how the king once thought the queen was too young to know her best, but it turned out that she weren't, and so on, and the queen is then not granted a mention again until the very end, when it turns out she won't get a divorce after all; it's remarkable how these news fail to affect me each time I view the film. Also, here and there the dialogue feels rather superfluous. It has been pointed out that Chaplin here was working without his own studio and employees, for the first time in forty years, which possibly made him less open for criticism from others while making the film, or he may not even have been offered it. One should also note that Chaplin didn't remain blind to KING's lesser qualities; several years later, he wrote that he felt "rather uneasy about the whole film." Chaplin went too far. A KING IN NEW YORK is by no means his best film, but it must rank among his funniest, and is quite thought-provoking every once in a while.