Word: ogdenational
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...surface, the dialogue is the weakest part of the film; the critics pounced on awkward exchanges (NATASCHA: "Careful, these pajamas are transparent!" OGDEN: "So are you!") and lines like Brando's "I want you to know this is the first real happiness I've known." But criticizing the dialogue on conventional grounds is meaningless; in Chaplin's film, lines have little significance in themselves. The dialogue cannot be divorced from how a character says his line or what he looks like while he's saying it: these factors combine to form complete characterizations. Chaplin has carefully directed the line-readings...
...misfortunes and embarrassments of other people, Mack Sennett, and later Chaplin, revelled in low comedy. Cahiers du Cinema theorizes that Countess breaks the barrier between audience and film-maker through use of two extended bits of low comedy: a brilliantly executed seasickness sequence, and a running gag where Ogden, unable to send Natascha out of the bedroom, heightens the volume of the radio to drown out the sound of his urinating in the nearby bathroom...
...general, Chaplin has little sympathy for modern society: the ship's Captain is slightly corrupt; Ogden's wife, Martha excudes coldness and cares only for money: Ogden's best friend, Harvey (Sydney Chaplin), is ineffectual, his part consisting mainly of reacting and commenting on the action. Natascha tells him she thinks Ogden doesn't love her; he thinks for a moment and finally says, rather tentatively, "I don't agree." It is the best...
...Ogden, Chaplin's hero, is no more appealing than the people around him. He comes on as a diplomatic prig, spouting. Moral Rearmament gibberish at a press conference, Socially reserved and emotionally up-tight. He never changes. Although he professes love for Natascha in the last third of the film, there is no sign of any difference in his wooden personality. Chaplin's treatment of the character forces us to question his capacity for love, and look for other less romantic motives for his behavior...
...Ogden is as shallow and one-sided as the rest of the characters. Brando's performance must be one of the great jobs of subordinating personal acting style to the strong will of a director who has carefully modulated each nuance of movement and dialogue...