Chaplin’s second full-length movie (after thirty or so short movies), The Gold Rush doesn’t pretend to the social depth of later movies such as Modern Times or The Dictator, but it strikes just the right balance between poetry and fun, sadness and joy, tragedy and comedy. It features many themes that run through Chaplin’s movies: the contrast of wealth and poverty, of shyness and action, of loneliness and romance; love as a transcending power; an incredible mastering of the body…

The Gold Rush is full of cult scenes, from the potatoe-foot dancing (perhaps the movie’s most famous scene, which you can compare with its Johnny Depp revival) to the cartoon-like cabin teetering on the edge of a cliff, through the shoe-eating segment (which Chaplin had to shoot over 60 times!) and hallucinations of Chaplin as a human-sized chicken. Bear-lovers will also find it worth their time. Many of these scenes have made history and inspired generations of film-makers!

Chaplin’s supporting roles are also great: violent Black Larsen as the bad guy, not very bright Big Jim McKay as Chaplin’s friend, and the beautiful saloon-girl Georgia that toys with him.

It’s actually the first Chaplin movie I’ve watched as a teenager (possibly also the first silent movie); I was quite taken aback! I found it hilarious and I still do when I rewatch it.

If you like it, you can watch The Kid on My Kingdom for a Movie (I’ll upload more Chaplin movies!).

(As a footnote: the version above is the original 1928 version; as a personal view I find it much more enjoyable than the 1942 reissue with an additionnal running narration which kind of spoils the fun; I recommend starting with the original).

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Their (obviously less talented) rivals from Not the Nine O’Clock News went so far as to denounce ‘Monty Python worshipers’, under the holy guidance of Rowan Atkinson, in an episode that you may watch here on YouTube.

And now for something completely different aimed at introducing the Monty Python to an American audience through some of the funniest sketches of their BBC legendary show ‘the Monty Python’s Flying Circus’. Though it achieved mixed success West of the Atlantic – it’s less a movie than a succession of sketches and requires a sense of humour – , it remains an absolute reference for married couples in search of guidance and lumberjacks with a taste for singing.

From the ‘Dead Parrot’ to the ‘Funniest Joke in the World’, from the ‘Upper Class Twit of the year’ to the ‘Hell’s Grannies’, you will discover / recognise some of their most famous sketches of their first two series of the ‘Flying Circus’.

And now for something completely different:

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Most last around 25 minutes and, though many of them involve a murder, they all have a deeper common point: perfect structure of the storytelling, attention to detail, and a taste for the unexpected, for reversals of situations, for the inattendu.

They deal with revenge, psychology, murder, suicide, accidents, women, men, death insurance, cheating, guns, social classes, alibis, young chicks, old bores, love, hate, surprise, and so much more.

If you like Hemingway novels, it’s like reading Hemingway’s short stories. Well, if you like Hitchcock movies your know what to do.

The post Hitchcock Presents first appeared on My Kingdom for a Movie.

A feast of action, creativity and finesse, Sherlock Jr. goes way beyond the burlesque and the farcical inventivity of Keaton, and questions the relationship between dream and reality and between films and reality..

In one of his finest works, Buster Keaton invented many themes that would be copied by generations of movie makers.

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For the snobs out there, it’s one of the best screwball comedies ever made, with Cary Grant and Rosaling Russell on an equal footing of wit and energy.

For those who like a good laugh, it’s a maelstrom of one-liners, a satire of love story, a witty and fast-paced battle of the sexes, a 90mph ping pong game between Russell and Grant.

For those versed in sociology, it’s an acid portrait of a newspaper in the 1940s, with politics, cynicism and manipulation aplenty.

Intense, theatrical, cruel and funny: all is fair in love and journalism!

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Audrey Hepburn meets a charming Cary Grant, as she ponders whether divorcing her husband while on holidays skiing in the French Alps. When she comes back to Paris, her husband’s dead, he left her a mysterious fortune, and thieves are chasin her.

Hepburn and Grant, the streets of Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg, romance, thrill, and money: Charade is a true classic.

The post Charade first appeared on My Kingdom for a Movie.

The story of an abandoned child raised by the Tramp, The Kid is a mix of melodrama and fun, sadness and humor,

For some, it’s one of the most important movies in the history of cinema; but for many it’s also just a very, very, very funny movie.

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