Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York Movie Review

A King in New York is probably Charlie Chaplin’s most deeply personal film. Though he claimed he was just trying to make people laugh with another comedy film, there is no denying the overt political arguments he makes with his screenplay. The film is undoubtedly critical of the United States and its policies in the 1950s regarding political party affiliation. A King in New York was Chaplin’s first film made outside America because he’d already been exiled from the country he called home for almost forty years. His exile was the result of allegations that he was a member of the Communist Party. By all accounts, Chaplin loved America and was devastated when he was not permitted to return. With that in mind, we can read A King in New York as a cathartic experience for Chaplin to have made it when he did.

Classic Movie Review: Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

--“Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard” by Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771)

I can think of three significant cinematic uses of “La Marseillaise,” the French National Anthem. Its appearance in Casablanca is defiantly patriotic, induced by Victor Laszlo in Rick’s Café to drown out the singing Germans. It’s sung by the French crowd supporting the Allied prisoner football team at the end of John Huston’s Victory. But Stanley Kubrick is the only film maker to take what might be the most patriotic national hymn and turn it into an ironic statement about patriotic duty.

Classic Movie Review: 12 Angry Men

When you consider Sidney Lumet’s body of work as a feature film director (Serpico; Dog Day Afternoon; The Verdict; Network), so much of it can be traced back to his debut film 12 Angry Men. This simple little courtroom drama (which has only one scene take place in an actual courtroom), in which a single jury member bent on voting not guilty slowly convinces the other eleven to change their votes, paved the way for his career directing films about justice.

The film is based on a teleplay by Reginald Rose, who also wrote the screenplay. It is certainly idealistic in its moralizing and tub-thumping for the American Way. It’s a film that is in love with itself for representing the idealized version of our justice system. And although some of the scenes feel very stagy, it’s Lumet’s direction that makes the film rise above it all to achieve genuine greatness.