Word: countesses
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Along with City Lights, Charles Chaplin considers A Countess From Hong Kong his best film. That in itself doesn't mean very much; traditionally, film directors either prefer their most recent film or have a tendency to love the disaster, the film Otto Preminger describes as "one's sick child." If you're willing to take the word of the uniformly unfavorable newspaper reviews, Chaplin's preference for countess over his other films can be written off on one of these two counts. But you'd be making a mistake. Chaplin knows what he's talking about, and A Countess...
Limelight was essentially a tragedy, The Great Dictator, Monsieur Verdoux, and A King In New York bitter social satires. Countess, his first film in over ten years, marks Chaplin's return to a kind of comedy he hadn't created since Modern Times. In many respects the comedy is similar to that of the earlier films. Though American comedy since Lubitsch and Wilder has tended increasingly toward the verbal, Chaplin still largely ignores the potential of comic dialogue, emphasizing the visual jokes instead...
...Countess From Hong Kong is, on occasion, old-fashioned, but only when Chaplin Clings to anti-quated dramatic devices. Sometimes the dialogue becomes overly expository, as if he were substituting lines for title cards reading, "Four days later," or "Meanwhile". But frequently his instinctive use of silent film mechanics works successfully. In silent comedy, one of the primary goals was to break down the defensive barriers between the audience and the film-maker by manipulating audience emotions to involve them in the action. Having discovered that audiences laughed at the misfortunes and embarrassments of other people, Mack Sennett, and later...
Though it resembles Chaplin's earlier films, Countess contains much of the bitterness of Limelight and A King in New York, giving the romance a darkly pessimistic overtone. The 70-year-old director's point of view has soured over the years, and certain feelings can be inferred from his new film. Chaplin can neither take comfort in the security of old age or have faith in youth. The society girl with whom Brando dances is self-centered and vapid, a Marxist parody of upper class Capitalism. Her continual references to the beliefs of her father imply that...
Divorced. The Earl of Harewood, 44, first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, and 18th in line of succession to the British throne; by the Countess of Harewood, 39; on uncontested charges of adultery with Patricia Tuckwell, 38, Australian-born onetime model who bore him a son in 1964; after 17 years of marriage, three children; in London...