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Film Description
Chaplin's often under-rated last film (and first in colour) sees Brando as American diplomat Ogden Mears who discovers a Russian countess (a ravishing Sophia Loren) stowed away in his cabin on a liner travelling from Hong Kong to Hawaii. Thereafter he tries to get her off-board without causing a scandal. Watch out for a great cameo from Margaret Rutherford as a batty passenger.
"A Countess From Hong Kong" -
Clinton Morgan on 31st January 2012
Chaplins swansong could be seen in relation to A King In New York as Howard Hawks El Dorado is to Rio Bravo and Martin Scorseses Casino is to Goodfellas. Certain theme... more >
Chaplins swansong could be seen in relation to A King In New York as Howard Hawks El Dorado is to Rio Bravo and Martin Scorseses Casino is to Goodfellas. Certain themes and relationships are mirrored in both films but whilst El Dorado and Casino are of merit and could possibly be superior to their predecessors A Countess From Hong Kong pales in comparison to A King In New York and therefore looms rather low in the Chaplin canon. Only to be of significance due to it being the only Chaplin film in colour and that it was his last.
The film, politically speaking, has some importance and worth and that is because of Chaplins humanism which is a running thread through his shorts and features. After a monumental success with a character that reflected the poverty that he grew up in Chaplin makes a film about an aristocrat and portrays her with sympathy, sentimental and saccharine but sympathy nonetheless perhaps even empathy. Marlon Brandos millionaire diplomat Ogden Mears is at times a voice box for Chaplins views which shows that despite objections to his closing speech in The Great Dictator he was not going to keep quiet. His wife Martha played by Tippi Hedren makes a comment about the countesses in Hong Kong and the life they lead of dancing and prostitution to which Mears replies that he wonders what her life would have been like if she was born in similar circumstances. And that, in essence, is the message of the film and the connecting thread of all of Chaplins works. He may have created the tramp and spoke up for the poor but with A Countess From Hong Kong he was no class warrior filled with resentful hatred to those in the alright for some class.
Clearly he saw Sophia Lorens Countess Natascha as trapped in her circumstances as the tramp was in his. Chaplin appears to hold passports in contempt as the stowaway Countess feels she has no need for one and in A King In New York progressive school pupil Rupert Macabee points out that without a passport man is not free to move as he pleases. There is a sweet brief cameo with Margaret Rutherford and her nurse Carol Cleveland who would later join Monty Pythons Flying Circus and never look back. One could make a tenuous link between A Countess From Hong Kong and Monty Pythons The Meaning of Life in that both contain vomit gags. The former of course is not as graphic and due to a rocking ship which is simulated by the only creative use of the camera in the film. Apparently there exists a directors cut of the film which concludes with Chaplin sweeping up the deck. I like A Countess From Hong Kong even though I know it is the weakest of all Chaplins films but then again Chaplins best film was The Kid and he followed that with The Gold Rush, A Woman In Paris and Modern Times. < less
