I Was Surpsed By "A King In NY!!!!!"

I am somewhat ashamed to admit this, but until last night I had never
seen "A King In NY."

So, I went into it almost dreading the experience. I have a pretty
good library of Charlie books, and most of them - even Uno Asplund's
"Chaplin's Films," positively pan the film.

What I saw somewhat surprised me.

Clearly, this is NOT the master at work at City Lights or The Gold
Rush, but I found it to be sort of a Lubitsch-like, lite frothy little
film. Some of the jokes went on a little too long (Chaplin getting
caught in the elevator) and the film probably should have been about
20 minutes shorter, but I thought there were ALOT of redeeming
moments: Chaplin wordlessly indicating he wants caviar and turtle
soup, his reciting Hamlet, the meeting with "Prince Rupert" after the
young boy turned informer, etc.

Again, the reviews I had read throughout the years led me to believe
that it was a film composed of just banal nonsense. One book said
that the bathroom scene was "Chaplin at an all-time low." But
actually, I found the part when Charlie and his ambassador were
struggling to be the one to look through the keyhole at Dawn Adams in
the tub to be fairly amusing, and very well acted. Ironically, I find
some of Charlie's earlier scenes in earlier films such as his picking
up what he thinks to be a coin in "The Vagabond" only to find out is
really a gob of spit to be far "lower" than this scene.

Also, I think Chaplin defintely "undereplayed" the attacks on America.
Frankly, I expected the attacks to be far shriller, far more heavy
handed and non-stop than they actually were in the film. He poked fun
at American fads, in a satirical way (and haven't alot of movies since
done so, like "Airplane?") but it was not shrill or incessant. The
turning of his and the audiences' head, right to left, right to left,
during the gunfight scene was amusing.

Again, I was just really pleasantly surprsied by this film. I went
into it expecting that I would watch "AKINY" once, just to say I had
finally seen it, and that would be it - but I found myself enjoying
Chaplin's performance and enjoying his spooofing of fads. I also
felt a sadness that I was really watching the end of his career on
film (not counting "Countess.")

I think alot of the criticism that the film has endured has come
because this was a departure in style and spirit for Chaplin more
thamn anything else - sort of a domestic comedy, a Lubitsch-lite film,
as it were. While Lubitsch's "Trouble in Paradise" is one my FAVORITE
films (I do think it a masterpiece!) I kept thinking while watching
"AKINY" that - while it is clearly not up the to level of "Tropuble,"
nevertheless had Lubuitsch done "AKINY" instead of Chaplin, the
reaction to it might have been far less hostile. I just think alot
of critics - then and know - find this too much of a departure from
Chaplin's canon of work, and so vent their spleen at it. But I
enjoyed it.

One area where I will concede it to be way below his standard is in
the film's production values. Now, I know that Chaplin always liked
rear-projection, and not always in the best-produced way (remember the
scene in "Modern Times" where the non-completed ship slides away from
him and sinks?) But the rear projection in "AKINY" was especially bad
(the scene where Michael walks along a rear-projected NYC through the
snow was terrible!) I think this was due to the fact that Charlie now
longer had creative control over his film - he no longer had his own
studio, and the film was turned out in sort of a "crank this one out
now" mode in Shepperton Studios in the UK. Sort of ironic when you
think of it - Charlie began his career in a studio (Keystone) where
the mass-production philosophy prevailed - and, full circle, he then
ended his career back at another studio under the same philiosphy.

Nevertheless, while AKINY is clearly not a masterpiece, and while I
would NEVER show it as one of the first dozen (or even 2 dozen) films
I use to introduce someone to Charlie, I did enjoy it - and I want to
see it again, which for me at least is ultimately the test of whether
a film is truly intriguing or not.

Lonnie N.

lonnien RemoveThis @starpower.net (Lonnie) writes:

> [...] had Lubuitsch done "AKINY"
> instead of Chaplin, the reaction to it
> might have been far less hostile.

Well, of *course* it would have been less hostile.

The critics would have been so impressed by the fact that a guy who'd been dead
ten years had actually directed a movie that they would have cut him a certain
amount of slack. :)


Tom Moran

"You can get a great deal of entertainment
out of tedious people if you keep your head.''
-- W. Somerset Maugham