A Villain

A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG continued.

Michael Medwin as “John Felix” has definite potential. It’s immediately obvious that he’s a threat, since he knows Natascha (oh, apparently it has a C in it, which I’ve been recklessly committing) from her previous life, and he immediately seems push — but Medwin play him LIGHT, which is a good choice. Medwin is a rare Brit of this era who can do a decent US accent, too.

At last — Margaret Rutherford! She’s been confined to her cabin with mal de mer all voyage, so that Natascha can be mistaken for her in her absence (you’d never mistake them for one another if they both showed up at once). Sadly, Rutherford’s role is so small Chaplin and Jerry Epstein hesitated to even ask her, but naturally she was delighted. And she’s very beneficial to the film, since she’s the only person in it apart from Chaplin who could have held her own at Keystone. Brando and Loren can be funny if you feed them the right situation, but Rutherford has the legendary funny bones.

Medwin mistakenly sends flowers intended for Natascha to Miss Gaulswallow (Rutherford). “Take them away — they take up all the oxygen!” she says, misunderstanding photosynthesis.

Bonus: Gaulswallow’s pretty young nurse is Carol Cleveland, the seventh member of the Monty Python team. She doesn’t get any actual comedy to do, but she quietly enters into the spirit of the scene while fetching and carrying.

Post-coital chess match! We know there was sex because after the clinch we dissolved to a billowing day-for-night seascape. We all know what that means. It means this 1967 film is following the grammar of the 1940s. Not that we want Chaplin to sketch out explicit bedroom activities, but maybe something humorous, something using direct cutting?

The chess game is to give our characters something to do while Brando, rather flatly, elicits further backstory from Loren. I feel we should be beyond backstory here, although I can also see that Ogden now has reason to take a keener interest in Natascha. If only Brando suggested it.

They’re playing with rather pretentious pseudo-Chinese chess pieces, so I can’t tell how the game is going… oh wait. Loren moves a black piece, and in the wide shot we see more captured black pieces standing beside the board, so she’s losing.

This exposition COULD have pertained to Medwin’s John Felix, but doesn’t — it’s all about Natascha’s pimp, who we haven’t met and won’t meet. Do we need to know that he was separated from his wife, who we also haven’t met and won’t meet?

Loren at once point shrugs ironically, with a lopsided smile and raised eyebrows — a very Chaplin gesture (think Verdoux) — I generally feel she’s a clearer filter for Chaplin’s directorial presence (the presence of a performer) to come through. Unfortunately she rarely gets to channel the Chaplin who’s funny.

Psychological tracking shot! We glide in on a pensive Natascha, the movement of the camera lending significance to her implied thoughts, whatever they are. This may be a first for Chaplin — which would be an encouraging sign that he’s still learning, still trying things out. If he’d made more films in this period he might have stayed limber.

Perhaps its a bad thing that Chaplin’s love theme has a Neapolitan flavour, since it reminds us that Loren is neither Russian nor Chinese, but maybe the strings are attempting a balalaika flavour. They miss, and land on the Italian coast.

Angela Scoular returns! A bit of business with a transistor radio. It’s not hilarious, but it’s Chaplin exploring the comic possibilities of a prop that didn’t exist when he started out (or until quite recently).

A bit more “Daddy says” dialogue, delivered at rather than to Sidney, and then, by the movie rule that says as soon as anyone turns on a radio it will be broadcasting a news bulletin relating to somebody present, we learn that Ogden has a wife (special guest star) awaiting him in Honolulu. Whatever this movie has in place of a plot just thickened.

Only now we learn that a divorce is being contemplated, which removes any real tension, but does allow Angela to declare “He’s getting a divorce!” with profound and hilariously inappropriate joy.

TO BE CONTINUED (and 37 minutes left!)

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