GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

dbdumonteil "Le Roi De Coeur" belongs to a handful of French movies which are much more known and praised abroad (another example comes to mind:"Cybèle Ou Les Dimanches De Ville D'Avray").In France the audience snubbed it and the critics panned it;De Broca was famous for his entertaining (not meant pejoratively)works ,such movies as "Cartouche" "L'Homme De Rio" "Les Tribulations D'Un "Chinois" En Chine" were huge blockbusters and the people were not ready for "something different"..When he tried something different,nobody understood and the director felt compelled to return to more "accessible" stories ("Le Diable Par La queue" etc);that's why" Le Roi De Coeur" has remained unique ,very original;in the past of the French cinema,to my knowledge ,only one movie mixed the war and an insane asylum (Raymond Bernard's "Un Ami Viendra Ce Soir");Bernard's movie had good potential (who are the loonies?) which he lost in a trite patriotic finale.Broca goes all the way:in a world gone mad, the only safe place,where people have remained sensible,is an insane asylum!the last picture -which may have inspired the ending of the much more conventional "rain man" -is revealing;this is one of the most extraordinary demonstration of the absurdity of war .Broca had done what Richard Lester tried to do (but was not able to)in his "how I won the war" :a crazy movie in which madness rules but has its own internal logic ;terrific French cast plus English Alan Bates -who loves birds and thus is a potential pacifist plus Italian Adolfo "Largo" Celi as an English major plus gorgeous Canadian Genevieve Bujold as Coquelicot (=Poppy!).

st-shot In the waning days of WW l a retreating German regiment wires a French village with explosives, timing them to detonate when the Scots occupy the city. When the townsfolk get wind of this they flee, leaving only the residents of the insane asylum behind. Ordered to scout out the village Private Plumpnick (Allan Bates) mistakes the loons for the sane citizenry even if they are a little flamboyant in their actions. Meanwhile the clock is ticking towards zero hour, further complicated by stubborn officers on both sides willing to waste lives over the inconsequential parcel. Employing silent film technique and greatly assisted by Georges Delerue's touching music score director Phillippe De Broca carries King along with a well paced comic juxtaposition of the rational with the irrational for most of the film's length. Bates is an engaging everyman and Genieve Bujold as his love interest quite a knockout for an asylum resident. But after the raucous introduction of putting the inmates in colorful finery and having them stridently assume occupations of the towns people DeBroca runs out ways to keep them fresh relying more heavily on the already established bombast of the opposing commanders to hammer home the message and dilute the film's greatest asset, it's poignancy. The first time I saw King of Hearts was in 1970 at an east coast bastion of counter culture, The Rhode Island School of Design. With everyone on the same page we were not only as Jean Cocteau stated sharing the same dream but the same feelings and emotions as well. War was absurd and governed by vainglorious fools who quibbled little about sacrificing youth at its altar. With the conflict in Viet Nam intensifying and becoming highly unpopular King of Hearts spoke to the mood of the day with its sentimental tact but pointed condemnation of war. I was both touched and moved that night and in subsequent viewings over the next decade but like all Zeitgeist its shelf life eventually expired and the profoundity then comes across as a well intentioned simplistic approach today.

Dennis Littrell The madness of war makes the members of the asylum seem sane. Such is the theme of this anti-war comedy directed by France's Philippe de Broca, starring the English actor Alan Bates wearing a jaunty crown, and featuring a young and delectable Genevieve Bujold in a yellow tutu.She's insane. A virgin who believes she's a prostitute. Her madame is also insane, or so the townsmen of Marville believe. But theirs is such a pleasant insanity that we in the audience are persuaded to ask what is sanity and who needs it? Can nerve gas and rat-infested trenches with bloated, rotting bodies be sane?But hold on there, that last sentence better describes some other anti-war movies from the time of The Great War, perhaps "All Quiet on the Western Front" or Kubrick's "Paths of Glory." Here the tone is light, the treatment burlesque, the plot absurdly amusing.Bates plays Private Charles Plumpick (in Scottish kilt) a keeper of messenger pigeons who has "volunteered" to find and defuse a bomb left in Marville by the retreating Jerrys. It's set to go off at the stroke of midnight. The townspeople learn of the bomb and desert the town, leaving the inmates at the sanitarium and the circus animals to fend for themselves. So when Plumpick arrives he finds only a detachment of Germans who spot him and chase him into the asylum. Inside as cover he joins a game of cards with two of the inmates. The Jerrys confront the inmates who identify themselves in absurd ways. Plumpick, with some on the spot inspiration, calls himself "the king of hearts."And so we have our premise. When the Jerrys retreat to the countryside to await the explosion, and while the English watch for the return of one of Plumpick's pigeons with news that the bomb has been defused, the inmates stream out of the asylum. They take over the town, dressing up in various costumes: this one becomes the mayor, another the priest, and little Mademoiselle "Poppy" (Bujold) awaits her first trick.This the kind of movie that Monty Python fans would adore, and I suspect it had some effect on the directorial style of Terry Gilliam.Anyway I wrote a little ditty to anticipate the ending (BEWARE SPOILER!):I'll have no more of war Such a craven whore! To the asylum I will go To be my true love's beau.(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

rosina22do9 One of the best films I have ever seen. I was a child when I saw it and I still remember how it touched me.Alan Bates is superb and I found Genevieve Bujold very pretty and talented.I can't remember details, but I'm sure I could not take my eyes off the screen.I went with my parents and my sister and we kept talking about the film for almost a week at dinner time.After seeing this film I tried to keep track of Alan Bates and I was never disappointed. I remember him in " Zorba " with Anthony Quinn. I have been trying to find the DVD to rent, but I couldn't find it anywhere in Brazil. I also tried to follow Genevieve Bujold's career , but the last time I saw her act was In " Twins " with Jeremy Irons. I recommend ' The King of Hearts " to all people and I sometimes mention it to my students.