A King in New York (1957)

Directed by Charlie Chaplin. Starring Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Johnston, Dawn Addams, Michael Chaplin, Sid James, Jerry Desmonde, Harry Green, Phil Brown, Joan Ingram, Maxine Audley, John McLaren, Alan Gifford. [G]

Lukewarm, heavy-handed satire has myriad targets; focuses most of its smart aleck winking at rampant commercialism, most of its vitriol at McCarthyist witch hunts. Deposed and impoverished king of a fictional country (Chaplin) arrives in New York City, becomes infatuated with television spokesperson Addams, gets suspected of Communist sympathies, and so on. Scattered amusing moments, and it does manage a few direct hits among its many sloppy sardonic broadsides and whiffs, but some episodes feel far too underdeveloped (Chaplin gets a facelift) or long-winded and labored (Chaplin’s real-life son, Michael, playing a young Marxist patriot who tirades at length). Due to HUAC outrage, Chaplin had been all-but-exiled from America in the early-50s; he filmed and released this film in Europe, but no American distributor would touch it at that time, and didn’t finally land in the States until 1972. Chaplin’s final leading role.

49/100