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These moments really deaden the momentum of the movie, and they'd be a confusing choice without knowing the director's personal issues. At the same time, so much of the movie is joyfully sublime. The king performing the angriest "To be or not to be" speech in recorded history is a standout. Similarly, a (surprisingly spry!) 68 year-old Chaplin and his assistant peeping through a keyhole to see a woman bathing is some inspired silliness. Also, while many sometimes deride Chaplin for being mawkishly sentimental, this is probably the least sentimental movie I've seen with his name attached (except maybe Monsieur Verdoux, but I need to rewatch that to remember it better). It seems like he found freedom in his exile, to poke fun at his contemporaries (jokes specifically referencing Ed Wood and the declining western genre). Its energy buoys is well, and it's not nearly as slight as I'd expected. It's a little slower than City Lights and not a Great Film, but if you ever wonder if man who was once The Tramp ever lost it, this movie answers "No."
It's probably fortunate that Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York did not get released in the USA until 1973 because of accusations that its maker was a communist. It wouldn't have been well-received at the time, anyway, with a key character being a child (played by Chaplin's son) who's unusually well-versed in Anarchist and Communist teachings. As it is, it's cult item for enthusiasts of the silent film greats, who, at this point, are probably a pretty small group. It's not even given much respect as a DVD: In the The Chaplin Collection Vol. 2 box set, it's packaged together with A Woman of Paris, while the rest of the movies in the set are given the double-disc treatment. Once you get past the feeling that Chaplin then looks like Mel Brooks five years ago, though, it's a worthy addition to the man's canon, especially among his underrated later works.
The vibe that I get most from A King in New York is that Chaplin must have been a really, really nice guy. Here's a guy who is exiled from a country without trial, based on rumors (truthful or not). He's making a movie about a foreigner who finds himself lost in America, culturally. Yet the movie doesn't strike me as bitter at all; everything is taken with the same light, comedic tone of his more famous works, parodying American film, music and especially commercialism. But, all of the gags are light teasing, rather than barbed swipes. Or maybe not. Offhand, I can't think of anything comparable from the time period with a similar anti-advertising bent.
The majority of it follows a pattern one would expect from a director whose work began in the silent film era. There isn't much of a plot to speak of; the king needs money and winds up doing commercials. This leads to the episodic structure that Chaplin did so well in his prime, and even during his last starring role, showed a great amount of inventive spark. A scene featuring the king with a heinous amount of plastic surgery goes off perfectly: he attends a comedy show, unable to laugh in order to avoid "stretching it too much." The show he observes is an homage to his own silent comedies, and Chaplin's lone face, struggling not to smile amid a sea of laughter, is hysterical.
The majority of it follows a pattern one would expect from a director whose work began in the silent film era. There isn't much of a plot to speak of; the king needs money and winds up doing commercials. This leads to the episodic structure that Chaplin did so well in his prime, and even during his last starring role, showed a great amount of inventive spark. A scene featuring the king with a heinous amount of plastic surgery goes off perfectly: he attends a comedy show, unable to laugh in order to avoid "stretching it too much." The show he observes is an homage to his own silent comedies, and Chaplin's lone face, struggling not to smile amid a sea of laughter, is hysterical.
Then Chaplin's character, King Shadow, meets a young boy, Rupert at a school (long story). Shadow tries to engage in a conversation with Rupert, who fires off on a long tirade about the futility of all forms of government. The gag is that kids off-screen fool with the king, flinging soup at him while he tries to offer a rebuttal to the kid. It's not a great joke, but it shows a conscious decision to stand up to the accusations that banned him from America. Rupert also gets another showcase later in the movie, and troubles with his parents (staunch Communists) become the emotional center of the movie. Most telling, though, is when Rupert declares himself a communist after previously being an anarchist. Shadow asks him why; Rupert replies: "I'm so sick of people asking me if I'm this, if I'm that! So if it pleases everybody, I'm a Communist!" That's the sound of Chaplin throwing his hands up, and likely his reason for summarizing Marxist screeds in his comedy film about America that he made from Europe.
These moments really deaden the momentum of the movie, and they'd be a confusing choice without knowing the director's personal issues. At the same time, so much of the movie is joyfully sublime. The king performing the angriest "To be or not to be" speech in recorded history is a standout. Similarly, a (surprisingly spry!) 68 year-old Chaplin and his assistant peeping through a keyhole to see a woman bathing is some inspired silliness. Also, while many sometimes deride Chaplin for being mawkishly sentimental, this is probably the least sentimental movie I've seen with his name attached (except maybe Monsieur Verdoux, but I need to rewatch that to remember it better). It seems like he found freedom in his exile, to poke fun at his contemporaries (jokes specifically referencing Ed Wood and the declining western genre). Its energy buoys is well, and it's not nearly as slight as I'd expected. It's a little slower than City Lights and not a Great Film, but if you ever wonder if man who was once The Tramp ever lost it, this movie answers "No."
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